[geeks] Document conversion...

[David Cantrell]

On Wed, Oct 10, 2001 at 10:40:01AM -0400, Joshua D Boyd wrote:

> I once wrote some ASP scripts to do this.  It worked that the user
> uploaded the word file (and an RTF is a word file as far as this process
> is concerned) via a webform, and then the ASP script opened the file in
> word, and saved it as text.  Not exactly want you want.  However, it is
> also possible to use COM to force word to print a file to a specific
> printer (such as a generic postscript printer) and to force it to print to
> a file.  Voila, a .doc or .rtf is suddenly a ps file.

Someone demonstrated a system like this at YAPC::Europe 2000.  He used RPC
to fire up Word on a Windows box, handed it a document, got it to export
Postscript (by printing to a file) and return the resulting Postscript to
his *nix box for further processing.  He got the RPC working by using a
proxy (written in perl) on the Doze box.

I can't find a copy of his talk ATM, but if I dig it out I'll post more
detail.

-- 
David Cantrell | david at cantrell.org.uk | http://www.cantrell.org.uk/david

Do not be afraid of cooking, as your ingredients will know and misbehave
   -- Fergus Henderson