Re: [idn] Powerpoint

["Adam M. Costello" <amc@cs.berkeley.edu>]

Marc Blanchet <Marc.Blanchet@viagenie.qc.ca> wrote:

> please don't start a war/flame/thread on file formats

My only intention was to see if someone with Powerpoint would volunteer
to convert the presentations to another format.  I thought pointing out
the irony of using a proprietary format might increase my chances a
little, but it may have the unintended consequence of starting a flame
war.  Sorry.  Let's all try to keep the thread constructive.

Dave Crocker <dhc@dcrocker.net> wrote:

> At any rate there are free powerpoint viewers.

Do you know of any for unix/X?

> PDF is not an open format.
> Neither is GIF, which is what the presentation would have to use if
> the data were characterized as an HTML web page.
> In reality, neither is Postscript.

Maybe "open" was the wrong word.  I meant a format for which a spec is
publicly available, and for which anyone may write and distribute a
decoder.  I think PDF, GIF, and PostScript all qualify.

(And by the way, PNG is widely supported these days, and is as open as
HTML.)

AMC