RE: jfor-users digest, Vol 1 #64 - 1 msg

"As the RTF spec is somewhat vague and subject to various interpretations,
that's unfortunately the only way."

That's an understatement.  RTF is (IMHO) extremely ungainly, and the
specification leaves much to be desired.  Microsoft has no reason to update
to a more specific format and other RTF readers (like TextEdit) can do
little but test their conversion routines against RTF generated by Microsoft
products.  The problem with conforming with output RTF generated by say,
Word, is that it contains a lot of redundant information and seems to be
deterministic (i.e. sometimes the RTF will change because of the order that
you perform operations in Word).  As such it is both inefficient to try to
conform and impossible to know exactly if you conform, as Microsoft does not
release such trivial knowledge like the logic behind grouping marks or where
control words should go in relation to everything the control word should
effect. I would assume the TextEdit bug results from on of those two
reasons.

Still we have the necessary evil of producing RTF because it is 'readable'
by almost everybody with a computer.  This will only be necessary until
XSL:FO or PDF becomes more standard.  When this happens, you will be able to
open XSL:FO directly and have it display correctly across all viewers (even,
I predict, Microsoft products) as XSL:FO is a much more rigid and therefore
useful standard.  Until then we have stop-gaps like Jfor and FOP that will
do the conversion for you.

On that latter project, I will start development this week on merging Jfor
into FOP(FOP will then be able to output to RTF)  I plan on first
implementing the subset XSL:FO already implemented by Jfor and then adding
to that (if I have time) to expand to the XSL:FO set supported by FOP->PDF.

On a development note, I have been trying to implement tables of contents
and have got it figured out to the point where a table of contents will be
displayed, but the user will have to update the field to get the correct
page numbers.  Is anybody aware of a way to automatically update fields upon
opening a document in Word?  I know you can set it to update before
printing, but my project needs to be as user-proof as possible.

Sorry about the rant :)

~Chris Scott
Westinghouse Electric Company
Nuclear Fuels Division
Software Systems Development


> ----------
> From:
> [email protected][SMTP:[email protected]
> rceforge.net]
> Reply To: 	[email protected]
> Sent: 	Friday, June 14, 2002 3:10 PM
> To: 	[email protected]
> Subject: 	jfor-users digest, Vol 1 #64 - 1 msg
> 
> Send jfor-users mailing list submissions to
> 	[email protected]
> 
> To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
> 	https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/jfor-users
> or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
> 	[email protected]
> 
> You can reach the person managing the list at
> 	[email protected]
> 
> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
> than "Re: Contents of jfor-users digest..."
> 
> 
> Today's Topics:
> 
>    1. Mac OS X TextEdit problems (was: Bad news I'm afraid) (Bertrand
> Delacretaz)
> 
> --__--__--
> 
> Message: 1
> From: Bertrand Delacretaz <[email protected]>
> Organization: codeconsult
> To: Ben Godfrey <[email protected]>
> Date: Fri, 14 Jun 2002 07:10:28 +0200
> Cc: "Jfor-Users" <[email protected]>
> Subject: [jfor-users] Mac OS X TextEdit problems (was: Bad news I'm
> afraid)
> 
> Hello Ben,
> 
> We have had reports of problems with TextEdit already, but I don't have 
> access to it for testing.
> 
> If you want to contribute to fixing this problem, it would help a lot if
> you 
> could narrow it down to the smallest document that causes the problem in 
> TextEdit. You could start with the jfor samples (available as part of the 
> source code download) or even an empty XSL-FO document with no text and
> see 
> at which point loading with TextEdit breaks.
> 
> The goal is finding the precise RTF construct that causes the problem. 
> 
> What we do usually in such a case is edit the generated RTF by hand (text 
> editor) until the problem disappears (requires some RTF knowledge, you can
> 
> find links to the spec under http://www.jfor.org/#links. As the RTF spec
> is 
> somewhat vague and subject to various interpretations, that's
> unfortunately 
> the only way.
> 
> Thanks for your interest in jfor!
> -- 
>  Bertrand Delacrétaz (codeconsult.ch, jfor.org)
> 
>  buzzwords: XML, java, XSLT, cocoon, mentoring/teaching/coding.
>  disclaimer: eternity is very long. mostly towards the end. get ready.
> 
> On Friday 14 June 2002 03:31, Ben Godfrey wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > I've just spent all night marking up my CV with the XML resume
> > library, so you can  imagine how enthusiastic I was when I
> > realised that I could add an RTF version to my PDF and HTML ones.
> >
> > Anyway, I'm using Mac OS X, which is why RTF would be so useful.
> > It is the core format used by TextEdit, the OS X shipping basic
> > word processor.
> >
> > Sadly, TextEdit seemed unable to open either any documents I
> > produced myself or any of the test documents generated by
> > CreateTestDocuments. I have no idea why this might be, TextEdit,
> > by virtue of being an Apple application, does not produce
> > meaningful error messages, preferring the "Not today, thanks"
> > style.
> >
> > Will you be making any updates before integrating with FOP? I'm
> > already using FOP to do the PDF version. If you are making
> > changes and want me to test any theories or new/old versions I
> > would be happy to, just drop me a line.
> >
> > Hope this is useful,
> >
> > Ben Godfrey
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> --__--__--
> 
> _______________________________________________
> jfor-users mailing list
> [email protected]
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/jfor-users
> 
> 
> End of jfor-users Digest
> 

_______________________________________________________________

Don't miss the 2002 Sprint PCS Application Developer's Conference
August 25-28 in Las Vegas - http://devcon.sprintpcs.com/adp/index.cfm?source=osdntextlink