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Limitations

The reader reports what it could not read: docboss diagnostics lists every approximated or dropped item. The conformance ledger has a row for every clause of the standards docboss reads, with a note on what is missing. The largest gaps:

Reading

  • DOCX: w:altChunk content is skipped and reported. ActiveX controls and custom XML data binding are not read as content. Ruby text is ignored. Only the compatibilityMode compatibility setting is read.
  • DOC: password-protected Word 6 and 95 files are refused. Word 6 and 95 files are read with their formatting, sections, headers, footers, tables, pictures and numbered paragraphs (ANLD), but their comments, endnotes and drawing objects, whose Word 6 records differ from Word 97's, and the equations of their Equation Editor objects are left out and reported; Word 2 files are read as text only. A Word 97 compound file whose directory is lost gives its text only (a Word 6 or 95 one is read in full). Freeforms and WordArt shapes are reported as dropped.
  • DOCX and DOC: Equation Editor 3 objects keep their preview picture and give their equation as text and LaTeX; MathType's MTEF 4 and 5 are not read, and the object is reported.
  • RTF is detected and refused. Flat OPC XML is not read: it is refused as an unknown format.

Layout and rendering

  • Shaping covers Arabic, Hebrew and combining marks; Indic, Thai and other scripts that reorder or stack glyphs are not shaped, cursive attachment (GPOS type 3) is not applied, and Latin text gets no discretionary ligatures. Right-to-left sections (w:bidi in w:sectPr: column order, gutter side) and vertical sections (tbRl) lay out left to right.
  • No column balancing. Text wraps around floating images, text frames and floating tables in the body. Text in a table cell or text frame does not wrap around a float anchored there (the row grows to hold the float, which is drawn over the text); floats in headers and footers do not push body text aside; a table beside a float is not narrowed; text wraps around a turned drawing as if it were not turned. docboss diagnostics --layout reports each of these.
  • Shapes draw solid and gradient fills; picture and pattern fills and effects (shadows, glow, 3-D) are not drawn. SmartArt without its saved drawing shows an empty frame; 3-D, radar, stock, surface, bubble and bar-of-pie charts show an empty frame too. Office Math stretches delimiters by scaling the glyph rather than with the font's variants.
  • Conditional formatting from table styles is not applied.
  • CFF2 fonts are refused; TIFF pictures draw a placeholder. WMF and EMF pictures are played (EMF+ records are skipped in favour of the EMF ones); their text is not extracted.
  • Tracked changes render as the final text, without revision marks.

Writing

  • Embedded fonts are not written (the font table lists names only), and no theme part is written.
  • Raw HTML in Markdown is dropped, except <br>.
  • Encrypted output is not supported.