.doc and .docx formats in Bean
Word 97 (.doc) support in Bean:
The Word 97 file format is commonly used for sharing files through email, since many PC’s are sold new with Microsoft Works installed, which includes Microsoft Word. Files in the Word 97 format often (but not always) end with a ‘.doc’ extension. Bean uses Apple’s file conversion service (part of OS X) to read Word 97 format files. However, Bean should not be considered a replacement for Word, or any other word processor designed for complex documents involving, for example, citations.
Limitations:
Bean cannot import images contained in Word 97 format files. Also, Bean does not read in page size information or margin information. Footnotes are inserted at the end of the imported document, but the footnote numbers are missing (since they are supplied ‘on the fly’ by MS Word). Hyperlinks are imported as text, not as hyperlinks. While tables import well, export of tables to the .doc format is currently problematic. Lists are imported and exported well.
Having said all this, formatted text is imported and exported quite well in Word 97 format by Bean.
Export to .rtf and .doc formats with images intact:
Documents with images can be exported to .doc compatible and .rtf formats through the menu items found under File > Export. However, if you try to open these exported documents in Bean, the images will be missing (since Bean's .doc and .rtf converters ignore images).
WordML (.xml) support:
The WordML (extension: .xml) file format was introduced with Word 2003. These files are much less commonly encountered than Word 97 format files. Bean cannot read in images from WordML format files. Bean does, however, read in page size and margins. Note that because Bean cannot determine whether an ‘.xml’ format file was originally created in Microsoft Word or Bean, it will always warn the first time you save changes to an .xml file after opening it, in case images would be lost.
Word 2007 (.docx) support in Bean:
Bean uses Apple's file conversion services to open and save Word 2007 format files. Please note that due to the limitations of the file format converter, images are lost when opening a native Word 2007 format file in Bean and when saving a rich text document as a Word 2007 format file in Bean. Also lost are highlighting, tables, text lists and advanced paragraph formatting. Sorry, this is how Apple implemented it. The user will be warned of this when overwriting a Word 2007 format file not created by Bean, to prevent loss of information. Bean should not be considered a replacement for Word, or any other word processor designed for complex documents involving, for example, citations.