--- In quizbowl_at_yahoogroups.com, plujan <no_reply_at_y...> wrote: > --- In quizbowl_at_yahoogroups.com, tgallows <no_reply_at_y...> wrote: > > > 5. Many of the packets are text files with gross formatting. > > > Others are in the proprietary .doc format. I may try to clean up > > > some of the packets and put them in a nicer format. Any comments > > > on this? What's the best format? HTML? RTF? > > > > If you're converting .doc files, I'd recommend RTF. It seems like a > > very portable format -- files can be opened by a variety of word > > processors without significant formatting hassles (at least in my > > experience), and I've never had any problems with it (unlike .doc > > files). > > In my experience, this is not true. High-ASCII characters (smart > quotes, accented characters, digraphs, etc.) in RTF files don't come > out properly when they cross the Mac-to-PC divide. (Try it yourself; > you'll see.) > > I think it's a lot simpler to keep things in .doc format. Word > readers are available for pretty much any platform, and you don't > have to worry about the aforementioned hassles. This may be true; however, the MIT archives, for example, are on a (not-quite) Linux/UNIX environment, and working with .doc files are a real pain in the rear. In addition, .doc files are almost always bloated--a two-page Word file is four times bigger than the corresponding RTF. Any time you have to deal with quotas and bandwidth, just about any other plain text or generally portable format would be preferable. I am slowly coming over to the view that a markup language is the best option for something like this. HTML browsers can then take care of things like boldface, italics, and special characters, while the resulting documents are both compact and portable, which will be important if the site has traffic quotas (as many sites now do). --AEI
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