Good Word doc -> plain text conversion

[gaf-mNDKBlG2WHs at public.gmane.org (Jerry Feldman)]

While OpenOffice is certainly not scriptable,  it certainly can read
nearly everything that MS Word, Excel, or Power Point can produce.
Sometimes formatted documents are simply not easily convertible to plain
text without some human intervention as a previous example pointed out.

On 09/20/2010 03:43 PM, jc-8FIgwK2HfyJMuWfdjsoA/w at public.gmane.org wrote:
> Laura Conrad wrote:
> | >>>>> "John" =3D=3D   <jc-8FIgwK2HfyJMuWfdjsoA/w at public.gmane.org> writes:
> |     John> Anyone here have advice on programs (scriptable and  usable=

> |     John> on linux) that convert Word docs to plain text?
> |
> | I get reasonably good results with wvText.
>
> Thanks; I hadn't heard of that one, so I'll have to try it out.
>
> Funny thing: It appears to use lynx when it's available, so of course
> I decided to use lynx to download it.  First, I googled for wvText on
> the handiest machine, which turned up lots of info.  Then I tried the
> same  on  the  server where I want to use wvText.  When I typed "lynx
> google.com" on that (Debian) machine,  it  hung,  and  after  several
> minutes,  timed  out.   I  tried a few other URLs there, and they all
> worked. Next, I tried "lynx google.com" on a few other machines where
> I have accounts, and it worked instantly on all of them.
>
> So far, it's only "lynx google.com" on that one machine  that  hangs.
> That  box  is  the  firewall/gateway/router  at our house, so I tried
> "lynx google.com" on several others (OSX,  Ubuntu)  behind  it,  with
> success  every  time.  It's only "lynx google.com" on that one server
> that fails. Change the browser, the URL or the machine, and it works.
>
> Not that this has anything to do with wvText or decrypting Word docs,
> of course.  But it did soak up an hour of bemused time, and I haven't
> found any clues for the hangs. Lynx merely says "Unable to connect to
> remote  host",  with no further details.  The problem can't be google
> rejecting  the  connection,  because  that   connection   should   be
> indistinguishable from those from the two machines behind the server,
> and they work.  It's not due to  a  config  problem  on  the  server,
> because  lynx there can connect to lots of other machines without any
> problems.  Curious ...
>
>
> --
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>  <:#/>  John Chambers
>    +   <jc-8FIgwK2HfyJMuWfdjsoA/w at public.gmane.org>
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Jerry Feldman <gaf-mNDKBlG2WHs at public.gmane.org>
Boston Linux and Unix
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