[OS X TeX] [ANN] wp2latex, a utility for converting WordPerfect to LaTeX

[David Derbes]

Some weeks ago, in the [OS X TeX] listserv, a poster mentioned a utility "wp2latex" which could convert WordPerfect files to LaTeX. I am quite interested in this as I have about twenty years of Mac WP files (most with a lot of equations) I have been slowly converting by hand to LaTeX. (Though Mac WordPerfect is no longer officially supported by Corel, a large group of folks have found ways to keep it going very successfully.) The poster provided a link to the developer, Jaroslav Fojtik. I got in touch with Jaroslav. He had executables for many operating systems, but not yet for Mac OS X. He made the source code available on his web site. Jaroslav gave me a lot of advice for compiling his source into a Mac OS X executable, but I wasn't able to get it done. I posted a request to [OS X Tex] for help in compiling the source, and Peter Dyballa very kindly volunteered.

Peter and Jaroslav have had a lot of good communication (which I, cc'd on, could not remotely follow) and have now succeeded in making executables for both 32 and 64 bit Mac OS X, the former for older Macs, and the latter for more recent models. I've tried both (under Snow Leopard 10.6.8, but not yet under Lion) and they both work very well. 

I'm posting this to both [OS X TeX] and [wordperfectmac at yahoogroups.com] in the hopes that both groups will find the utility worthwhile. It works on, I believe, all forms of WordPerfect text files, whether Mac, DOS, Windows, Linux or whatever. The executables are available at Jaroslav's web site, http://www.penguin.cz/~fojtik/wp2latex/wp2latex.htm and will be shortly at CTAN. 

My thanks to these generous wizards for their time, their remarkable skills and their efforts!

David Derbes
U of Chicago Laboratory Schools