[Tfug] linux distro including staroffice 7? or how to read wordperfect docs on linux? or what's up with sun's java desktop

[Sam Hart]

* On 04-06-21, Adam S. Levy wrote:

>  >I'm about to buy staroffice 7 so that my wife can import wordperfect 
> docs produced at her office on her laptop that now runs fedora core 2.
> 
> Actually, I almost sure that OpenOffice (http://www.openoffice.org/) 
> imports word perfect documents. It does run on Linux (Windows, Mac, 
> Solaris and FreeBSD as well) and is free of cost but you will have to 
> download it. Hope this helps.

OpenOffice does open all the same documents as StarOffice, so there isn't 
honestly much need to buy StarOffice if you're just looking to open files.

The one caveat is that presently NO wordprocesser (AbiWord, OpenOffice 
Writer, MS Word, etc) can actually open the old WordPerfect documents 
100%. Many things (like most tables, certain column features, page 
numbering, etc.) simply aren't covered by the filters. So, really, you're 
going to have a hit or miss kind of situation with these files.

I personnally have never used WordPerfect at any great length, but I have 
a friend who teaches Physics courses and all of his old lecture notes were 
in WordPerfect format. He is grumbling and griping because they now wont 
load correctly in any word processor, and that his old WP9 for Linux no 
longer runs due to differences in glibc.

-- 
Sam Hart
University/Work addr. <hart at physics.arizona.edu>
Personal addr. <sam at samhart.net>
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