[ILUG] LaTeX to .doc

[Brian Foster]

  | From: Kevin Philp <kevin at cybercolloids.net>
  | Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2005 10:36:00 +0100
  | 
  | You can read the rtf into OpenOffice and save as
  | doc.....it sounds horrible but should work if you
  | are not fussy about formatting.

 <<<giggle>>>  in my experience, (La)TeX users are
 _extremely_ fussy about formatting.

 actually, however, all the replies I've seen appear
 to have missed a point:  what is it you want to
 convert?  the input `.tex' or the output `.dvi'?

 converting the input means, in theory, the semantic
 mark-up is still available.  converting the output
 loses that.  depending on yer documents, this can
 be an important difference.  _however_, (La)TeX
 is a very powerful programmable processor, making
 it is almost impossible to convert input `.tex's
 without a lot of manual intervention and kludges.

 the only tool that groks all of TeX's abilities
 is TeX itself.  (there is, apparently, a project
 to implement a TeX processor in Java, at least in
 part because of this problem.)  so, AFAIK, most
 conversions are usually of the output (nominally
 DVI, but increasingly these days, PDF).

 *the* canonical reference on many (La)TeX issues
 is the “The UK TeX FAQ” [ http://www.tex.ac.uk/faq ].
 the local copy I use (version 3.12, date 2004/07/15)
 has this to say about conversion to/from M$-Worthless:

   “Microsoft Word.  [ ... ]  Word2TeX and TeX2Word are shareware
     translators from Chikrii Softlab [ http://www.chikril.com ];
     users’ reports are very positive.
      If cost is a constraint, the best bet is probably to use an
     intermediate format such as RTF or HTML.  [ the FAQ contains
     an entire section devoted to HTML, and also has some pointers
     for RTL conversions ]   Word outputs and reads both, so in
     principle this route may be useful.
      Another, unlikely, intermediate form is PDF: Acrobat Reader
     for Windows (version 5.0 and later) will output rather feeble
     RTF that Word can read.”

 it also goes on suggest:

   “Wilfried Hennings’ FAQ
    [ http://www.tug.org/utilities/texconv/index.html ],
    which deals specifically with conversions between TeX-based
    formats and word processor formats, offers much detail as
    well as tables that allow quick comparison of features.”

 I must admit I've never found any of the LaTeX to
 M$-Worthless or RTF conversions I've tried to be
 satisfactory (return to comment about being very
 fussy about the formating!).  I have had the best
 success using, as the TeX FAQ suggested, RTF as
 the intermediate format (obviously therefore
 converting the output DVI).  yer kiloage varies.

 one technique I once tried is to generate page
 _images_ (cannot recall the chain of conversions
 nor the ultimate format), and embed the images,
 one per page, _as_ the pages in the M$-Worthless;
 all done on Linux.  but when I tried to read the
 (huge!) result on M$-Windross (using M$-Worthless),
 it crashed.  blue screen total system upchuck.
 <<<laughs manically>>>

cheers!
	-blf-

  | On Thursday 25 August 2005 10:02, Ivan Kelly wrote:
  | >how about latex -> rtf? then you can convert that to a doc somehow
  | >
  | >On Thu, Aug 25, 2005 at 09:56:41AM +0100, Colin O'Keeffe wrote:
  | >> Is there a way to convert LaTeX document to .doc documents,
  | >> I need to do that for revision control in work, dont ask..... :)
-- 
Experienced (20+ yrs) kernel/software Eng: | Brian Foster   Montpellier,
 • Unix, embedded, &tc;  • Linux;  • doc;  | blf at utvinternet.ie   FRANCE
 • IDL, automated testing, process, &tc.   |  Stop E$$o (ExxonMobile)!
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