Re: getting out of LaTeX

Lee Sau Dan <danlee@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> scripsit:

- -
António> tell the author to output the original latex to a bloody
António> RTF file instead of PDF! latex2rtf, anyone? I think there
António> is even a latex2doc. There's also stuff to convert in the
António> opposite direction, but that, naturally, is error-prone.
António> -- am

Why not simply ask for the original LaTeX manuscript?

Perhaps because the OP does not know what to do with it, or does not want to work with it. I would find that rather natural; most people don't know about LaTeX and need not know. Besides, even though LaTeX is rather simple at the simplest, it may become nasty when you work with something elaborated, _especially_ if the text contains "foreign" (read: non-ASCII) letters. Or it may not; your mileage and luck _will_ vary.

The suggestion of asking the information provider to output RTF is more reasonable, but not necessarily realistic. Many people who work with a data format know just one way of using it. (I guess we all know people who know how to produce PDF files - but have no idea of the applicability of PDF and of alternate formats, so they turn even one-paragraph messages into PDF.)

Besides, asking for a _Word_ format would be more natural. In theory, RTF is simpler and more portable than Word. In practice, converting from some format into Word format via RTF can introduce an intermediate phase that messes up something. It's not common, but possible. Even if the conversion to Word takes place via RTF format, it would be best that the information provider converts to Word format so that the result can be checked by him, at least at some minimal level.

I previously mentioned that there are converters from LaTeX to Word format, and I added that the quality of converters generally varies a lot. This is based on my old experiences with converters between different data formats, and I have no up-to-date information about the status of LaTeX to Word conversion alternatives. If someone has, he can probably also recommend some particular converter (especially noting that it should work for texts containing "foreign" characters).

--
Jukka K. Korpela ("Yucca")
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/

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