Yesterday I experimented with Zamzar, a free, online file conversion service. I uploaded one Publisher document (twice) and had Zamzar convert it into both PDF (.pdf) and Word (.doc) formats and then I waited. And waited. And waited a little longer. After an hour, I got an email alert that the first document had been converted (into PDF format). I was hopeful that the Word version would arrive soon... but it took another hour!
While I am happy with the conversions (it is especially nice to have that Publisher document available in Word - since not all of the computer stations here at work have Publisher installed), and I can see the great utility of this service, I'm not sure that it will be the saving grace for our patrons that it COULD be. Let's face it, when (for whatever reason) our computers can't open the file that the patron wants to open, they're often already in "crisis mode" - they need the document and they want it NOW... the good news/bad news aspect of Zamzar might not go over so well -
"The Good News is that Zamzar will take your strange file format, and turn it into a nice Word document that our computers just LOVE!... The Bad News is that it might take a couple of hours..." Our patrons get a maximum of two hours of computer time per day - that math just doesn't work out too well for them.
Maybe my experience wasn't typical - maybe Zamzar was slow last night, or maybe Publisher documents are tougher for Zamzar to deal with. I'll definitely share this tool around with my co-workers, but I think I'll reserve final judgment for a little longer.
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