- From: David Woolley <david@djwhome.demon.co.uk>
- Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2003 07:39:33 +0000 (GMT)
- To: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
> windows platforms. They are also available for MACS. Free software for Which is why I said specific operating systems, not Windows. Are they available for OS/X, though? > Linux enables access to Word documents. Not for Word 2000 onwards, because the Word format specifications now include restrictions that make it illegal to make use them to write such software (a reaction, I think, to Star Office) - see the MSDN licence agreement. Whilst the Word viewers are available, they are big, and they are an additional download. They cannot be used by kiosk or WebTV users, many internet cafe users, many people accessing from an office (because of no user software downloads policies) etc. Star Office is also big (and slow). Even the downloads for them are difficult to find if you are not familiar with the latest layout of Microsoft's site - I lost them for a while, but the Windows version, at least, are now on download.microsoft.com (word as technology, and viewer and keyword). At least with PDF, which has some similar problems (although it scores better on reader availability and worse because it is final form) is normally referenced together with a link to the Acrobat Reader web site.
Received on Monday, 17 March 2003 02:40:13 UTC