krw wrote:
> In article <48fc31bc$0$25384$8404b019@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
> david@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
says...
>> krw wrote:
>>> In article <6m187dFee7g6U1@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
>>> dirk.bruere@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
says...
>>>> krw wrote:
>>>>> In article <6luv1iFe90meU1@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
>>>>> dirk.bruere@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
says...
>>>>>> JeffM wrote:
<snip>
>>>>>> I cannot understand why anyone would buy MS products when this is
free.
>>>>> Because, unless you are doing trivial work, it isn't compatible with
>>>>> the other 99.9% who would rather pay for software.
>> We've been using a mix of OOo (mostly the <http://go-oo.org/>
version
at
>> the moment) and MS Office at my company since OOo was still Star
Office.
>> There are still a few machines that have MS Office, which is useful
>> for the odd difficult do***ent (sometimes there are layout issues when
>> im****ting MS do***ents with complex tables or numbering, and word
>> do***ents with embedded excel spreadsheets don't work).
>
> So you admit that OOo is incompatible with complicated M$O
> applications, particularly Excel spreadsheets.
>
It is certainly incompatible with Word do***ents with embedded Excel
do***ents. But then, so is MS Word if you don't have the whole Office
pack, and so are different versions of MS Office. Perhaps this will
change as MS is forced to provide more do***entation on their formats.
But either way, it makes no practical difference to me - I've rarely had
to look at such do***ents, and in most cases it was just someone being a
smartass.
Of course, different people use programs in different ways - if you make
a lot of use of advanced features such as macros and integration between
programs, then you'll have a lot more trouble converting to a different
program suite (and that includes converting *to* MS Office, as well as
converting away from it). Pick the best tool for the job - OOo is the
best office pack for my office, but that doesn't mean it's the best for
everyone.
>> But it's been a
>> good while since we bought any new MS Office licenses. We choose OOo
>> for a number of reasons:
>
> Irrelevant.
>
Not really. OOo is an active choice for us, not just a "free" option.
>> It's a standard, and it uses standard do***ent formats.
>
> It may use "standard" formats, but it is most certainly *not* a
> standard. In particular Calc is really messed up.
>
It works fine as far as I've seen. I've had to help other users here
with occasional problems with Excel that were non-issues with Calc. But
if you don't like Calc, there are other programs that work with the
standard ODF formats (like KOffice - coming soon to Windows if you don't
like *nix).
I'm not suggesting everyone should switch to OOo - I am merely
explaining why it is the right choice for us, and could be the right
choice for others. I think the freedom of choice is im****tant - that's
why it is a good thing that MS will sup****t ODF (as long as they don't
try "embrace, extend, extinguish"), as it gives users more choice of how
to access their data.
>> It's better than newer MS Office for working with older MS Office
do***ents.
>
> Only if you have no clue what you're doing with M$O. OOo has horrid
> spreadsheet compatibility (the main reason I cannot use it).
>
I've helped out customers who had old Excel 95 files that they could not
open in newer versions of Excel - I used OOo to open said files, and
re-save them in a newer Excel format. That's my personal experience -
obviously that's going to different from yours.
>> It works on any machine, any OS, any Windows version, any service pack.
>
> Equally badly.
>
>> We can upgrade when as and when *we* want, not when some other company
>> dictates. And the upgrade is independent of everything else on the
system.
>
> I'm still using Office '97 (and OOo) at home and '03 at work. No
> one is forcing me to "upgrade".
>
>> We don't have to install "security updates", or worry about macro
>> viruses (the only viruses we've had at our company were macro viruses).
>
> You're lucky. Of course macros are a pretty im****tant feature for
> anyone using Excel for more than lists.
>
We're not lucky - we are careful and sensible. But we made the mistake
of trusting data files sent from an American partner company which
turned out to be infected.
Spreadsheets can do an enormous amount without bothering with macros -
the huge majority of users (of Excel, Calc, or any other part of either
office suite) have no concept of what macros are or how to use them.
Yet they make good use of the tools. If you find you need macros all
the time, then either you work regularly with much more advanced
spreadsheets than most users, or you haven't noticed the little
"function wizard" button.
>> We don't have to suffer a f***ed up software update system that can
lock
>> up a PC for hours during automatic MS Office updates even though
updates
>> were explicitly turned off.
>
> Office doesn't force updates on me. Windows does (and that can be
> turned off), but no office updates. At work, updates (to Windows)
> are done at night. The automatic reboot pisses me off, but...
>
I've seen it happen (you can do some web searching if you want - it was
about a year ago, IIRC) - PC's with particular versions of Office got
stuck as a result of an update (despite automatic updates on Office
being turned off) which caused them to spend many hours at 100% cpu time
on the update process.
>> We can work together with our customers and partners that use OOo as
>> well as those that use MS Office.
>
> Only if your customers are simpletons.
>
Yes, I'm sure you've found the reason why some people choose OOo.
>> We can freely mix and match languages for the interface and for
>> dictionaries.
>>
>> We can ex****t to pdf directly from OOo, giving much better pdf's than
>> you can get from MS Office + Acrobat Distiller, much faster.
>
> There are many PDF printers available, beer-free.
>
There are also speech-free PDF printers
(<http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/>
being the one we use).
But just like Distiller, they work as printers. You lose information
such as links, clickable table of context, references, and indexes.
Distiller can get you some of that information, but it takes work. With
OOo, all you need to do is make proper use of paragraph styles (which
you should do anyway), and you get a fully structured pdf in a fraction
of the time.
>> Employees can install OOo freely, legally, safely, and easily on their
>> home machines.
>>
>> Oh, and it's free.
>
> Free isn't a very useful feature if it doesn't work. OOo Calc is
> brain-dead.
>
I agree that the cost-price is a minor issue at this price level
(figuring out what licenses you need, and what licenses you have, can
cost more in time than the software cost itself). That's why I gave it
as the last reason.
If Calc doesn't work for you, pick something else. It works fine for
me, and others at my company, and millions of others around the world.
I'm sure it has its limits, and I'm sure there are features in Excel
that Calc doesn't have, and that a certain pro****tion of users want
those features - that certainly applies to the pdf generation feature of
Calc that does not exist in Excel.
I'm curious - what is it that Excel can do that Calc cannot? Is it just
the im****t/ex****t of complex Excel do***ents with macros, or are there
things that you simply cannot do correctly with Calc? As I said, I have
had no problems - but I don't use it very much. Other people here have
no problem using Calc for budgets, analysis, planning, charting, and all
sorts of other uses (no macros that I know of, however).
>> Even if OOo and MS Office were the same price, I'd still prefer OOo. I
>> have a number of licenses for MS Office (or at least MS Word) that came
>> "free" with PCs over the years - I've never bothered installing them.
>>
>>
>>>> Well, a number of governments think different.
>>> ^ly
>>>
>>> So? The *fact* is that OO is not compatible past the rudiments,
>>> with M$. It matters not, why or who is (in)compatible with whom.
>>>
>>>> And the way I heard it, it is MS who has been forced into
compatibility
>>>> with ODF
>>> Nonsense. M$ doesn't care about compatibility with M$.
>>>
>> You might have a typo there, but it's true that MS Office has poor
>> compatibility with older MS Office versions!
>
> No, I don't have a typo there. I have *no* love for M$. In this
> case, there is no good alternative (to Excel).
>
>> MS certainly don't *care* about compatibility with anything non-MS.
But
>> they *do* care about large markets. ODF is an ISO standard, and is the
>> mandated standard for steadily more governments and official bodies
>> around the world. OOXML is a flop - MS are aware of how badly they
>> messed it up, and what a PR failure it was. The continuing process of
>> ISO ratification serves only to destroy ISO's reputation - it will not
>> make OOXML a real standard. Added to this, the OOXML quasi-standard at
>> ISO is not the same as the OOXML used by the latest MS Office versions.
>> In fact, MS sees it as easier to implement ODF sup****t than to
sup****t
>> ISO-OOXML (perhaps because the former is a proper specified and
>> do***ented format). MS has made a tactical withdrawal on formats, and
>> wants people to standardise on ODF using MS Office (once they've got
the
>> next version out, of course).
>
> <sheesh>
>
MS are rapidly losing their lock-in with office file formats - ODF is
increasingly popular, and OOo does everything the majority of office
suite users need. Strong sup****t for ODF is the only way they have a
chance to regain those lost users.
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