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

Fri Feb 28 20:15:12 EST 2003

> From: sigia-l-admin at asis.org [mailto:sigia-l-admin at asis.org]On
> Behalf Of Jon Hanna
>
> > > > > > 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).

It is one thing to generate web pages without HTML error. But it is
quite another to have the generated HTML deemed "valid" with regard to
a published version of HTML.

The Word-produced HTML does not have DTD declaration. That means its
HTML is not targeted at the published versions of HTML. So, I do not
expect the Word-produced HTML to be "valid" with regard to the
published HTML versions.

Mind you, web browsers do not require web pages with DTD declaration.
Unless Word acted up, Internet Explorer, Netscape Navigator, and Opera
have no problem with the Word-produced HTML.

Regardless of how much people may want to bash Word, I hope they can
be fair-minded.

Boniface