CHARLES ANGELICH wrote in a message to TOM WALKER:

TW> Open Office is an excellent example. It is a Second best decidedly 
TW> when compaired to Win Office Suite. In fact Jean Parrot sent me a 
TW> program with a MS word Doc it could not Handle. 

CA> The ".doc" file is a poor choice as a 'test' of compatibility.

Agreed,  though an awful lot of people who I send my resume to lately are
asking for it in "word format"...

CA> Windows versions over the years have been incapable of reading
CA> ".doc" files created by previous versions of Windows.

Actually I think that's only the case when you're spanning a *lot* of
version numbers.  More often it's the other way around,  where a slightly
earlier version can't deal with stuff produced by later versions.  I
remember Douglas Myers commenting on this some time back,  specifically.

CA> When Microsoft can't read their own file format who can be faulted 
CA> for having the same problem?

The file format is a moving target,  no doubt about that.

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