file converting question

[Jason Crest]

i know there is the command dos2unix that will make the conversion between text files, but is there any systems command that will have this support for .doc, .xls, or .ppt files?

[Ernest Friedman-Hill]

What do you want to convert your .doc, .ppt, and .xls files into?
OpenOffice, probably today's most popular UNIX office suite, imports all of these file formats directly. Generally, people don't use separate converter programs for these.

[Jason Crest]

ok cool
i guess i should probably explain my situation a little further too. There are a bunch of microsoft files (word, excell, powerpoint etc...) stored on a solaris server. These need to ultimatly be worked with on the solaris server, i was having troulbe with it in its current format, so i was wondering what i could do in order to make it workable. Is there anything else i can use besides the program you mentioned? Thanks a bunch

[Tim Holloway]

For OpenOffice you have the choice of loading and saving in Microsoft Office formats or OpenOffice (.sxw) formats. The differences are not related to the OS you're using, but only to what programs you're working with. You could be running OpenOffice under Windows and the choices would be exactly the same.
Of course the reverse isn't really true, since you can't run Microsoft Office under Linux without cheating (that is, by using CrossOver Office), since Microsoft Office for Linux isn't one of their current offerings.
So why the different file formats? Because different office programs support (and don't support) different features. That's also true of any other of programs, such as CAD programs.