[texhax] Convert from Latex to Word

[Tom Schneider]

Herb:

>          I have followed this thread with interest. I have heard this 
> question asked many times. My opinion, which may be incorrect, is that it's 
> easy to translate text, footnotes, bibliography, and even simple macros 
> from LaTeX to Word. It is less easy to translate formulas, although rough 
> translation of math symbols and Greek letters is possible and easy. More 
> complicated stuff cannot be translated, unless you create the TeX formulas 
> with special software. Figures are impossible to translate.
>          Please correct me, someone, if I am wrong here.

Agreed.  Scott Prahl (prahl at bme.ogi.ed) has gotten latex2rtf into
pretty good form - good enough that all the simple formulas in our
recently published paper translated without a hitch:

http://www.lecb.ncifcrf.gov/~toms/papers/fff/

(THANKS AGAIN SCOTT!)

>          I wrote my own translator from LaTeX to rtf (the rtf language is 
> public), which is readable by Word and other word-processing software. I'm 
> sure the CTAN translators are fine for simple stuff, since I had no trouble 
> writing my own.

Perhaps you and Scott could compare notes.

>          If you do all your figures in eps, both LaTeX and Word can handle 
> them. As for complex formulas, there is no way, unless you convert them to 
> eps or something else Word can read, possibly from a pdf file. I don't know.

Right, unless you are submitting a paper to a journal, in which case
images may not be acceptable.

Tom

  Dr. Thomas D. Schneider
  National Cancer Institute
  Laboratory of Experimental and Computational Biology
  Frederick, Maryland  21702-1201
  toms at ncifcrf.gov
  permanent email: toms at alum.mit.edu (use only if first address fails)
  http://www.lecb.ncifcrf.gov/~toms/