[Info-vax] OT: Rob Short: Operating System Evolution

[Chris Scheers]

FrankS wrote:
> On Jan 8, 5:57 pm, Chris Scheers <ch... at applied-synergy.com> wrote:
>> I find it interesting that it was possible to retrofit .docx file on
>> Word 2000.  This seems to imply that there haven't been any significant
>> capabilities added to the file format since then.
>>
> 
> Not necessarily.
> 
> Making a change to Word 2000 so that it can generate something that
> can be read by Word 2007 is trivial, because Word 2007 already reads
> Word 2000 files.  The only thing that would need to be introduced to
> support a "Save As .DOCX" is the ZIP file wrapper, throw in the native
> Word 2000 .doc file, and some XML that says, "hey, this thing contains
> an older format file".  Word 2007 would need only check the XML file,
> realize that there's a Word 2000 format .doc file in there, and then
> translate the .doc to XML on the fly.
> 
> Just because Word 2000 can generate a .docx file which contains
> sufficient information to tell Word 2007 how to process it doesn't
> mean there isn't any new functionality in a Word 2007 file.  Consider
> all the possible XML tags that would describe new functionality in
> Word 2007 which Word 2000 wouldn't be able to handle at all.
> 
> www.noesys.com

You missed the point.

With the 2007 compatibility kit, Word 2000 can READ and use .docx files.

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Chris Scheers, Applied Synergy, Inc.

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