NWP vs. OpenOffice on opening other file formats

[goldste4]

Hi All,

Just a question out of curiosity, because there is an easy work-around: I've noticed that NWP semi-regularly will not be able to open a file in Wordperfect format (an error message occurs saying that file cannot be opened), but when I try to open the same file in OpenOffice, it will open just fine. I can then save the file in odt or rtf, and NWP will then open it. I've also noticed that some .doc files will open in NWP with text missing and the formatting is all off, but the same file will open fine (text and formatting all there) in OpenOffice.

Since NWP, as far as I understand it, uses the same conversion engine as OpenOffice, what accounts for the difference? I keep a copy of OpenOffice around just to open files that NWP has difficulty with.

Josh

[martin]

NWP does indeed use an OpenOffice.org (OOo) based importer for some file formats. There are some differences however.

When you open a file in OpenOffice, it converts the file directly to its internal data structures, eg:

.doc file --> in-memory OOo data structure

NWP doesn't have any understanding of OOo's in-memory structures, so one must introduce another conversion:

.doc file -> in-memory OOo data structure -> RTF data

That extra step unfortunately introduces more chances for errors.

[goldste4]

Hello Martin, thanks again for the quick and clear explanation. Much appreciated. Josh