Re: Accessibility of Microsoft Word Documents

> 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