SUMMARY: Viewing .DOC's in SunOS/Solaris

From: Jim Harmon (jim@telecnnct.com)
Date: Fri Nov 01 1996 - 14:08:37 CST


Thanks to all the folks who responded... a broad range of styles! :)

The first response was "Use WABI", followed by FrameMaker, and some
other
choices. Here are the responses and authors:

VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV

You can install Wabi on your Sun box. Windows 3.1 and MS Word
then can be installed to allow you to read your MS .doc files.
---------------------------------
John Nguyen, jnguyen@mmts.eds.com

********

        Word running under Wabi. Or Framemaker will read word
files. But probably since this is for NT4.0 they're Word 6, which
frame doesn't handle too well yet (don't know if there's been an
update).

        Another thing might be to convert the docs you want to
RTF and then run them through an rtf->html converter.
---------------------------------
Mike Fletcher, fletch@ain.bls.com

********

Use Wabi and Word as a Web browser helper application, and mount the CD
on your
Web server. You'll need to modify the server's 'mime.types' file, then
set up your .mailcap file like this:

        application/msword; /opt/SUNWwabi/bin/wabi -s 'winword %s'
        application/msaccess; /opt/SUNWwabi/bin/wabi -s
'msoffice\access\msaccess %s'
        application/msexcel; /opt/SUNWwabi/bin/wabi -s 'msoffice\excel\excel
%s'
        application/powerpoint; /opt/SUNWwabi/bin/wabi -s
'msoffice\powerpnt\powerpnt %s'

You can also download from www.microsoft.com read-only Word docuement
viewers
that you can run under Wabi as well.

Of course, your PC users can access the documents using their local copy
of Word. Just set it up as a helper application.
---------------------------------------
Tim Evans, tkevans@eplrx7.es.dupont.com

***********

this is a digusting thought, but possibly you could do the following:

        1) install Wabi
        2) install Windows
        3) install MS office
        4) view the document.

Wabi comes bundled with Solaris Servers.

( this has merits of that you probably have Wabi, MS Windows, and Office
around where you are. )

to view this natively, there was a product purportedly to be able to
view
Microsoft documents; Applixware. This I'm not sure about because when
_I_
was using the product this was going to be an upcoming feature.
---------------------------------
Wayne Schmidt, wayne@cybercom.net

************

Applix and I am sure most other Unix WordProcessors can import Microsoft
..DOC files. It works most of the time and there are versions for
SunOS and Solaris.
-------------------------------
Jack Goldsmith, jackg@calfp.com

************

This is not exactly an answer to your question but it might be a
solution to your problem. If you are in a mixed environment with
multiple UNIX workstations, you may want to take a look at an
alternative that we went to. We are using a product put out by NCD
(Network Computing Devices, see www.ncd.com) called WinCenter Pro. It
is a modified NT kernel running on a standard NT server. It allows
multiple concurrent logon sessions on the NT server with display back to
an X windows display (sort of like starting a window acting as a NT X
terminal). Nothing runs on the UNIX desktop itself. You start the
session via a remote shell command to the NT server. Best of all,
you're doing NT not Windows 3.1 or Win95 (currently NT 3.5.1, NT 4.0
compatible is due out later this year).

This is not an emulator (you're actually running on the NT server) so
you have full network access to anything NT does including Novell if you
need it. It also comes with a copy of Interdrive, the NFS piece of
FTP's OnNet32 product so you can export your hard drive or CD from your
Sun workstation with PCNFSD and mount it to your NT session (no need to
keep running over to the NT sever and using its CD drive). If NT will
run an application, you can see it on your UNIX desktop (one current
exception is with DOS programs that require full screen display. they
run on the console but have trouble on the remote displays).

Check it out at the NCD website. We've got 3 groups using this already
as an alternative to PCs with Win95 beside their Suns and HPs.
------------------------------
Mike Roberts, cmrobert@tva.gov

************

I use Executor which is a macintosh emulator that runs under linux,
and I just display it on my SPARC.
I use executor to run Mac Word 5.1...

you can see it at http://www.ardi.com/

Also, I have been looking at quill, which also runs on a mac, but uses
far
less system resources, so is good to use with executor. it will also
view
MSWord docs...

You could also run WABI, but it is an incredibly bloated way to read a
@#$% Word processing file.

I am afraid that it is a closed market, and MS does not do UNIX...

Only these kludges are available at present...
-----------------------------------------------
Rachel Polanskis, r.polanskis@nepean.uws.edu.au

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

All of these suggestions are being explored... (I've used an earlier
version of
Applix on another system in another place and time, found it very
slow... but that
was on 20MHz RISC machines in the late 1980's... I'm sure current
versions are
much better ... :)

To reduce redundancy, I listed persons below who contributed similar
suggestions
to the ones above... this isn't that I'm ignoring the suggestions, I
only printed the earlier arrivals first... (THANKS ALL!)

I will most likely be using the WABI for immediate satisfaction, but I
intend to research the modified NT Kernal item more fully.

(Here's hoping these comments help others!)

Other cool respondants: (some repetition of above)

Patrick O'Brien, pobrien@cfa.harvard.edu
Ron Loftin, rloftin@engsys.mc.xerox.com
Stanislav Seltser, sseltser@voicetek.com ==> Also recommends
"ftp.microsoft.com"
Magnus Bergman, tri@dataphone.se
Dan Penrod, penrod@wcnewmedia.com
A S Lawson, tony@csmail.essex.ac.uk
Rob Vahsen, vahsenr@ce.philips.nl

--

Jim Harmon The Telephone Connection jim@telecnnct.com Rockville, Maryland



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