... | ... | @@ -12,7 +12,7 @@ Works authored in Word are too variable in form and purpose, while at the same t |
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The available alternatives, both proprietary and open source, all constrain themselves to handle only a subset of Word documents (however defined), while at the same time more or less requiring some level of customization even within this subset, on further subsets or even on the individual document. The required customizations can take the form either of tool development or tuning (configuration, extension or modification of the tool), or handwork on the documents themselves, or both. This typically requires a level of expert engagement that often makes the work prohibitively difficult, at least within a number of economic settings including especially "small shops" - where expertise is either cheap, or non-existent. (The kind of expertise we are talking about tends to be the non-existent kind.)
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Not being able to provide a 100% solution, however, does not necessary make an 80% solution -- if it really were that -- less useful or less valuable. On the contrary -- getting most of the way up might be a big advance, at any rate if it presented with us with options on how best to take a "data conversion" further -- maybe even, ideally, cross into that territory where the only expertise we need, is the cheap kind -- or at least a kind we can offer at a reasonable rate. So there has to be editing, normalization and enhancement - that might be regarded as a feature and a situation to be encouraged, not a bug.
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Not being able to provide a 100% solution, however, does not necessary make an 80% solution -- if it really were that -- less useful or less valuable. On the contrary -- getting most of the way up might be a big advance, at any rate if it presented with us with options on how best to take a "data conversion" further -- maybe even, ideally, cross into that territory where the only expertise we need, is the cheap kind -- or at least a kind we can offer at a reasonable rate. So if there has to be editing, normalization and enhancement - that might be regarded as a feature and a situation to be encouraged, not a bug.
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## Towards a solution
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