Two software tools that you can use to convert files

By Zatni Arbi

JAKARTA (JP): Few people today would deny that Microsoft Office has become the most popular productivity tool for PCs and Macs. Despite our natural tendency to be against any kind of monopoly and despite the high price of MS Office, we must admit that Word, for example, is the easiest and most user-friendly word processing software we can find today.

Still, it does not mean that sharing files in the Rich Text Format (RTF) will ensure that everybody will be able to read our documents. Besides, we need to share not only document files but also spreadsheets, images and database files.

Recently, a cousin, who always calls me up each time he has a computer-related problem, received a worksheet file from his partner in the Netherlands. He was unable to open the file, which had .WKS as its extension. This indicated that there are still a lot of people out there who are still using applications other than MS Office.

In many parts of Indonesia, for example, people may still be using DOS-based WordStar or Lotus 1-2-3 to write documents and spreadsheets, because what they have is a 386 or 486 machine. While Lotus SmartSuite and WordPerfect can read and write files in WordStar, my personal experience had shown me that the resulting files were not truly clean WordStar or 1-2-3 files. In other words, some cleaning up might be necessary after the conversion process using the Save command.

Thus, when exchanging documents or spreadsheet files with users of older programs, we may need the help of a conversion tool.

Document Converter

If you have graphics and charts in your Word document, saving it in the RTF format might cause a problem, as the RTF file size may become much larger. If your co-worker is still using Word 97, for example, it would be better to save the document in the native Word 97 format.

However, if you use the Save as menu in Word, you are not saving it in Word 97 format but in the RTF format instead. To make sure that it will be saved in the true Word 97 format, you can use a third party file converter.

Or, if you are migrating from the old, DOS-based WordPerfect 5.1 into Word 2000 and you have created a pile of documents that you want to convert into the new format, one of the better alternatives to opening each of the files in Word 2002 and saving it in Word Document format is to buy the US$34.95 Document Converter 2002 from KHSD.COM Inc. (www.khsd.com/dc.asp).

There is a demo version that you can download from the Web site to see whether it will help you complete this task more easily. Unfortunately, as you can see in the accompanying picture, the demo version will only convert files into MS Word 97, Word 2000 and Word 2002.

Document Converter 2002's strong point is that it can convert hundreds of files, which may be stored in many different folders on your hard disk, in one single batch. The complete version of the software can even convert a file created in Word 4.0 for Mac into Word 2002, which is currently still available only for Windows.

The downside of Document Converter 2002 is that it does not handle files other than documents created in word processors. It does not convert spreadsheets or image and database files, for example. In addition, the buttons on the screen are also not intuitively placed. The Exit button is located in the bottom left corner, while the Start Converting button is just next to it.

Conversion Plus

A software utility that will help you convert files from a wider range of file formats -- including databases, spreadsheets and even images -- is the $69.95 Conversion Plus from DataViz (www.dataviz.com). You can download the program directly from the Web site or order the CD-ROM version, obtain the key and start using it right away.

For its whopping price, Conversion Plus is fortunately fairly rich in its functions. It includes features found in MacOpener 2000. With these features, you can read a Mac diskette as if it was a PC diskette and then you can open any of the files stored in that diskette.

This program also helps those who often have problems with e- mail attachments. Conversion Plus can open encoded or compressed files, fix the problems that prevent attachments from being opened properly and extract text from garbage contained in a damaged e-mail.

Unlike Document Conversion, Conversion Plus is more intuitive to use. The layout of the screen display is more familiar, as it resembles Windows Explorer with the folder tree on the left and the list of subfolders and files on the right. One of the facilities that I like the most is the View button. So, before you convert a file, you can first view the file content to make sure that you are working on the right file.

As can be seen in the accompanying picture, Conversion Plus can also print the file in the View pane. Its Launch button will load the program that is associated with the file. This makes it a good replacement for Windows Explorer.

These are the two most useful conversion programs that I can find so far. Now, has anyone found any other conversion tools that merit examination? (zatni@cbn.net.id)