Batch Document Conversion with OSX

Included in the new release of Apple OS X, Tiger, is a simple command-line application that can be used to convert one document format, to another. Think of it as Image Magick, only for text documents. This is an amazingly useful feature. You can convert to/from any number of these format: txt, html, rtf, rtfd, doc, wordml, or webarchive. Consider this: You have a text document, borrowed from the repository at Project Gutenberg, but you’re friends refuse to read anything that isn’t a Word doc – and you don’t own Word. No problem, just run your text file through this program and you should have your desired result. Now, couple this with a quick install of Ghostscript and you’ll be able to generate Postscript files (and, subsequently, PDF files and Images – which brings you full circle back to Image Magick) all from the command-line!

Posted: July 8th, 2005


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