Is there any free program to convert MS-Word .doc files to something like flat ASCII or HTML or even PDF or DVI? I want them in a format where I can at least read them without problem in a minimal Linux environment, and possibly edit them in the same. I have too many to manually convert them all over one at a time with the MS-Word program itself, and I have some files I really want to be able to cleanly migrate to Linux. This is a major sticking point in me completely becoming Microsoft-free, a goal I’ve had for a while now.
The program must be able to work in MS-DOS, Win32 (Windows ME, for example, or Windows 95), or Linux, and must be free of charge.
astro: I have gotten all the way to the part where I install the wizard, and I don’t have it on my system. I also don’t have the CD-ROMs, because the software was OEM-installed. Is there any hope?
You could try installing Open Office on Linux. It reads and writes MSOffice files very nicely. I’ve had no trouble with the Windows version handling Word 2000 files.
rjk: Oh, good. The most formatting in these documents is double-spacing and some little right-justification. I’ve had bad experiences with KWord dying horribly trying to read similar documents, I hope Open Office is up to the task.
If the software was legitmately installed by an OEM, and they did not give you CDs, they probably put a copy of the CDs on your hard drive. Typically, this is another partition (D: might be it) – look for very large folders of files grouped together with a revealing overall name.
White-box OEMS often have different ways of handling these CD copies – if at all possible, ask them how to install or reinstall what you need.
Musicat: No go. The D: partition is full of really unhelpfully-named folders (try 002 or 151715 on for size) and I haven’t found anything even remotely connected to what I’m looking for. No, I think I’m going with Open Office, but thanks anyway. Calling Compaq for such a thing sounds like an unholy nightmare when a likely solution already exists.
I do not think pdf would be anything close to a “universal format”. I would suggest saving in rtf as the better option and almost any word processing program can read or save in that format.
It sounds like people have supplied you with some alternatives, but if you do want to install the Batch Conversion Wizard, search your hard drives for a file called data1.msi. Note which folder it’s in, then point the Office installer there when prompted for the CD.
