Chad Smith wrote:
I wouldn't say those pros make it sound like a cheap MS rip-off, those
are the 3 most important reasons most people use OOo. Take away any
one of those, and you'll lose a large part of our user-base.
They are important, but if that's your list, it really does make it
sound like a cheap MS rip-off.
* Uses OpenDocument natively, so your data is secure.
Very few people care about this (as has been discussed at great
length) and is hardly a selling point for OOo.
It depends on who you are. Some large customers care a lot. If you don't
have any document older than a week old and none of your documents is
critical, then I guess this isn't an issue for you.
* Higher reliability. You're less likely to lose a document.
Explain what you mean by that - not just for me, but for the OP and
other readers.
An zip compressed XML file (like ODF) is significantly less prone to
failure than a binary dump (like .doc). First, XML files are well
structured with defined schemas. One upshot of that is that you can lose
a fair bit of structural data and still rebuild the entire document
without loss. For example, take this document:
<addressbook>
<contact>
<first>Joe</first>
<last>Smith</last>
<phone>123-456-7890</phone>
...
</contact>
...
</addressbook>
Now, let's introduce a file corruption:
<addressbook>
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
<first>Joe</first>
<last>Smith</last>
<pho--34>123-456-7890</>
...
</contact>
...
</addebk>
This is a fairly severe data corruption. A lot of bytes have been lost.
Yet, you can use the XML schema to reconstruct all the lost data. If an
equivalent corruption had occurred on a binary dump, the entire document
would be lost because you would have lost the top-level pointer
(<addressbook>) that leads you to the rest of the document.
Compressing the XML into a ZIP file does negate some of the advantage,
but not very much. ZIP compression is designed to be resilient. A
corrupt ZIP file can usually be reconstructed automatically with little
or no loss of data. And when you apply the XML schema to whatever you
get back, you can usually correct whatever the ZIP algorithm couldn't.
* Features that work. Consider styles, master documents and templates.
Templates? Um, if you're comparing OOo to MSO (as I believe this
thread is meant to do) templates would be a pro for MSO and a con for
OOo - there are thousands,
There are very few OOo templates, and that's a con for OOo, no doubt.
But here I was talking about reliability. For example, no one uses MS
Office master documents because the damm things just don't work. Someone
(I forget who) one said "a master document can only be in two states:
corrupt, and about to be corrupt". OOo master documents are
significantly more reliable. OOoAuthors uses master documents on every
book we produce and they work.
* Includes a vector graphics application (MS Office does not).
Visio does that, but it doesn't come with MSO proper.
Correct, it's not part of MSO. We're comparing with MSO.
You can copy and paste from one MSO app to the next. You can open
Word Docs as objects in Excel, or Excel spreadsheets in PowerPoint.
I'd say OOo and MSO tie there.
Not really. OOo is a single app with a common format. You might think
that .odt, .ods, etc are different formats, but they really are just
one. The extension is really for your benefit, nothing more. This same
property holds for OOo internally.
Included one-button PDFs from any file
Easy task switching
Flash Export of presentations
Can be used along side of existing software
No registration or activitation required (no legal issues, can be put
on any number of machines)
Included Vector graphics program
Resistant to macro-based viruses
Those are good additions. I removed things that, though important, are
not what I'd call "features" in the sense of "OOo has this and MSO does
not".
I don't know what you mean by easy task switching.
Cheers,
Daniel.
--
/\/`) http://oooauthors.org
/\/_/ http://opendocumentfellowship.org
/\/_/
\/_/ I am not over-weight, I am under-tall.
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