Newsgroups: bit.listserv.wpcorp-l
Subject: Re: conversion utility?
From: cctr132@csc.canterbury.ac.nz (Nick FitzGerald, CSC, Uni. of Canterbury, NZ)
Date: 4 Sep 92 11:29:07 +1200
Organization: University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand

In article <92246.203726SSRGC@CUNYVM.BITNET>, <SSRGC@CUNYVM.BITNET> writes:

> The Word Perfect provided conversion utility seems to do only a one way conver-
> sion of documents between WP and MS Word.  Is there a utility around that will
> convert both ways?  Or am I just using the WP utility incorrectly??

The first part of this is a polite reply to Steve's query, the second is
a rude lesson in nettiqette (some may call it a flame, so sensistive
readers should skip the second part  8-) ).

CONVERT does only handle Word to WP and not the reverse.  If you wish to
avoid spending any money, and exchange docs between a Word and WP user,
and aren't using too advanced formatting, have the Word user send you
his/her docs "as is", run CONVERT to get them into WP, then after you've
done whatever, run CONVERT again and output your doc as DCA (I think
it's better to use the "revisable-form" than the "final-form" option).
Send this to your Word user (if using some form of electronic transfer,
note that DCA files must be sent in binary mode).  Your Word user will
have to run WORD_DCA, which comes with Word) and translates both ways
between Word and DCA.

Other than this, you're probably looking at $$$$ for one of the
third-party document conversion programs - unless you have WP4Win, or
your Word user has access to Word4Win (both read and write each others
file formats, with varying degrees of success).

That dealt with, onto the gripe.  I'm doing this in public, so others
who might be similarly tempted may be disuaded.

This is Steve's sig.

> MM       MM
> MMM     MMM     a     rrrr      a     ttttt h   h  ooo  n   n
> MMMM   MMMM    a a    r   r    a a      t   h   h o   o nn  n
> MM MM MM MM   aaaaa   rrrrr   aaaaa     t   hhhhh o   o n n n
> MM  MMM  MM  a     a  r  r   a     a    t   h   h o   o n  nn
> MM   M   MM a       a r   r a       a   t   h   h  ooo  n   n
> MM       MM
> 
> MM       MM
> MMM     MMM     a     n   n   Long Island, May 1991, 3:59:32.7
> MMMM   MMMM    a a    nn  n
> MM MM MM MM   aaaaa   n n n   New York City, November 1991, 4:07:05
> MM  MMM  MM  a     a  n  nn
> MM   M   MM a       a n   n   NEXT!
> MM       MM
> 
> ########################################################################
> 
> Steve Sconfienza                   Department of Sociology
> ssrgc@cunyvm                       Graduate School and University Center
> ssrgc@cunyvm.cuny.edu              City University of New York

I haven't checked exactly, but it's easily 800 bytes of (mostly) crap

First off, it's a sodding waste of resources.  There are many and
contradictory estimates of how many people read this mailing list - it's
not an easy thing to get a handle on, as it is gatewayed into Usenet
News.  Suffice it to say there are probably now 100 000 (a conservative
estimate, IMHO) copies of Steve's thought provoking posting occupying
disk space around the world.  Given that the "real" content of Steve's
message is a little under 240 bytes, this means his sig uses about four
times as much disk space as the actual message (the mail and/or news
headers don't count, as they are approximately constant and an
unavoidable overhead).  Put another way, Steve's posting has a
signal-to-noise ratio of about .25 - I hope the classes he attends or
teaches are better than this.   8-)

Don't get me wrong - I'm not saying that had Steve posted a much longer
and involved message, his sig would then be OK.  If he posted to a
widely distributed Usenet newsgroup, the resource wastage would have
been even higher, despite a lowered S/N ratio.  Also, note I haven't
mentioned any of the other resources that are "wasted" in transmitting
Steve's message from site to site, and from server to client (etc) as
people read it, etc, etc.

Nothing personal Steve, but get real and face the truth -- the rest of
the world, let alone Bitnet and/or Usenet users don't give two figs
-collectively- that you are a four hour marathoner, so cut it out of
your sig.

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
 Nick FitzGerald, PC Applications Consultant, CSC, Uni of Canterbury, N.Z.
 n.fitzgerald@csc.canterbury.ac.nz  (64)(3)  364-2337 Voice,  364-2332 FAX