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From: kansy@gmdzi.gmd.de (Klaus Kansy)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.apps
Subject: Re: Word 4.0 don't like centimetres
Message-ID: <4643@gmdzi.gmd.de>
Date: 2 May 91 10:31:39 GMT
References: <605@lysator.liu.se>
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In article <605@lysator.liu.se> zune@lysator.liu.se (Andreas Magnusson) 
writes:
> Why doesn't Word like cm ? Is it quickdraw, or just because the US still
> uses inches?

This is an round-off problem when converting between internal and external 
measures. The problem can be solved and effectively had been solved by 
Microsoft in version Word 1.0 but the knowledge seems to have been lost 
since that time. So development sometimes goes into the wrong direction.

Btw this is not the only example. MSWord 1.0 was the only WYSIWYG text 
system I am aware of which supported correct tabs (correct means: n-th tab 
goes to n-th tab-position; if this position has been passed, just 
introduce a blank). In Word 3.0, Microsoft adopted the widespread but 
idiotic current solution (tab goes to next available tab-position).

Regards  Klaus Kansy,      kansy@gmdzi.gmd.de
German National Research Center for Computer Science (GMD)
St. Augustin, Germany