The original name of the project, mswordview, was uncomfortably close to Microsoft's own product named wordview, so the library was renamed.
wv-0.7.6: description + notes
wv is a library which allows access to Microsoft Word files. It can load and parse Word 2000, 97, 95 and 6 file formats. (These are the file formats known internally as Word 9, 8, 7 and 6.) There is some support for reading earlier formats as well: Word 2 docs are converted to plaintext.
wv allows other programs access to Word documents for the purpose of converting them to other formats. It is currently being used by AbiWord as its Word importer, and concepts and bits of code are being used by the KDE folks over at KWord in their word importer.
Provided with the wv distribution is an application called wvWare. wvWare is a "power-user" application with lots of command-line options, doo-dads, bells, and whistles. Less interesting, but more convenient, are the helper scripts that use wvWare. These are:
- wvHtml: convert your Word document into HTML4.0
- wvLatex: convert your Word document into visually (pretty) correct LaTeX
- wvCleanLatex: convert into 'cleaner' LaTeX containing less visual mark-up, more suitable for further use and LyX import. Work in progress
- wvDVI: converts word to DVI. Requires 'latex'
- wvPS: converts word to PostScript. Requires 'dvips'
- wvPDF: converts word to Adobe PDF. Requires 'distill' from Adobe Someone_do_a_pdflatex_or ____pdfhtml_version_:_)
- wvText: converts word to plain text. Textually correct output requires 'lynx.' For poor output, this doesn't require anything special.
- wvAbw: converts word to Abiword format. (Far better just to use Abiword.)
- wvWml: converts word to WML for viewing on portable devices like WebPhones and Palm Pilots.
- wvRtf: a basic version exists
- wvMime: can be plugged as a MIME helper application into your browser/mail client; presents the document on-screen inside GhostView, while all intermediate files generated go into the /tmp directory.
The wvWare home page has more information.
Add the sample entry below to
.mailcapto convert files automatically and present them in netscape:application/msword; /usr/freeware/bin/wv.wrapper %s; description="Microsoft Word" application/x-dos_ms_word; /usr/freeware/bin/wv.wrapper %s; description="Microsoft Word"
To auto-install this package, go back and click on the respective install icon.