[OS X TeX] latex2rtf: A developer's perspective

[Adam Maxwell]

Hi Jan,

On 24 Apr, 2004, at 03:22, Jan Eden wrote:

> Adam Maxwell wrote on 23.04.2004:
>
>> On 23 Apr, 2004, at 16:56, Jan Eden wrote:
>>
>>> in my experience, latex2rtf (actual version) does not even recognize
>>> the German quote marks (\glqq and \grqq), which makes it relatively
>>> useless for me.
>>
>> These are part of the babel package, correct?  It isn't likely that 
>> all
>> of babel is supported in latex2rtf.  However, you can edit the file
>> /usr/local/share/latex2rtf/cfg/direct.cfg as root and add these lines:
>
> Thank you! That's valuable information.

Even though I was wrong about this case, it is still valuable to know 
how to edit direct.cfg and ignore.cfg :).  Perhaps in your case (using 
external packages) you could use `-i german` to explicitly tell 
latex2rtf to use [german]{babel}.

>>> If it could convert at least simple text documents with some quotes,
>>> footnotes and markup like bold, italic... I would give it a second
>>> try.
>>
>> Oooh, that sounds like a threat.  At least open source project
>> developers don't have to be worried about losing marketshare :).  Bold
>> and italic get converted just fine in my experience (although perhaps
>> not in TextEdit).  The only way the situation will improve is if 
>> people
>> file detailed bug reports.
>>
> It's not intended to sound like that. I should have marked frustrated 
> intonation with the remark ;) Simple markup is converted correctly, of 
> course.

Sorry, I probably overreacted :).  As someone involved with BibDesk 
development, it's bothersome to see comments here that basically say 
"BibDesk sucks because it doesn't do blah."  However, features get 
added to BibDesk in one of two ways:  1) the developers see a need in 
their own usage 2) someone makes a request.  My own TeX/BibTeX usage is 
laughable, so I usually don't have a need for such new features on my 
own.  In my experience, polite bug reports/feature requests with 
detailed information (such as expected behavior and suggestions for 
improvement) are easier to attend to.

Please note that the above semi-rant was not directed at you in 
particular, just at non-constructive criticism in general :).

> If all else fails read the instructions. - Donald Knuth

Good one.

-- Adam

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