HTML Conversion v. Launching Helper Apps

[Thomas Dowling]

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> From: Gordon, Dana <danag at nwnet.newsweek.com>
> To: Multiple recipients of list <web4lib at library.berkeley.edu>
> Subject: HTML Conversion v. Launching Helper Apps
> Date: Friday, October 25, 1996 1:09 PM
> 
> Hi Folks,
> 
> I'm fairly new to the world of web publishing, but a question has come
> up in our shop, and I'd be interested in getting some opinions.
> 
> What are the pros/cons to taking the time to convert a Word file to
> html, say with Internet Assistant,  vs. simply launching Word as a
> helper app?  I'm assuming the ability to insert links in the converted
> doc is one.  Any other ideas on this?

Aside from the loss of hypertext features, there's the obvious need to have
Word (or Microsoft's Word viewer) installed on every desktop.  Beyond that,
well, on my workstation it takes a little over thirty seconds to load a
five page Word document, after any necessary downloading, while a good web
browser would let me start reading the beginning of the document almost
immediately.  Your server would need a little tweaking to give *.doc the
right MIME type, and everyone's browser would need to do the same, etc.
etc.

If you have a library of Word documents that you need to share on an
intranet, and if you know everyone accessing them will have and use Word,
it could be a good alternative.  But the native document format on the Web
is HTML and it's worth the effort to use it.

Thomas Dowling
tdowling at ohiolink.edu
Ohio Library and Information Network