WP8 Filtrix File Conversion Patch for MS Word Doc's
From: "Leon A. Goldstein" <metapsych@earthlink.net>
 
For almost two months WP8/8.1 Linux users have had no functional MS Word doc file conversion capability.  Corel was informed, but has as of today offered NO fix.  Nor have they announced any plans to do so.

A Corel WP8-Linux list member in Amsterdam devised the following patch. I tested it and itworks, without any negative effect. Although the patch "fools" the filter with the time. it does not change the file date data in any way I have found.

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On September 9, 2001 the Corel Word Perfect 8 for Linux file conversion utility ceased functioning.

The "Filtrix" program licensed by Corel was affected by the UNIX "1 Billion Second" bug, and reverted to a trial mode. WP8 users were unable to convert Microsoft Word documents. Instead, "Filtrix" generated a temporary file with numerous errors that need hand editing. WP8 users were then "invited" to order a paid license key from Blueberry Software, the originators of the Filtrix file conversion utility.   After waiting more than six weeks for Corel to provide a fix to this problem, an enterprising computer consultant in Amsterdam NL compiled a small patch that restores full functionality to the WP8 file conversion utility.

The patch can be downloaded from

<http://olivier.pk.wau.nl/~valentyn/wp8fix/ >

The download is a 10.2 KB TAR file.

Copy the TAR.GZ to a temporary directory, then run

tar -zvxf wp8filtrixfix.tar.gz

"cd" into the new directory:

cd wp8fix

Then read and follow the installation instructions:

more README
more INSTALL

You can also use your own favorite text reader.

The author of the patch is Valentijn Sessink, a consultant working at Open Office, a Netherlands company that supports Linux on the Desktop He writes:

> About Open Office:
> We are a small company that supports Linux on the Desktop. Our first installation was (back in) 1999, a small law firm (15 desktops) here in Amsterdam.
>
> Sun Microsystems has started a project  with the same name. We are not affiliated with Sun in any way.  
> That said, we are very much pro-open-source and we like the open sourcing of  StarOffice.
>
> About me: Linux user since 1997; author of the alsa-sound-driver-HOWTO, to be found at any LDP mirror - and in the need of a rewrite.
>
>
> You can link to the actual wp8fix page I already sent you. This is our "high volume" web site. The company website is http://www.openoffice.nl/
>

Additional details about the WP8 Filtrix Fix:

The patch was only possible because WordPerfect actually uses three different programs for the filtering, and actually /calls/ those programs. So my patch consists of three parts:

1) I rename the original programs to fxwpf.orig, inww6.orig and outww6.orig

2) I made three small scripts with these program names (WordPerfect is oblivious to this and will gladly call my scripts)

3) My scripts call the original programs, but they first load a small wrapper library that says "the time is 915145293".

The difficulty lies in the fact that both WordPerfect and the Filtrix filters use the time to calculate a certain "license key" - and Filtrix cannot calculate one after 1,000,000,000 seconds after January 1, 1970. So besides sending a different time, I needed to find out the correct license key for this time - which you will find in my scripts.



--
Leon A. Goldstein

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