RE: Batch conversion of OV/400 docs to Word docs

From: Pat Barber

I can recall seeing somebody who had software that
would do the batch converison.

I have a customer with 42,000 + documents that I
need to get in a Word format.

We want to put them in a new 520 and I guess
Word is the only thing in the picture at the moment.

They are a fairly heavy user of word processing
and don't require text data merge, soooooo I guess
a Windows server is in their future. They have
around 25-30 users. They use no other features of
OV/400.


That brings up another question.

Would you install a Windows server with Office or just
install Word on each pc ?

You can convert OV documents to RFT/DCA format using CVTDOC. While some WP
packages can read RFT documents (this is not to be confused with RTF, which
everyone can read), the support is spotty. Instead there is at least one
converter out there that you can purchase for $25 that can then convert
those into whatever format you need.

As to a server, this might (depending on your situation) be an opportunity
to try a Linux solution. You could set up an inexpensive file server (with
or without RAID) to house your documents.

If that's out of the question, 42K document really isn't that many. Even if
each one is 10MB in length (and that's a pretty big document) you can store
all of it on one 500GB disk drive. If you already have a Windows server,
adding half a terabyte could be just a two hundred dollar proposition.

Finally, for the desktops you can install OpenOffice if you don't want to
mess with Word. OpenOffice is free and functional and supports just about
any format that Word doe, and it interoperates with Word just fine.

Just some options...

Joe