-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 08/03/12 16:36, Rob Oakes wrote: > > On Mar 8, 2012, at 2:21 AM, Rainer M Krug wrote: > >> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 > >> I would love to agree, but round-trip is what is needed most of the time. An >> import word2lyx >> is perfect, but in most cases only half the story. I would use it >> extensively if the round >> trip is possible. Obviously, we can not deal with the word-editing side >> (whatever program is >> used for that). > > I'm sympathetic to this point. I understand that having a way to go from one > to the other is > important. I've deliberately avoided creating an export to Word option, > though, because it > would essentially require that I recode large portions of LyX in Python. I'm > resistant to doing > that because it's a a lot of extra code to maintain. There are already two > implementations of > LyX document parsing libraries: eLyXer and that found in LyX itself. Adding a > third and trying > to keep it in some sort of synchronization would be a huge pain. I'm looking > into using eLyXer > for Word conversion from LyX, but that is lesser priority than making Word > import work > correctly. (At least at the moment.) If there is someone (maybe Alex or > another eLyXer dev) who > would be interest in collaborating and handling the export part, I'd be happy > to coordinate > with them so that we're able to round-trip.
That makes perfect sense - to re-invent the wheel is not very useful. > >>> People will take this as a promise and complain that it does not work well >>> enough. >> >> Well - one could state that the round-trip works for MS word version abcd, >> and other >> versions can / will / might cause problems which are not in our hands. > > I've already taken that position. I'm willing to work with Word versions 2007 > and 2010, and > only files saved in docx. I'm not going to even try and parse doc binary > files. word2lyx is > about a 1000 lines of code. The doc parsing libraries I've looked at are > easily 10 times that > long. Python has excellent libraries for parsing XML that do nearly all the > heavy lifting. I > would have to write my own parsing library for doc. > >>> The difference of structure between word and lyx are too important to be >>> able to work in a >>> word<->LyX collaboration IMO. >> >> There are obviously basic difference in how LyX and word are viewing >> documents, and these >> lead to principal differences how the files are saved. >> >> But I am thinking that if one can import a docx file into LyX, one should be >> able to do the >> reverse. And one should be able to define a robust subset of features which >> are maintained >> when doing a round-trip. In the same way that certain features are not >> converted in word2lyx, >> lyx2word would also only support a subset of features which are exported. >> But if these >> subsets include the most important features used in the editing process on >> both sides, a >> round trip should be possible. > > I agree that it is possible, but there's a lot of code needed to make it work > correctly. It's > also a larger problem set that I want to right now. Once I've got the Word > import working, > including track changes and notes (and probably maths, too), I'll be more > willing to come back > and take a look at it. That is perfectly fine with me - it is better to have one working word2lyx than a not really working set of word2lyx and lyx2word. > > But as I said earlier, if there's someone who would like to jump on board and > work with Word > export (lyx2word), I'll be happy to coordinate and work with them, too. Cheers, Rainer > > Cheers, > > Rob - -- Rainer M. Krug, PhD (Conservation Ecology, SUN), MSc (Conservation Biology, UCT), Dipl. Phys. (Germany) Centre of Excellence for Invasion Biology Stellenbosch University South Africa Tel : +33 - (0)9 53 10 27 44 Cell: +33 - (0)6 85 62 59 98 Fax : +33 - (0)9 58 10 27 44 Fax (D): +49 - (0)3 21 21 25 22 44 email: rai...@krugs.de Skype: RMkrug -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iEYEARECAAYFAk9Zw+EACgkQoYgNqgF2egrfgwCcDU8gCd8ouBi6vTmSB/Vi7mjB JfwAnRG6RCMLXXSwbtVo1fEmBY+ONq/q =v+Qw -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
