Re: [discuss] Re: Re: .doc compatibility
On Mon, February 25, 2008 7:51 am, jonathon wrote: On Sun, Feb 24, 2008 at 11:14 PM, M. Fioretti wrote: - being sent to MS Office users who edit it as they please If the users did use styles with MSO, those styles would be available in ODF, albeit with a different name. If they did not use styles that the creators of those MSO files did not used styles was very likely since the beginning of this thread and seems almost certain now. then expecting OOo to recognize non-existing styles, is akin to expecting polar bears to give birth to tigers. my point was that in these conditions, or in any other real world giving suggestions to use styles or expecting that such suggestions have any relevance or usefulness is more or less the same thing. Of course, the suggestion to use styles is an excellent one, regardless of whether MSO or OOo are used: but it is fully applicable only by users who start from scratch and must never exchange/co-edit their new files with third parties who couldn't care less of styles, which is not the case of this thread. This is what I meant. This story is an excellent _example_ of why everybody should always use styles in MSO and / or OOo, but little or nothing of the suggestions given so far is actually practicable by the OP. Marco -- Help *everybody* love Free Standards and Software: http://digifreedom.net - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] Re: Re: .doc compatibility
If the users did use styles with MSO, those styles would be available in ODF, albeit with a different name. Hello Jonathon, I am afraid I will have to disagree. I can provide links to MSO documents made very professionally using styles throughout that still don't convert nicely in OOo. Indentations for example are not correct, outline numbering disappears (and with it the ToC) and so on. In general I have to say that I am fairly satisfied with the conversion and my main grudge is with anchored objects (frames, images) that are consistently misplaced in when OOo renders the MSO documents, but I understood from one developer (don't remember who) that this won't be solved since MSO handles anchoring in a very mysterious way. Cheers, Michele
Re: [discuss] Re: Re: .doc compatibility
On Monday 25 February 2008 21:37:53 M. Fioretti wrote: On Mon, February 25, 2008 7:51 am, jonathon wrote: On Sun, Feb 24, 2008 at 11:14 PM, M. Fioretti wrote: - being sent to MS Office users who edit it as they please If the users did use styles with MSO, those styles would be available in ODF, albeit with a different name. If they did not use styles that the creators of those MSO files did not used styles was very likely since the beginning of this thread and seems almost certain now. then expecting OOo to recognize non-existing styles, is akin to expecting polar bears to give birth to tigers. my point was that in these conditions, or in any other real world giving suggestions to use styles or expecting that such suggestions have any relevance or usefulness is more or less the same thing. What I was saying was that people need training in using stylist, then they will understand why there are issues and can fix those issues easily. Of course, the suggestion to use styles is an excellent one, regardless of whether MSO or OOo are used: but it is fully applicable only by users who start from scratch and must never exchange/co-edit their new files with third parties who couldn't care less of styles, which is not the case of this thread. This is what I meant. This story is an excellent _example_ of why everybody should always use styles in MSO and / or OOo, but little or nothing of the suggestions given so far is actually practicable by the OP. The obvious problem was that the Migration process and planning was half baked. It was little to do with the End Users in the Office or OOo's incompatibility, both of which took a measure of the blame. The OP however was studiously avoiding the real root of the problem. I find this quite commonly and often get pulled into a migration process after the whole thing has come unstuck exactly as he described. Invariably it comes down to training and usually because training is done by people who have no ability or training as instructors. If I can offer two concrete suggestions that are based in experience they would be Plan the Migration Hire a Trainer For the OP's situation, the prognosis is bad. Any future migration will be tainted by this failure Marco Cheers GL -- Graham Lauder, OpenOffice.org MarCon (Marketing Contact) NZ http://marketing.openoffice.org/contacts.html INGOTs Moderator New Zealand www.theingots.org.nz GET DRESSED : GET OOOGEAR Gear for the well dressed OOo Advocate www.ooogear.co.nz - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] Re: Re: .doc compatibility
andreas moroder wrote: M. Fioretti wrote: On Sat, Feb 23, 2008 17:49:42 PM +, jonathon wrote: (four times) Styles are not being correctly used. since this, even outside of this thread, is one of the most frequent issues, then maybe OOo/ODF styles are very poorly advertised and documented, but this is a side topic. The OP clearly said that this is a problem of interoperability with MS Office users and/or documents. So maybe this is not really a case where OOo/ODF styles aren't correctly used: this is a case where such styles have never been used, because they didn't exist where those documents were created; and maybe a case where such styles simply _cannot_ be used, because such information is lost every time a file goes in .doc format back and forth between OOo and MS Office users. Are we sure this isn't the case here? That's right. The old documents were .doc and they have to remain .doc because of interoperability with other entities. No politics in this case, simply a office with to much power. It is an office that does not know how to use their tools correctly. Maybe OOo is not _their_ chosen tool: from the initial message it is not to be excluded that IT tried to switch users without them asking for it or even knowing when the switch would happen. There are cases where migration was indeed done this way, nobody noticed or complained and a few people where even really happy that the last version of MS Office finally doesn't crash and runs quite faster! They did know, they even got short courses but they did not really understand that there are incompatibilities. But of course, it all depends on how complex the existing MS Office files are and on how much the users have to interact, editing files together, with external MS Office users. They are not that complex. There are even very simple documents that look different on ooo. Maybe you can prepare some example docs containing the same formats that cause the problems and i am sure the writer team will take a closer look on it. Submit an issue with the docs attached. Juergen Bye Andreas - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] Donations
2008/2/21, Paul [EMAIL PROTECTED]: I was willing to make a donation but had to cancel the procedure because you expect me to tell you my telephone number which I am not prepared to tell you. Why do you need that information ? Let me make my donation w/o sending information about tel ext. Thanks -- Hartmut A. Paul Hello Paul, I suppose it's PayPal that's asking for tel numbers etc. You can make a donation by bank transfer (and it makes it easier for you, since the bank is located in Germany...) See: http://contributing.openoffice.org/donate.html HTH -- Guy using dutch OOo 2.3 m221 on a iMac Intel DualCore Tiger and brazilian OOo SRC 680 m241 on an Intel MacBook Pro Leopard -- please reply only to [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Dodoes can't afford to have headaches
Re: [discuss] Re: Re: .doc compatibility
Michele wrote: I am afraid I will have to disagree. I can provide links to MSO documents made very professionally using styles throughout that still don't convert nicely in OOo. Indentations for example are not correct, outline numbering disappears (and with it the ToC) and so on. * Presentation markup styles; * Content markup styles; Both MSO and OOo tend to confuse both of those types of styles. Unfortunately, they don't confuse the same thing for each type of style. These are trivial annoyances that can be fixed in a heartbeat by those who understand styles, _and_ consistently use them. When styles are not consistently used, then the results are unpredictable. This is as true for MSO - OOo conversion as it is for MSO - MSO conversion. xan jonathon -- OOo can not correct for incompetence in creating documents from MSO. Furthermore,OOo can not compensate for the defective and flawed security measures used by Microsoft. As such, before using this product for exams that require faulty and defective software, ensure that you will not be unjustly penalized for the incompetence of the organization that requires the use of software that is known to be flawed, defective, bug-ridden, and fails to meet ISO file format standards. - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] Re: Re: .doc compatibility
Jonathon, I am afraid I will have to disagree. I can provide links to MSO documents made very professionally using styles throughout that still don't convert nicely in OOo. Indentations for example are not correct, outline numbering disappears (and with it the ToC) and so on. * Presentation markup styles; * Content markup styles; If you have access to MSO (I do because it is the word processor of choice in the company where I work) try to compare the rendering of this document http://www.3gpp.org/ftp/Specs/archive/22_series/22.011/22011-820.zip On MSO and OOo. You will notice that - frames in the first and second page are misplaced, - there are alignment issues in the ToC (which spans on two pages). - section 5.1 starts on a new page in OOo, but it is at the end of the page in MSO - there is an extra blank page at the end of the MSO version. Now, if you open the styles and fomatting window you will notice that styles are used for absolutely everything including Content styles for the ToC. You can argue that the problem is with MSO (for example there is no concept of frame styles and a trick has been used to create an annex with the same appearance as a heading 1), however the issue remains that even conversion between properly drafted documents is not free from problems. Of course don't even try to perform a double conversion MSO -- OOo -- MSO because this is a recipe for disaster :-) Cheers, Michele
[discuss] Re: .doc compatibility
On 02/25/2008 12:09 PM, Michele wrote: Jonathon, I am afraid I will have to disagree. I can provide links to MSO documents made very professionally using styles throughout that still don't convert nicely in OOo. Indentations for example are not correct, outline numbering disappears (and with it the ToC) and so on. * Presentation markup styles; * Content markup styles; If you have access to MSO (I do because it is the word processor of choice in the company where I work) try to compare the rendering of this document http://www.3gpp.org/ftp/Specs/archive/22_series/22.011/22011-820.zip On MSO and OOo. You will notice that - frames in the first and second page are misplaced, - there are alignment issues in the ToC (which spans on two pages). - section 5.1 starts on a new page in OOo, but it is at the end of the page in MSO - there is an extra blank page at the end of the MSO version. Now, if you open the styles and fomatting window you will notice that styles are used for absolutely everything including Content styles for the ToC. You can argue that the problem is with MSO (for example there is no concept of frame styles and a trick has been used to create an annex with the same appearance as a heading 1), however the issue remains that even conversion between properly drafted documents is not free from problems. Of course don't even try to perform a double conversion MSO -- OOo -- MSO because this is a recipe for disaster :-) Cheers, Michele I think that you always will find discrepancies between WP's and versions. For example: if I open the document on MS Office 97 it crashes. If I open the document in WinXPro MS Office 2000 and print to a PDF and then compare with a PDF produced by OOo Linux I see differences. If I compare with a PDF produced by OOo Windows 2.3.1 I see differences, and If I compare with a PDF using OOo Go-oo I see differences. I suspect that you may also see slight differences even amongst other MSO versions on different systems, with different screen font settings (example - change your system font point settings and you'll see differences immediately). Even using different systems with different installed fonts and printing/saving to a PDF may render different results. Point being is that document translation and conversion is not a fixed property; you will always find some differences between systems, fonts, versions (even the same WP or DTP), and perhaps differences even depending on the phase of the moon (ok that last is a joke). Given that the document PDF output differences between OOo (linux) and MSO 2000 Word (Windows) are not major, I wonder if the argument regarding document compatibility is valid. Consider taking the same document and converting between MSO 2000 and MSO 2007, and save it from MSO 2007 back to MSO 2000; I don't have MSO 2007, but my guess would be that there will be some differences in the conversion. Back to your original: Hello, now that microsoft has partially opened the documentation of the .doc format, is there a chance that better doc compatibility will become a primary objective ? Thanks Andreas A frustrated IT director that got the order to reinstall word 2000 because of not so good .doc compatibility Are the differences between the .doc and MSO 2000 significant enough to justify reinstalling MSO 2000 (remember, you can't just install Word 2000, you need licenses for *all* computers and *all* will require MSO 2000 if that is your wish. I seriously doubt that you can even find licenses software for MSO 2000 for all of your systems users... you do want to keep this legal right? Instead, you will most likely need to install MSO 2007 and have to renew *all* of your licenses (upgrade or new install). Could be that the latter might be cost effective if your users are high dollar users... \ Then again, if the complaining user(s) are a few that simply don't like having to edit a few existing documents ask them this: How much time do you spend on a document/memo simply figuring out what font style to use? - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
