I believe there are open source libs to handle word docs (right up to 2000)

Try looking at www.abiword.com for a start
Cheers
Adam

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ann W. Harrison" <aharrison@...>
To: <IBDI@yahoogroups.com>; <IBDI@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, May 16, 2001 11:56 PM
Subject: Re: [IBDI] What else to do? a suggestion - was: What To Do?


> At 07:30 PM 5/16/2001 +1000, Helen Borrie wrote:
>
> >I have a reason at the moment to want to write a blob filter for Word
> >documents. Does anyone know of a doc that explains (with examples) how
to
> >do that? Is there some kind of API for them? I assume that (on Windows)
> >the library filters.dll is where they belong - or is it like a udf
> >library, which you can create under any suitable name and declare to the
> >database in some fashion?
>
> No, I believe there is no such thing. Microsoft published the specs for
> Word documents briefly, several years ago. They are not currently
available
> except from a site in Russia - Jim may have the URL. He spent nearly a
week
> (with much cursing) learning to reverse engineer a Word document. Unless
> you're willing to use Word itself as the translator, that filter is going
> to be a bitch.
>
>
> >Are filter libraries portable?
>
> Within the bounds of the language in which they are written.
>
>
> Regards,
>
> Ann
> www.ibphoenix.com
> We have answers.
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