qanda

A free MS Word reader for Linux and RISC OS. Antiword converts the files from Word 2, 6, 7, 97, 2000

Questions and Answers (RISC OS version)
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Q1: How do I install Antiword?
A1: Copy the application-directory and all the files within it to a
    suitable directory.

Q2: How do I use Antiword?
A2: Double click on a Word document, filetype MSWord (&ae6). Or drag and drop
    a file onto the Antiword icon on the iconbar.

Q3: How does Antiword deal with Word macro viruses?
A3: Antiword does not run any Word macros because it cannot do so.
    Therefore your Archimedes will not be harmed by such a virus.

Q4: What does the 'Paragraph breaks' option do?
A4: This option controls the maximum number of characters per line in
    paragraphs. If your screen is 640 pixels wide (like modes 20 and 27)
    than 76 is probably best. If your screen is 800 or more pixels wide
    (like mode 31) then numbers near 94 work best. You can switch this
    option off if the (text only) output of Antiword will be the input to a
    wordprocessor or a DTP program.
    The pagebreak setting refers to the number of characters when you use
    the system font. When you use an outline font only the width of that
    number of characters in the system font is used.

Q5: What does the 'Auto filetype' option do?
A5: When auto filetype is allowed, Antiword will change the filetype of
    Word documents to MSWord (&ae6)

Q6: When Antiword uses outline fonts it becomes terribly slow. What can I
    do about this?
A6: When Antiword uses outline fonts it needs a large font cache. A small
    font cache will make Antiword (very) slow. The larger the font cache the
    better, but usually 160K or 256K will do.

Q7: What is the purpose of the file 'FontNames' in the Choices directory?
A7: This file provides a translation table from the font names found in a
    Word document to the font names used by the RISC OS font-manager.
    The file 'FontNames' is can be edited to match your font collection.
    Some examples are provided in the Resources directory.

Q8: What is 'Hidden Text'?
A8: Hidden Text is Microsoft speak for text that may or may not be shown
    on the screen, subject to the user's preferences, but such text is never
    printed.

Q9: After upgrading to a new version of Antiword, I found that Antiword does
    not put a new _updated_ version of FontNames in !Choices. Why not?
A9: The user can change the file Fontnames to reflect the fonts available
    on a specific computer. Antiword cannot be permitted to overwrite changes
    made by a user. So after upgrading you should remove or rename the old
    FontNames file.

Q10: Why does Antiword freeze my computer while converting the Word document?
A10: This can happen when the Word document contains a very large image and
     the image must be scaled to a much smaller size before displaying. The
     delay occurs while RISC OS does the scaling, so there is not much
     Antiword can do about it.