Plugins for Microsoft Office for OpenOffice Documents? 89
DeBaas asks: "We are all in favour of getting Open Standards in place so that we can happily use Open/Star/K Office or whatever without the nagging problem: The Microsoft Office users cannot read our files correctly.
Much of the focus is on providing filters to be able to make and read Microsoft Office files. However, should it not be the other way around, as well? Would it be feasible to make an open source project providing a plugin to MS office so that it can read and write in our preferred open format. Sort of a 'save as open document standard'. Is there a legal problem?, a technical problem? (is it already possible?) I would love it if I could send documents in OpenOffice knowing the other site can actually use and see it the way I meant to, even with MicroSoft Office."
VERY good idea. (Score:1, Redundant)
VERY good idea.
Better Idea (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Better Idea (Score:2)
Unfortunately, that breaches the EULA(TM) of Microsoft Security Holes(R) 1.0, to which you agreed when someone else's software installed a service pack on your machine without telling you. Furthermore, disclosure of the technique, and any performance benchmark results associated with it, is also forbidden by the EULA(TM) to Microsoft Unrelated And Unnecessary(R) 2002, to which you agreed when you installed Microsoft Where We'd Like You To Go Today(R) 1997.
Don't worry about the lawyers, just send the compensation to minimise your loss. Microsoft EULA(TM) Breaches Dept now accepts cheques, cash, souls and all major credit cards.
That seems like a good idea at first, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
I hate to say this, but I think in this case the wise choice is to use MS's tactics against itself.
Re:That seems like a good idea at first, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
To the public the more important thing is more 'free as in beer' than 'free as in speech'.
Re:That seems like a good idea at first, but... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:That seems like a good idea at first, but... (Score:2)
Sure it's not perfect for everything, but in my experience it's worked really well for almost everything I've ever needed to transport between Open Office, K Office, Star Office and MS Office.
Ok, fair enough to say that for other documents you're pretty much out of luck. But hopefully everyone will be brave and accept this with *open arms so that everything will be compatible with a true STANDARD...
Re:That seems like a good idea at first, but... (Score:1)
Re:That seems like a good idea at first, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
Take my grandmother as an example . I got her to use a computer and Ms Word. I don't think she want to learn a new system (even if it's not difficult for you and I). But the thing is, it would be cool if she could send me a recipe for her brownies using an open format, while typing it on a close system.
Re:That seems like a good idea at first, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Please stop your lame anti-MS FUD. The problem is not that a lot of people are using MS Office and we want them to use OpenOffice/KWord/etc. It is that we want all the offices to be able to open/save documents in a common format.
In fact, last week, I forgot to put my name on my paper when I saved it. So, when I was at school, I got on my ftp then realized I had saved it as a native OpenOffice document, so I was unable to add my name - and I lost points. Something like this can easily be avoided by all office programs being able to easily comply with AT LEAST one open format.
I especially dont think we should use MS's tactics against MS. We don't like MS simply *because* of its tactics. I could care less if they made a shitty OS - but, its thier tactics that make it so widespread and monopolized.
Again, I repeat -- I am not concerned with other peoples choice of office software, as long as it suits them, but it would be better for the masses if each office suite shared a nice file format.
Re:That seems like a good idea at first, but... (Score:3, Informative)
But they all already comply to at least one open format that I know of - namely, rich text format.
To avoid the problem, you'd have to either have all office software agree on a common native format, or have all office software able to read/write the data for all other office software.
Re:That seems like a good idea at first, but... (Score:2, Interesting)
We could really use something between rtf/ascii and ps/pdf files - editable, but still cross-platform, and preferably usable by many different programs. OO's format is a good start, but it won't really help matters until more things support it - in MS land, but also in linuxland.
Re:That seems like a good idea at first, but... (Score:1)
Using Open Office -- Free.
Asking the nice ladies in the Library if you can use their Typewriter -- Priceless.
Just a friendly suggestion as to what you can try next time this happens.
Re:That seems like a good idea at first, but... (Score:1)
Better to allow all software to read all formats, as well as is possible. Especially since everyone and their dog already uses Word - easier to get them to install a tiny plugin than the massive bulk of openoffice.
Re:That seems like a good idea at first, but... (Score:1)
Want MSOffice? Fine. Pay $500 more than I do, see if I care. Just send your documents with the standard protocal, and all is forgiven.
RMS may pummel you for not being 100% Free, but as long as the means of communication remain open I say we are winning. After MS has taken all their money and they are too poor to buy Office 17, then they'll switch to something Free.
Just make the documents large jpeg files. (Score:5, Funny)
Not worth it. (Score:2, Insightful)
Not even remotely feasible. Probably technically possible, but utterly pointless. Now you not only have to have Word 2k5 installed, but you need to download some plugin from somewhere in order to read a .doc file you found on the net.
Hint: "Oh, this file is corrupted. *DELETE*" is the first thing that will occur to any normal windows user upon trying to read your "open .doc" file.
It's only worthwhile to make outputting perfectly M$-compliant word documents. Otherwise your interoperability = zero.
Re:Not worth it. (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't see what this quesiton is about, between HTML and RTF, both of which Office supports, there is no need for anything more.
Re:Not worth it. (Score:2, Informative)
- HTML sucks for printers. (Especially when it comes to page seperation )
- RTF files have a tendency to be oversised when you embed images in your files. Try this: Type a document in word, put 7 large images, save as
Native formats are the best thing for making shure that you keep the intended formating.
Re:Not worth it. (Score:1)
I guess we should just ditch all the Postscript and PDF silliness. If only we had known that transferring incompatible native formats was the best way to preserve layout intention!
Re:Not worth it. (Score:2)
Ever try to update a docbook document that you exported to PDF?
Update PDFs back at the docbook level (Score:1)
Ever try to update a docbook document that you exported to PDF?
Easy. Just go back to the document's DocBook source code, change it, and recompile it to PDF.
HTML will stop sucking for printers (Score:3, Informative)
HTML sucks for printers. (Especially when it comes to page seperation )
HTML sucks, but the forthcoming CSS Paged Media [w3.org] won't.
Type a document in word, put 7 large images, save as .doc and as .rtf now compare the file sizes.
Now zip both files. If they're about the same size, you've found a solution to the problem.
RTF/HTML doesn't cut it (Score:4, Informative)
I'm afraid your solution seemed promising to me at one time as well, but it doesn't work. HTML is not a WYSIWYG language, it shouldn't be, and that's what is frequently needed in papers professional enough to hand in at work/college. And RTF doesn't render many things reliable from one application to another.
Most notably, I've found very serious table issues using when saving something as RTF from Word. Different versions of Word and Wordpad rendered it differently. Ultimately, the only solution for a reliable RTF that I've found is to stick with Wordpad entirely. Afraid that doesn't cut it when I need features found in Word simultaneously such as a self-generating table of contents/index/footnotes, complex page numbering, and so on. Further, RTF doesn't appear to have the capability to generate complicated table structures I need. (This is anectdotal -- I've never saved something complicated in RTF and had it preserved. I do not know for sure whether the format supports it, but the tools I use for it do not.)
Myself, I've only recently discovered OpenOffice.org due to the large amount of talk about it on Slashdot. I haven't used it much. Almost all of the writing I've needed to do lately has been hand, plain-text, or HTML.
But my girlfriend is a chemical engineer minoring in computer science. She didn't have the least bit of trouble with data structures. But she had never heard of OpenOffice.Org until I mentioned it to her recently. Her computer came with Microsoft Works which has interesting problems dealing with Microsoft Office. As such, she was restricted to doing most of her reports at school because her spreadsheets and reports didn't transfer well enough to justify the time of reformating. She hadn't heard of OpenOffice.Org until I mentioned it to her. At present, its ability to convert Microsoft Office documents has made her life easier.
Now here we have a relatively young person who is very technically proficient who could have benefited greatly from a product, but didn't for a long time because she didn't know. Do we see an advantage in increasing the visibility of this product in any fashion possible?
Re:RTF/HTML doesn't cut it (Score:1)
Of course (Score:2, Interesting)
I have converted several non-tech people over to Open Office, and they like it BETTER. It is faster, and cheaper. On a side note, I've also been spreading the word of Mozilla (the average user DOES want to use cool features like tabbed browsing, no popups, image blocking, etc. You just have to take the 5 minutes necessary to sit down an d introduce the benefits to them.
Neither does .doc (Score:2, Insightful)
HTML is not a WYSIWYG language, it shouldn't be
HTML+CSS with paged media, on the other hand, comes very close, at least as close as RTF.
And RTF doesn't render many things reliable from one application to another.
Neither does .doc. It may screw up layout between computers with different fonts, different versions of a font, or different versions of Microsoft Word software. If you want to preserve the exact look of a page while sacrificing editability, use PDF. If you want to preserve editability, use something like LaTeX, DocBook, or HTML+CSS.
RTF doesn't appear to have the capability to generate complicated table structures I need.
Then use HTML+CSS instead. Heck, HTML export programs used to do layout with tables.
Re:Not worth it. (Score:1)
Re:Not worth it. (Score:4, Interesting)
I have to do a weekly status report that gets emailed to all my co-workers and several managers. OpenOffice does MAPI, so GroupWise mails the document just fine. And compatible documents by OpenOffice, week after week, will open eyes. However, there is always the one picky manager (PHB) waiting to pounce. If I or another co-worker forget to save the thing in Word97 format just once, he will use it as a club to beat us 'wild ducks' into corporate submission. If I slip up, and he cannot read my status report, I will not be able to tell him the problem is his lack of a plugin. He is running the corporate standard. I'm the outsider trying to open the environment to allow for greater options.
Thankfully, OpenOffice has worked well so far. It even got rid of an annoying startup macro error message I had with the status report sample file. I had just resigned myself to living with this stupid MS Word error - every single time I opened the file, it spit at me. But OpenOffice is smarter than that. Hooray! Thank you Thank you Thank you to the programmers of OpenOffice!
Re:Not worth it. (Score:2)
But it is free (as in speech), so should not you just rewrite save code for yourself to always save in Word97 mode?
Re:Not worth it. (Score:2)
While OO's ability to make compatible documents will help spread awareness about OO's quality, it leaves the Open Source world playing catch up with MS forever. Large corporations will not switch over to OO since they never know when it will become incompatible (even if it is through no fault of its own) or how long it will take to become compatible again.
If, however, a plugin like the one we're discussing were to exist, A large corporation could easily make the switch over to OO or StarOffice little by little. It would give them an open file format to standardize on that they could be confident would work with their existing investment in Office apps, allowing users who are not comfortable with switching over to continue to use their existing MSOffice installation.
Corporations have no desire to be locked in by MS file formats - the (smart) people at the top have seen plenty of evidence that MS is just looking to squeeze every penny out of them. Standardizing on an open file format gives them freedom to choose whether they need to make the next upgrade that MS insists they should pay $300 per seat for.
Think about it, with this plugin, your PITA PHB could end up on the wrong side of the corporate standard regarding OO vs MSOffice.
(Writing this on no sleep, apologies if it's not as coherent as I mean it to be)
Re:Not worth it. (Score:2)
On the other hand, changing file formats at all seems to me to be picking the wrong battle. I've been through this battle before, and still see minor skirmishes waged. It was only painful, with no gain. I'm talking of course, about the conversion from WordPerfect to MS Word.
We even have one department, Legal Counsel, that cannot give up WordPerfect because of its ODMA capability. They have a document management system because that is what they do: documents. We may have 3000 copies of MS Word, but when dealing with the 20 people in this office, it is important that the document formatting not get too fancy. If WordPerfect can't read it in, you get to do it over.
So unless OpenOffice has some magic capability I don't know about, (which could very well be) maintaining compatibility with an older version of Microsoft Word would be the best plan. Embrace first, then worry about extending later.
Re:Not worth it. (Score:2)
Re:Not worth it. (Score:2)
Tools->Options->Load/Save->Standard File Format->Always Save As.
--
Re:Not worth it. (Score:1)
Install OpenOffice instead (Score:2)
What's the point ?
Let the user install OpenOffice instead, no need for a plugin ....
Re:Install OpenOffice instead (Score:1)
Re:Install OpenOffice instead (Score:1)
Not only that, but if you aren't allowed to install software on a system (at a job, etc.), it'd be nice to open a document that a customer sends with openoffice or any other hypothetical situation.
I think the idea is alright, but like said above it would be better to make OpenOffice documents compatible.
Install? What's that? (Score:1)
Let the user install
The user is not an administrator or "power user" and cannot run executables from C:\Documents and Settings. Now what?
Wrong way? (Score:4, Interesting)
For MS, the perfect office suite would be a package that could read everything and saved in a format nobody else could read. Seems that this is kind if thing would help that along...
Can there be any guarantee that, if we give MS the ability to read OpenOffice files, that OpenOffice will always be able to access MSWord files?
=Smidge=
Re:Wrong way? (Score:2)
I might add that this sounds a lot like the Adobe's position on Acrobat and Real's on RealPlayer: charge for the application to create content, but give out the client/reader for free (as in beer) to everyone. IOW they would release linux clients promptly instead of relying on volunteer efforts.
Re:Wrong way? (Score:1)
Microsoft .doc reader is binary only (Score:1)
Microsoft also offers free readers for their office documents
Microsoft's Office document viewer programs are x86 only, and they run slowly if at all in Bochs on non-x86 architecture computers.
Re:You can create pdf freely (Score:1)
A nice idea, but .. (Score:5, Interesting)
We rely on communicating with government, military and corporate entities, and their standard is Office. Period.
Whilst the import functions on openoffice are very good, they have to be (from a business critical aspect) absolutely 100% compatible -- and when you're dealing with multi-chapter doc files which use 90% of Word's capability, well, from my testings inhouse, I can't guarantee that level of accuracy. Images can move around, hide text, etc.
What I've done is start a different tactic within the organisation. All documents are PDF unless they require collaboration on the document. If collaboration is required, I'm now looking into a web-based solution (via our portal). Now, this does produce new challenges, but it does break the '.doc' monopoly.
Another damn important point is XML. With MSOffice moving towards their own XML, and with movement on producing an open standard for XML documents (slashdot article [slashdot.org] | actual link [oasis-open.org]), this may be the approach that ends this problem. But it's going to be some time yet.
This is going to be a slow moving issue. I recommend we all relax, keep working on this, and slow and steady will win the race
Re:A nice idea, but .. (Score:3, Interesting)
The other problem with this is the idea that simply having a common document format between Word and some other word processor would mean anything. Anyone remember Word PerfecT? It could do this. Word even read and wrote WP files in all versions. However it was almost always a royal pain in the ass having half a company's files in one format or the other. I did IT for a few years out of college and that was a headache at times.
No, if you want Open Office to succeed it has to handle NATIVELY all the various document formats that Microsoft handles. Further it must use those as their default out of the box if you want to have more clueless users using that software. Otherwise you'll have users saving their OpenOffice files, sending them to someone and that other person not being able to open it. Just because they COULD download some plug-in means little. They'll get upset about how you sent them a non-standard file.
The more hassle there is, the less likely it is to be adopted. Half the reason Office is so popular is because, for all its flaws, you just install and go. You KNOW it will work with everyone else.
That's the big achilles heel of Linux and BSD. Microsoft isn't developing Office for them. That's even the big selling point of OSX as a Unix desktop. It has Office without a lot of hassle. YEah the OSX version has problems and isn't 100% compatible with everything. But by and large it is install and go with few worries.
I'd bet that if Microsoft got worried about Apple all they'd have to do to seriously damage them is stop developing Office.
Re:A nice idea, but .. (Score:2)
However, MS is moving their office suite to XML - although whatever issues in understanding, interacting, levels of usage, licensing, etc are still mostly unknown. Some interesting reading:
- An article on InternetNews [internetnews.com] on OASIS
... with some info on what MS is already doing with XML. Light info, but it's a start.
- Usual Propaganda on MSDN [microsoft.com] on the new version of Visio
.. including some details on how XML is used with it.
- An article on New World Fusion [nwfusion.com] on how XML is used with the latest MSOffice beta
.. as part of the whole .net thing. One interesting point is that Word, Excel and Access are going to support XML .. no word on Outlook and/or Powerpoint
If this is any indication of what is going to happenRe:A nice idea, but .. (Score:2)
Re:A nice idea, but .. (Score:2)
Re:A nice idea, but .. (Score:2)
Images can move around, hide text, etc.
So? This happens even if you use only MSWord! Slightly different versions, different underlying DLLs, different printer drivers, etc. etc. etc. If you really expect the same document to produce the same output on different machines, and the document is at all complex, Word just ain't going to cut it.
(I suppose it's possible that Word has dramatically improved in this respect since Office '97, but it seems unlikely.)
DANG vern... (Score:3, Insightful)
[OT] Scientific Journals (Score:2)
What I would really like is scientific journals to adopt a standard WYSIWYG open file format for text submissions.
Most accept MS Word, some exclusively. Some will accept LaTeX, but if you are are collaborating with people who are used to MS Word on MacOS and Windows (as most biologists are), this isn't a viable option.
If MS Word could read & write OpenOffice files reliably and the OpenOffice files format had all the features needed for authoring scientific manuscipts and grant proposals, this could be a huge step forward.
~Phillip
Why use M$ office? (Score:1)
The DOJ settlement should have forced Microsoft to release all of their file formats and APIs to the public domain. Their only purpose in protecting them is to make it as difficult as possible for competing products interoperate with Micro$oft products.
Boycott Microsoft Office and support efforts to create completely interchangeable competitors to it.
Re:Why use M$ office? (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course, MS is trying to protect their market position with Office by manipulating file formats. Why would you expect them to do anything different? MacDonald's manipulates its products and recipes to protect its market position, too.
I suspect that only people who choose their software for ideological reasons will make an effort to do a standards end-run around Office.
The real solution here, as elsewhere, is for open source to give consumers something innovative that makes Office obsolete.
Re:Why use M$ office? (Score:1)
Yep, and that would be....? How about a product that is interoperable, has a low sticker price, and liberal license terms. It's pretty much after the fact. And your absolutely right about why most people use what they do -- their bosses have it installed in the office. Now the tables turn. The economy is tight, most forcasts of IT spending budget of about 5 to 10% of the overall corporate budget. Buy Office 11 and all the per seat licenses is pretty much gonna drain a large amount of an IT departments budget. The problem is two fold. A) since most of the previous documents are store/filed away in the present MS format, so where's the product that will afford the company to use any old files. B) Say there is an office suite/word processor program that does allow you access to all those old MS formatted files - Is one sure that they are able to convince the one holding the purse strings that it's feasible and adoption of a new Office suite won't mean everyone needs to be trained on it?
Re:Why use M$ office? (Score:2)
"...that isn't any better that free ones but was deliberately designed to be noninteroperable with any other office suite..."
Two things: 1) Microsoft Office is usualy better for the average user, it has go a load of functions (of which half have never been touched), nice intuit handling of tables and such, the ability to get layout done quick'n dirty *or* using stylesdefinitions and such, 2) it is one-way noninteroperable, this is to lock customers to the Microsoft product. Actually, this is the Microsoft idea, this is was gives them their huge loads of cash: 1) take a standard, 2) add nice features, 3) claim to support the standard (they do), 4) read all, output unreadable (to others)...
I agree that the DOJ settlement was too weak, but remember, money talks (otherwise Bush wouldn't be the president, but the village fool). The only purpose for protecting them is that they do not only dominate the US market, but also the European, Asian and all other markets, which brings money into the US.
I very much support the efforts to create free alternatives. My problem is the lack of features and lack of scriptability. Also, basic user training is missing and lots of nice educational material. You must remember that for a corporation $300 per user isn't much if they can avoid paying for training (most users have used Office and (at least claim to) know it fairly well).
Re:Why use M$ office? (Score:2)
Why would any right-minded person use M$ office?
Because it works? In the last week I have discovered a wonderful bug in Star Office 5.2 (to add to the 'hang when trying to write to floppy' one that had me going a few months ago). You load in a .doc file with an image, works fine, prints fine, you make some minor edits and save it as a .doc file, and, hey presto, half the text has gone. Except the only way to discover this is to reopen the file you have just saved, which is not something I tend to do very often.
We're going to move onto Open Office 6 shortly, and maybe that particular problem has been fixed, but this sort of problem is always going to happen when you are trying to reverse engineer someone's proprietary format, and some people want to do their job rather than fight quixotic wars against Microsoft.
standardise the XML schema (Score:2)
once this figurative pig has flown we should place our faith in some inspired individual or company to embrace the MS "standard", deconvolute and extend it, and submit it to the ISO.
i find it hard to believe that MS will go about implementing filters for other, virtually unheard-of word processor file formats. besides, it is better i think to have a single file format for any given file "type" and then to have many competing implementations of the application which uses it, aux HTML and browsers.
Re:standardise the XML schema (Score:2)
Ahh, but what's the same "type?" JPEGs are better than PNGs for some things, and vice versa. At least in the early going, new file formats for the same content type are a good thing. They add capabilities. I'm absolutely shocked by some of the things that EPS doesn't support. Did they really think they'd get away without alpha transparency?
Sigh.
It's only once features have stabilized that it makes sense to standardize a format. And even then, there aren't many One True File Formats around.
Re:standardise the XML schema (Score:1)
yeah, my definition of "type" in the context used was pretty vague i guess. image and audio file formats (and almost anything for which high compression is an implicit goal) are pretty much moving targets all of the time, so i'll suitably exclude them from my intended meaning
in the office arena though, it'd be nice to have everyone play nice over a single, standardised file format or XML schema, and then compete on application implementation.
but sure, i basically agree, though if you abstract your definition of "file formats" to mean "information formats" then there's quite a few standard file formats around: htmlbrowsers, httphttp clients, smtpemail clients, etc
cheers, matt
Re:standardise the XML schema (Score:1)
AbiWord (Score:1)
Re:AbiWord (Score:2)
BZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!
Thanks for playing corporate solutions 101. Wendy, what consolation prizes has our player won?
(/sarcasm)
Tried it, and it truly mangled large documents. If you want to try out some of these thing (and i REALLY recommend people do this) is to:
1) grab a bucketload of text, format it a bit, insert a bunch of images (different formats), multi-column sections, etc. Go nuts.
2) save this file a dozen times, and make some simple formatting changes on each of them.
3) create a document to call on these documents
4) print the whole sucker out (another tree
5) import this file into openoffice, abiword, staroffice, kword, whatever.
Now IF you can load it, that's just the first step. The next step is to print it out and check both. The final check is to view each file, side by side.
When I find an app that can do this, I'll spam slashdot (and the rest of the known world) with my findings. Until then, I'll just grumble to myself quietly in the corner.
Support for standard DTD / XSD rather than plugins (Score:2)
I would prefer, that all the Office Productivity Suites, start supporting standard Document Models (DTDs/XSD) for content creation and management. DTDs like DocBook, WebSite etc. should be in all suites. Also Strict-XHTML suppport should be provided.
Offcourse this would no one would be able to monopolize the market by using obscure file format. But atleast this way, the war will move to "Content Creation" areas. Vendors will hopefull try to compete to include support for additional Document Models.
OpenOffice has it's own DTD, and I bet MS will soon implement its own DTD. This is now the right way to do things. They should work on to defining a standard DTD. But we all that is not going to happen. A happy medium would be to provide XSLTs to go from one DTD to another.
Re:Support for standard DTD / XSD rather than plug (Score:1)
Well, sorry to say but this is the reason tha M$ using it's document format. They figured out a long time ago that once you get the majority market share that moving away from standards that implement interoperability ensures that if anyone wants to read the majority of document formats that they "must" buy the product that currently has the largest market share -- Just ask Corel.
Once M$ office/word got above the 50% point in share they started to implement their own version of document standards. It didn't take long before pretty much everyone was singing the M$ Office Suite tune.
XML (Score:3)
Microsoft users should just shut up (Score:2)
We made, just for their sorry asses (because we don't use such a thing by ourselves) all kinds of lightweight Office-style programs -- they demanded feature-by-feature equivalence even though most of them have no idea what those features are.
We achieved feature equivalence by creating horrendously bloated programs, almost as bloated as MS Office, and those things are still available for them for free -- they demanded compatibility with
We have made filters that produce
Did anyone try to understand how ridiculous the situation is now? There are perfectly usable, full replacements for MS Office programs, users can get them for free, developers can stick their code into them, everything works perfectly, and the very worst things that may happen are that MS Office will put wrong margin at the document exported from OpenOffice, or OpenOffice won't run MS Office virus.
WHAT THE [SKIPPED] DO THEY EXPECT NOW? That we will pay them for using our software? That OpenOffice will come with free version of MS Office, signed by Gates, and a box set of DVDs with all Ballmer's drunk dances and speeches? Or are they planning to pay Microsoft $300-$500 every two years until someone will get so fed up with this that he will blow up the Microsoft "campus" in Redmond?
This is absolutely ridiculous -- people that now demand complete compatibility with MS Office lost all traces of shame and decency, and if they have any they should just take our gift and shut up. Thanks are optional.
Re:Microsoft users should just shut up (Score:2)
Nice troll, but I'll bite.
It's not ridiculous to ask for 100% (or at least 99 and 44/100ths percent) compatibility with MS-Word. Like it or not, MS-Word is the standard in business. If you're going to work in the business world, you at the very least need to read and produce docs in MS-Word format. "Almost" ain't good enough to get an application accepted. People will just see that documents created by said app look like crap in MS-Word (or, worse, can't even be opened in Word!) and will disregard the app as "not good enough".
I think you misunderstand the users' requirements. They don't want an Open Source / Free Software office suite that has all the functionality of MS-Office, but a different file format. They want drop-in compatibility, so they can read and produce documents from and for users of the de facto standard. And telling your customers/clients "switch to this relatively unknown program" isn't a solution.
An aside: While job hunting this past summer, I sent my resume around as HTML. I had more than one potential employer ask, "Can you send this to me in Word format instead?" Never mind the fact that MS-Word will happily open an HTML file, these epsilon-minus HR drones couldn't deal with it if it they couldn't double-click and have Word open right up. I would not have wanted to send an OpenOffice DOC file that looked crummy in honest-to-goodness MS-Word. And, now that I'm employed again, I would not like to send an OpenOffice DOC file to a customer.
Do I think it's possible to create an open source app with 100% file compatibility with MS-Word? No, not until there's an open document format supported by MS-Word, one which has all the features of a Word document. Which probably means never, which probably means that OpenOffice will always occupy the same niche as Corel's WordPerfect office suite. The secondary players will compete with each other, but without 100% MS-Office support none will ever touch the 500lb. gorilla.
Re:Microsoft users should just shut up (Score:2)
It's not ridiculous to ask for 100% (or at least 99 and 44/100ths percent) compatibility with MS-Word.
This is already done in OpenOffice.
Like it or not, MS-Word is the standard in business. If you're going to work in the business world, you at the very least need to read and produce docs in MS-Word format.
The standard must, and will be changed. Until that will happen, conversion to Word is a sufficient temporary measure.
"Almost" ain't good enough to get an application accepted. People will just see that documents created by said app look like crap in MS-Word (or, worse, can't even be opened in Word!) and will disregard the app as "not good enough".
Documents converted to MS Word format look JUST FINE for any imaginable purpose already. Demanding pixel-for-pixel compatibility is ridiculous, it has nothing to do with purpose and usability of the document.
I think you misunderstand the users' requirements. They don't want an Open Source / Free Software office suite that has all the functionality of MS-Office, but a different file format. They want drop-in compatibility, so they can read and produce documents from and for users of the de facto standard. And telling your customers/clients "switch to this relatively unknown program" isn't a solution.
There NEVER will be a complete drop-in compatibility as long as Microsoft does not publish its formats. However everything works for any imaginable purpose, and the program is free as both speech and beer. It's absolutely ridiculous for any large organization not to switch to it, as the benefits are obvious, and shortcomings are largely from the realm of FUD. If someone does not like OpenOffice formats, he can use export to PDF, and if he needs to allow editing and re-editing, why is he so obsessed with formatting?
An aside: While job hunting this past summer, I sent my resume around as HTML. I had more than one potential employer ask, "Can you send this to me in Word format instead?" Never mind the fact that MS-Word will happily open an HTML file, these epsilon-minus HR drones couldn't deal with it if it they couldn't double-click and have Word open right up. I would not have wanted to send an OpenOffice DOC file that looked crummy in honest-to-goodness MS-Word. And, now that I'm employed again, I would not like to send an OpenOffice DOC file to a customer.
If someone has problems with _that_, he is either:
In either case you should be thankful that they don't read your resume, but the point is moot because any resume will convert perfectly from OpenOffice to Word format.
Do I think it's possible to create an open source app with 100% file compatibility with MS-Word? No, not until there's an open document format supported by MS-Word, one which has all the features of a Word document. Which probably means never, which probably means that OpenOffice will always occupy the same niche as Corel's WordPerfect office suite. The secondary players will compete with each other, but without 100% MS-Office support none will ever touch the 500lb. gorilla.
Microsoft did not achieve dominance by being completely compatible with its competitors. This meabs that products that use open formats will not have to do that either. They already are easier to obtain, they cost nothing to install (and no, they don't require "training" either), so the only thing that keeps Microsoft being 500lb. gorilla (that is actually 5lb. cardboard cut-out of a 500lb. gorilla) is inertia and people like you who most likely never bothered to see what they are criticizing. Inertia is not forever, and Microsoft has only two products that give it profit -- Windows and Office. If we will manage to replace Office in a large enough segment of computer-using population, Microsoft will choke and die no matter what else will happen, so we should rather work on that. Even if it will take punching every Microsoft-lover in the face.
Re:Microsoft users should just shut up (Score:1)
the only valid reason I can think of a corporation to not switch away is an investiment into other office components which are not present in OpenOffice, or a (unconscious) belief that all software on their desktops must come from a single vendor to ensure compatibility (I mean M$ Project and Outlook here, as well as `OS' itself.)
Microsoft did not achieve dominance by being completely compatible with its competitors. This meabs that products that use open formats will not have to do that either.
Remember the embrace and extend strategy? It is wrong that Open Office is not compatible with M$ Office, it is, and the only places where it is not is when there is a <marketing> added value </marketing> which is good to the user.
You're not going to get a VBA/"MS Office plugin" (Score:2)
Now, you have yourself two war chiefs:
One, the advocate of open source. There are several reasons, mostly ideological I'm sure, that an open source programmer or office document workflow/application coder will not write this piece. I think one of them is that they will likely refuse to use Visual Basic for Applications for anything, even encapsulating their Perl or Javascript module into a VBA "application" to run as a macro on Office. Whether they know MS development environments or not; I doubt they'd do it. Most of them are deliberately avoiding MS development environments for any reasons like affordability, desire to not learn the GUI, or ethical reasons. I won't debate the loftiness or lack thereof of this choice at this point; that's not the purpose of my post.
The other group; the folks that develop applications with Microsoft tools, will simply find no reason to port OpenOffice documents to your Office97-OfficeXP or "11" suite. It's not going to make them money and/or their boss isn't going to ask for it. If they have users or consultants that do not use Office they will still request it in text, RTF, or optimally Word format. A huge number of IT recruiters will only accept resumes in Word format - even for UNIX and IBM mainframe jobs. If someone is writing anything other than email and they don't have the latest and greatest; I know a lot of support people that won't hesitate to drop Office 97 on the computer, at the very least until whatever 'standard' Office environment the company is using - 2000 or XP - can be brought in. A small clique of those are on SMS and have site licenses so they load it when someone asks for it.
All arguments for or against MS aside; unless it is a government office or small business with little means to acquire the software; I don't go many places where they aren't running at least Office 97 or MS Works. I set things up with older word processors or Open Office for a couple of home offices and such; but they call me a week later asking how much it will cost them for Office or if they buy a new computer can they get it included.
Re:You're not going to get a VBA/"MS Office plugin (Score:2)
All arguments for or against MS aside; unless it is a government office or small business with little means to acquire the software; I don't go many places where they aren't running at least Office 97 or MS Works. I set things up with older word processors or Open Office for a couple of home offices and such; but they call me a week later asking how much it will cost them for Office or if they buy a new computer can they get it included.
Did they actually have problems, or did they just get asked by someone if they have Microsoft Office, answered "no" because you did not explain them what OpenOffice is, and panicked? I guess, if they are going to buy a new computer just to use MS Office, it's your fault for not explaining what they are getting, not their.
Re:You're not going to get a VBA/"MS Office plugin (Score:2)
Re:You're not going to get a VBA/"MS Office plugin (Score:2)
No, they come back and tell me they can't get anything done the way they want to; or are missing some feature or another; or do not want to learn a new Office suite.
There is absolutely no learning involved.
Rarely, but even still sometimes, they cannot share materials with other business the way they would like
Translation: what I have said before -- someone asked them if they have MS Office and you forgot to tell them to say "yes"
or they can't take it home which is another thing.
WHAT???????? Of course, they can take OpenOffice home. It's free.
But that "compatibility" issue isn't as prevalent as the resistance to change, I think.
There is no change that they will see. The only problem is that you haven't explained it to them -- but then if they actually worked with OpenOffice and then asked for another computer with MS Office, it would be absolutely pointless, therefore I think that either:
Either is your fault.
Re:You're not going to get a VBA/"MS Office plugin (Score:2)
HOWEVER - I'm not a flaming-sword waving anti-corporate, anti-MS, anti-paying-for-software anything. If someone's amenable to something and I have a solution for it, voila. I'm looking right now for something other than Paint Shop Pro v7 for someone because I remember my version 5 being $99 and I know they don't have $99 to spend.
So whether it's my fault or not is flying f**k, rolling doughnut. Any more questions?
Re:You're not going to get a VBA/"MS Office plugin (Score:2)
Therefore you are either a FUDmeister from Microsoft, or a pawn in its game -- in either case your "customers' problems" can be dismissed as Microsoft propaganda. Shut up.
Re:You're not going to get a VBA/"MS Office plugin (Score:2)
It *is* possible... (Score:2)