AppleWorks® File Converter for Microsoft Word® X for Mac®
Printable Version
Challenge
- Develop converter while Microsoft Word X for Mac was still under development.
- Develop a method of importing tables from AppleWorks to Microsoft Word X for Mac.
- Account for significant cultural difference between Western and Asian languages.
Results
- Four major milestones met.
- Project was completed on time and on budget.
- Orbital’s converter was one of the first components to be finished for Word X for Mac.
Value
- Microsoft was able to proceed with early and detailed testing of the converters.
- Microsoft was able to offer its Word X for Mac customers the ability to import AppleWorks 5, 6 and 6 Japanese documents.
“We view Orbital as a trusted and skilled software development partner that has been able to consistently deliver results, on time and on budget. Orbital has demonstrated its commitment to customer satisfaction and has provided its expertise to Microsoft in a manner that meets our business needs.”
- Program Manager, Microsoft Corporation
Orbital was approached by Microsoft Corporation (Microsoft) and asked to develop AppleWorks converters for Microsoft Word X for Mac. These converters were needed to allow Word X for Mac users to easily convert AppleWorks 5, 6 and 6 Japanese documents into Microsoft Word documents.
The mandate for Orbital was to deliver a solution that would allow Microsoft customers to easily import AppleWorks documents into Microsoft Word X for Mac and have them look and behave the exact same as their originals.
The project took approximately 16 person-months of work and was completed on time and on budget. Orbital achieved this objective by applying its scientific and systematic approach to file converter development.
During development of the AppleWorks 5, 6 and 6 Japanese converters, Word X for Mac was still under development. This prevented Orbital from testing the converters with Word X for Mac for most of the project. Orbital addressed this challenge by creating an application that allowed testing of the converters exclusively under Macintosh OS X and verification of the results independent of the development status of Word X for Mac.
Orbital also had to develop a sophisticated method of importing tables from AppleWorks to Microsoft Word X for Mac, given that these two applications use different representation paradigms. The resulting algorithm developed by Orbital translated the table layouts from AppleWorks to Word X for Mac, while maintaining the appearance of the original table and the user’s intent of that table.
Orbital was particularly challenged in developing the converter for AppleWorks 6 Japanese, given the significant cultural difference between Western and Asian languages. Specifically, Orbital had to account for the fact that the Japanese product was to utilize many more properties that were not available in the Western version of the product, such as new properties to represent or highlight characters and new paragraph styles. Orbital devoted a lot of time to determine differences and develop solutions that would maximize the functionality of this converter.
Orbital is most proud of the fact that it was able to deliver on the four major project milestones that were explicitly detailed at the beginning of the project. This success was the result of Orbital’s superior technical and management capabilities, as illustrated by the fact that no major bugs were encountered during the project and any lesser bugs that were found were solved immediately - usually before the next weekly drop.
In the end, Microsoft was able to proceed directly with high-stressed and detailed testing of the AppleWorks converters. As a result, these converters were some of the first components to be finished - several months ahead of Microsoft’s shipping schedule.
This project demonstrates why Orbital is the leading provider of file converter expertise in the world. Orbital was able to develop AppleWorks 5, 6 and 6 Japanese converters for Microsoft to allow their Word X for Mac customers additional value-added functionality.
The Microsoft name and logo and the Microsoft Word X for Mac name and logo are trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. Additional product names indicated herein may also be registered trademarks of other companies.
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