Re: .docx files

Hi Phillip:

What you say is quite correct. However, I don't see that it is going to be
a problem, because Mac OS does not have an association for .docx (or any of
the other XML file formats).

What has happened to the original poster is that at some time he has tried
to download a .docx and Safari has come back saying "I don't know what to do
with this -- choose a program to open it."

It has (correctly) identified the content of the outer wrapper as being a
..zip file and has associated .docx with the BOM Archive Utility, and the OP
has allowed that.

He now needs to go back and reset his OS X preferences, or de-select the
"Open 'safe' files after downloading" preference in Safari.

Inside the .docx file there is actually a little website with a folder
structure. That folder structure MUST remain intact or the file can't be
recognized as a .docx.

However, advanced users of Word will soon learn to re-name a .docx as a
..zip. If you do that, you can then decompress it and use TextEdit to
manually change bits of the file. It's very powerful (provided you can read
and write XML!)

Cheers


On 20/5/07 3:30 AM, in article #R##gtjmHHA.4552@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx,
"Phillip Jones" <pjones1@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Mac OSX can zip and unzip files from within the system itself whether
you have program or not.

to try remove anything such as Stuffit or Stuffit Deluxe or Stuffit
Expander the go to Finder in File menu you will see create archive
That's in zip format.

Having to turn off zip format in archiving will present a problem as on
Mac OSX there are four major ways of sending archive or compressed files.

.dmg (disk image), .zip, sit/sitx, .pkg (Package) if you have turn off

.zip then that means every item sent zip will have opened manually.


That's also going to be a complication with internet files sent as .xpi
which also is zip files that are simply renamed .zip files :-/

John McGhie wrote:
OK, your problem is that Safari is set up to "Open" Zip files for you.

A .docx file IS a .zip file, it simply has a different extension. That
extension should signal the unzipping applications on your computer to leave
it alone.

But internally, it is a .zip file. You need to cancel the association with
the .docx extension from whichever decompressing application is getting hold
of the file first, so that it does not break it apart.

You need to prevent your browser from doing that: otherwise the converter
doesn't know what you're handing it. It expects a single .docx file. So
first you need to download those links to your hard drive. The converter
can't handle them until they have been stored on your local disk as a single
file.

A .docx is a Zipped folder of files. The Converter must see the whole thing
as a single file (because the first thing it's going to do is uncompress it
into a folder structure). Just double-click the file, or drag it to the
converter window, and it will work. Tell your computer "Stop trying to
"Help", you're getting in the way!" :-) And be patient: a long document
will take a while to convert, depending on the speed of your computer: the
converter is a large application (basically, it's the "engine" out of Word
2008) and it's working very hard. If you're low on processor speed, free
RAM, or hard disk space, expect to wait a while :-)

Yes, the converter works fine for me. The resulting .rtf is readable in
both TextEdit and Word. And yes, corrupted files that crash Word 2007 also
crash the converter :-)

Cheers


On 19/5/07 3:04 PM, in article
1179551052.530241.247520@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "jsafdie@xxxxxxxxxx"
<jsafdie@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

JE -- again, many thanks, but . .

In Safari, when I "control - click" on the link, it does give me the
choice you mentioned, but the link downloads to my desktop as either
a .docx file OR a regular zip file (that is, a .docx.zip file) -- in
either case, when I try to drag that file onto EITHER the "Convert One
File" OR the "Convert Many Files" dialog box of the converter . . .
the file disappears, and nothing happens.

I mean, I appreciate that it's a Beta patch, but I wonder if anyone
has been able to deal with .docx files with this Office:Mac
program . . .



On May 18, 8:13 pm, JE McGimpsey <jemcgimp...@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
In article <1179538869.187782.179...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,



jsaf...@xxxxxxxxxx wrote:
What happens when, rather than clicking on the .docx files, you instead
drag the .docx file onto the Office Converter's application window?
--- Thanks for the interest, but I guess I'm not sure what you're
talking about. The file in question exists only as a link -- the one
I'm trying now, for example, is "racism in the twentieth century.docx"
I can't drag the link anywhere. And when I click on that link, as I
said, an entire folder appears on my desktop. I can't drag the folder
onto the Office Converter's appllication window . . . it disappears.
If I click on the folder, I get three more folders, including one
called "word" . . . which seems promising . . . but when I click on
THAT folder, I just get a lot of .xml files -- and when I try to drag
ANY of them onto the Office Converter's application window, it too
disappears.
Download the .docx file to your hard drive as a .docx file (the method
varies depending on what browser you're using, but in Safari, you can
ctrl-click the link and choose Download Linked File), then drag the file
onto the converter's application window.



--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
http://jgmcghie.fastmail.com.au/
Sydney, Australia. S33°53'34.20 E151°14'54.50
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:john@xxxxxxxxxxx

.

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