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I get asked fairly frequently which non-Microsoft word processor handles Word documents the most successfully. I don't have a definitive answer, I haven't used all of the alternatives, but in my experience, $49.00 ThinkFree Office does a decent job, albeit not 100 percent formatting accurate. Mariner Write, AppleWorks, and the not yet finalized iNisus Writer Express for OS X all have Word translator filters. There is also the freestanding $20.00 icWord utility. Personally, I'm usually content just to get at the text content in Word documents I have to handle, which one can do it by opening them in a text editor like Tex Edit Plus, or TextEdit, although one has to scroll through a lot of formatting characters in order to find the meat of the text. Lately I've been using the cool desktop database program DEVONthink, which does a nice job of opening Word documents as internal RTF files that can be exported as RTF or plain text documents. DEVONthink of course has many other virtues besides Word translation, but if the latter function is what especially appeals, DEVON Technology also offers a free OS X service called AntiWordService, which will give any text-supporting Cocoa-based OS X application the ability to open Microsoft Word documents as plain text (no images or formatting), but that's plenty enough in many instances, and may even be preferable. The actual conversion is done by the command line utility "antiword", hence the name. To Install, download and copy AntiWordService into the directory »Services« located in the Library folder of your Home directory, then log out and log in again. If there is no such folder, create one using the Finder. You may also copy the package to »/ Library/Services/« to make it available to all users on your machine. AntiWordService Version 2.0 is based on antiword 0.3.3; AntiWordService and antiword binaries have been combined resulting in higher performance and a shorter startup delay.
System Requirements
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AntiWord The Antiword utility is a free MS Word reader for Linux and RISC OS. There are ports to BeOS, OS/2, Mac OS X, Amiga, VMS, NetWare, EPOC and DOS. Antiword converts the binary files from Word 2, 6, 7, 97, 2000 and 2002 to plain text and to PostScript. You can find out more here: http://antiword.cjb.net/ And if PDF turns your crank: DOCtor DOCtor is a utility by Stone Design that provides a front-end for antiword. DOCtor allows you to make PostScript files from Word documents with the help of antiword, but needs another product called PStill distillery (not freeware) to turn those PostScript files into the more compatible PDF format. If you have Stone Design's PStill installed (it's one of 7 apps in the Stone Studio), automatically converts it further into Mac OS X friendly PDF. If you have Stone Design's Create design and web authoring package installed, DOCtor opens the PDF in Create, otherwise you'll see it in your favorite PDF viewer, settable in Finder's Show Info when a PDF file is selected. 
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Strangelove Strangelove is an adaptation of DOCtor that depends on another (free) utility, ghostscript , instead of PStill. The end result is a utility that can take pesky Word documents and, with the correct software installed, turn them right into PDF files, readable by Mac OS X's Preview utility.
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iBook Screen Freezing Screen Freeze, part 2 Food4Spam is a BAD idea From David Layman Charles: In your letters, I've noticed some reports on iBook screen freezes. Here's my problem on iBook screen freezes (I'm not clear if my problem was identical to the ones reported in your mail) and how I solved it (God willing). I am running X 10.2.5 on a 500 mhz dual-USB iBook. I purchased the iBook in December 2001. About six weeks ago, it developed a problem about 50% of the time: When I would wake the iBook from sleep, it would give me my desktop picture, and then not respond to any input--no typing, no mousing, as far as I can recall, the cursor would not be visible. To regain control, I would have to shut down and restart (at least those commands would respond). I thought maybe the problem was that I had Desktop Preference Panel set to change the picture when waking from sleep. So I turned that off, but it did not solve the problem. Some time ago I read about the shortcut for sleep, which I have been using for the last several weeks. "Control-eject" [eject is at the upper-right of the keyboard, above the delete key on the iBook] summons a shutdown dialog, which includes the option to sleep.. Make sure you hold the eject key for about one second. Click on "sleep," or better yet, press "s" (for "sleep", obviously). Of course, you can also select "Sleep" from the Apple menu. Since I have been putting the iBook to sleep by this method, the problem has not reoccurred. My theory is that putting the iBook to sleep by simply closing the lid somehow interrupted some process and thus froze the screen at the point I cclosed the lid. Using shutdown dialog somehow shuts down the processes in the proper sequence (rather like the old "shutdown" command in OS 9). David Layman
Hi David;
This is a different problem than the screen freezing while one is working in an application, but thanks for the report.
Charles From Joseph R. Marceny Charles, A few years ago I bought a Belkin USB 6' Extension cord. In the instructions they said that mice and keyboards didn't work well if the USB connection between the device and the computer was over 10' long. So using a tailed mouse with a USB hub gets you up to almost 10'. Since I was using a 6' extension + a USB hub, you can imagine the problems I had with frozen screens! You stated: "However, in those instances, the machine still responds to the built-in trackpad." This is a clue. Perhaps your problem is the "USB Long-connection Syndrome" I solved my problem by either plugging into the back of my ADC or using cordless mice and keyboards. That particular syndrome has not appeared on my computers since. In any event, the problem was sporadic and very frustrating. Your new iBook may not be as forgiving as your Pismo in the use of USB peripherals.
Good luck,
Hi Joseph;
I think your latter point is the case here. While my foot mouse has a long cord, the Apple USB keyboard I was using one of the occasions has a very short one. I also had an old Apple hockey puck mouse plugged into the keyboard (vary short cord) and it wouldn’t respond either.
Unless, of course, just having the long cord hooked up gums up the works. However, long cords have never bothered the Pismo.
Charles From Ira Lansing Charles, Apparently my freeze was different than yours. I did have mouse/cursor movement, but menus were not accessible. Sliding the mouse to my Dock location caused the Dock to pop up, from which I could choose an application icon. In your case, a hard restart was probably the only option. --Ira Lansing
Hi Ira;
It was the only thing that seemed applicable.
Charles From Daniel A. Shockley" Charles, I love your articles, but did you even consider the ACTUAL results of anyone using this? The programmer obviously did not. Here are some likely outcomes: 1. Spammer sends out tons of messages to accounts that don't exist, but perhaps the domain name is real. That domain's mail server gets hammered for no reason - except that the Food4Spam user sent them there. 2. Spammer sends out tons of spam to an account that accidentally is REAL. Poor guy who perhaps never posted anywhere online to avoid getting spam now gets spammed. 3. Spammer uses some innocent third party's email address as the From address (a common tactic). Now, along with all the misguided nasty responses and regular bounces, this poor soul gets hammered by potentially millions of extra bounces. 4. Spammer doesn't even notice, since they don't bother checking bounces, but everyone else suffers. This program is a horrible idea, and using it is contributing to the problem without hurting spammers at all. Please post a note explaining this. The best way to hurt spammers is to improve reasonable filters, and encourage people to NEVER respond to spam in any way. Starve them, don't feed them. The developer <http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/19938&mode=feedback> tries to argue he won't generate real addresses, but even that doesn't matter: my points #1, #3, and #4 are STILL valid.
Daniel A. Shockley, Database Programmer
Hi Danlel;
Thanks for sharing your observations. I just thought it was an intrigueing idea, and did not spend a lot of time pondering the consequences. The idea of causing spammers inconvenience appealed. ;-)
I NEVER respond to spam, but I get probably 100 spam messages per day on my accounts that are published on the Web.
I also have some “pristine” email accounts that never get spam, but few people konw the address. Interestingly, I moderate an email list with 100+ members, and it rarely gets spammed.
Ah well, back to the drawing board.
Charles
The OS X Odyssey archives may be accessed here: Note: Letters to Moore's Mailbag may or may not be published at the editor's discretion. Correspondents' email addresses will NOT be published unless the correspondent specifically requests publication. Letters may be edited for length and/or context. Opinions expressed in postings to Moore's MailBag are those of the respective correspondents and not necessarily shared or endorsed by the Editor and/or Applelinks management. If you would prefer that your message not appear in Moore's Mailbag, we would still like to hear from you. Just clearly mark your message "NOT FOR PUBLICATION," and it will not be published. CM
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