Document conversion using vb.net

[Kyote]

For a long time now I've needed to convert files from one format to
another in order to use them in a variety of applications for personal
use. I love to read ebooks on my palm pilot for instance.

I've found various applications on the web that do this. But currently
I have to use up to like 5 different program to convert from the
various formats to accomplish various tasks. There ARE a couple
programs out there that can do most of what I need but the price on
one is simply ridiculous and the other tends to be error prone, or
does not give me all the functionality that I really need.

So I'd like to write my own program to do all that I need. The problem
is I'm not very experienced at programming. To me that's no big
problem. The more I use it the better I'll get. But I figured since
vb.net is what I have the most experience in I should try writing it
in this language.

Could someone please list the things I need to learn about to make
this happen? what types of knowledge do I need to study in order to
make the program, besides vb.net. OH, and CAN this type of program be
done in vb.net? Does anyone here know of a forum maybe where this type
of programming is discussed? I'm not sure this question is appropriate
for this NG.

Here are some of the file types I'm wanting to convert from and to:
txt, rtf, htm, html, doc, pdb, prc

I was thinking that I could possibly use a filestream and compare it
to something like a Unicode table and convert/remove as needed. But
that seems way to simple a solution. Thats why I'm asking here. I'd
hate to spend uncounted hours trying to do this only to find out that
it's not possible. Please, any help would be sincerely appreciated.

---
Kyote

[Mr. Politics]

On Feb 1, 3:13 pm, Kyote <[e-mail]:

For a long time now I've needed to convert files from one format to
another in order to use them in a variety of applications for personal
use. I love to read ebooks on my palm pilot for instance.

I've found various applications on the web that do this. But currently
I have to use up to like 5 different program to convert from the
various formats to accomplish various tasks. There ARE a couple
programs out there that can do most of what I need but the price on
one is simply ridiculous and the other tends to be error prone, or
does not give me all the functionality that I really need.

So I'd like to write my own program to do all that I need. The problem
is I'm not very experienced at programming. To me that's no big
problem. The more I use it the better I'll get. But I figured since
vb.net is what I have the most experience in I should try writing it
in this language.

Could someone please list the things I need to learn about to make
this happen? what types of knowledge do I need to study in order to
make the program, besides vb.net. OH, and CAN this type of program be
done in vb.net? Does anyone here know of a forum maybe where this type
of programming is discussed? I'm not sure this question is appropriate
for this NG.

Here are some of the file types I'm wanting to convert from and to:
txt, rtf, htm, html, doc, pdb, prc

I was thinking that I could possibly use a filestream and compare it
to something like a Unicode table and convert/remove as needed. But
that seems way to simple a solution. Thats why I'm asking here. I'd
hate to spend uncounted hours trying to do this only to find out that
it's not possible. Please, any help would be sincerely appreciated.

---
Kyote

www.planetsourcecode.com will be a good starting point