Limitations of Import/Export

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laup
Knows everything, can prove it
Posts: 311
Joined: Tue Aug 22, 2006 4:13 am
Location: Topanga, California

Limitations of Import/Export

Post by laup »

I find that I still can't explain to a colleague what dangers lurk or don't lurk in moving to Mellel.

Compatibility with Word seems remarkably good (going through the rtf stage); I'm impressed. However, I'm not clear as to its limitations and am reticent to make statements on the matter to colleagues. Suppose that one has developed the ideal document in Mellel, with lots of custom engineering of, say, fonts; line spaces; headings; use of footnotes, endnotes, and author notes; etc. etc. If one saves to RTF and opens in Word 2004, what gets lost or messed up? Is there a list (if so, I haven't found it).

I can imagine that the answer is very, very little, since we're talking mostly about interface-related software in that the fonts available on a computer are available to either word processor, I suspect that Word is more powerful than its interface and can therefore honor things it finds in rtf even if a Word user couldn't generate them directly, but...there have to be limitations.

The reverse question is also important. Given an ideal Word document, what is lost when importing its rtf version into Mellel. My experiments have been quite limited, but it appears that Word "Comments" disappear that an headings in an all-caps style in Word come through in all small letters, that pagination changes a bit. I'm not sure what else.

So, do we have a definitive or pretty-definitive list?
Paul
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