[Sigia-l] Word HTML - money were my mouth is (was When Should a Manual be Web-based?)

Fri Feb 28 06:13:22 EST 2003

> > > > > Since Word can generate HTML for a document, there is little
> > > > > reason to publish in Word format.
> > > >
> > > > If you'd call that HTML...
> > >
> > > Yes, I do.
> > >
> > > What else do you call tags like <html></html>, <head></head>, and
> > > <style></style>? Word-generated-therefore-non-HTML?
> >
> > Well it could be HTML. But by that criteria so could
> > "<head></html><head>".  You can't make up the rules of HTML as you
> > go along and expect other people to understand what the hell you are
> > doing.
> >
> > What word produces "looks" like HTML, for about 2 seconds.
>
> Isn't that an exaggeration?
>
> Like most non-trivial software packages, Word has bugs causing it to
> sometimes misbehave. But that does not mean Word cannot generate web
> pages without HTML error.
>
€80 to the charity of your choice if you can find me an example of a version
of Word and a .doc file that produces valid HTML (any published version)
directly (i.e. without special filters or hand-editing).

(I'm in for 20, Bernie Goldbach is in for 20 and two colleagues who aren't
on this list are in for 20 each).