RE: [newbie] RE: Office Suites
One of the things that _no_one_ should be concerned about any longer is compatibility with MS Office. This is absolutely impossible for me. I exchange so many files (spreadsheet, doc and presentation) with so many customers and other staff members that unfortunately Office has become the standard by which we exchange compatible files. Not being compatible with MS Office - at least in my case - is unthinkable. I know I'm coming in late on this thread, but Star Office handles this very thing beautifully. ALL of it. We have one computer with four logins. How would we do a multiuser install with Staroffice? Trevor R. Campbelltown NSW AUS Registered Linux User #252240 Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] RE: Office Suites
On Saturday 05 January 2002 12:56am, you wrote: One of the things that _no_one_ should be concerned about any longer is compatibility with MS Office. This is absolutely impossible for me. I exchange so many files (spreadsheet, doc and presentation) with so many customers and other staff members that unfortunately Office has become the standard by which we exchange compatible files. Not being compatible with MS Office - at least in my case - is unthinkable. I know I'm coming in late on this thread, but Star Office handles this very thing beautifully. ALL of it. We have one computer with four logins. How would we do a multiuser install with Staroffice? As Superuser, nameof.soffice.installfile -net Then log in as regular user and run the soffice file and it will do a small individual user install. Sevatio Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] RE: Office Suites
Sevatio wrote: On Saturday 05 January 2002 12:56am, you wrote: One of the things that _no_one_ should be concerned about any longer is compatibility with MS Office. This is absolutely impossible for me. I exchange so many files (spreadsheet, doc and presentation) with so many customers and other staff members that unfortunately Office has become the standard by which we exchange compatible files. Not being compatible with MS Office - at least in my case - is unthinkable. I know I'm coming in late on this thread, but Star Office handles this very thing beautifully. ALL of it. We have one computer with four logins. How would we do a multiuser install with Staroffice? As Superuser, nameof.soffice.installfile -net Then log in as regular user and run the soffice file and it will do a small individual user install. If I remember rightly, that's a slash, not a hyphen. Trust Sun to do things differently. Robin Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] RE: Office Suites
On Tuesday 01 January 2002 01:38, you wrote: On 31 Dec 2001 20:05:55 -0500, Michael Leone [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I think Civileme's point was that if/when the UCITA law passes in Washington, USA, then Microsoft (headquartered in Washington) will be able to make a minor change to their proprietary .doc/.xls/whatever file formats, and it will be illegal for Sun or anyone else to reverse-engineer that file format to create a new filter for their competing office suite. Sun licenses the file formats from MS, don't they? They didn't reverse-engineer them, I thought. Nope, they are reverse-engineered. That's why it has taken so long for the filters to reach their present level of quality (which is very good). Calling it reverse engineered is a little of a dangerous reach, (in my HUMBLE opinion), my guess is a lot of the info is from APIs released by M$, to allow third parties to be able to write macros and other programs that will work with M$ applications, the rest would be obvious to someone studying, say, word processor programing. Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] RE: Office Suites
On Tue, 2002-01-01 at 08:51, robin wrote: Dave Sherman wrote: [cut] I think Civileme's point was that if/when the UCITA law passes in Washington, USA, then Microsoft (headquartered in Washington) will be able to make a minor change to their proprietary .doc/.xls/whatever file formats, and it will be illegal for Sun or anyone else to reverse-engineer that file format to create a new filter for their competing office suite. And if anyone DOES reverse-engineer the file format, then MS can sue them to smithereens, and even try to go for a prison sentence, since their EULA will carry the force of law. I can't seriously see this happening. Microsoft had enough political and economic clout to survive getting sued by Netscape et al., but they don't have the clout to sue Sun - it would be suicidal. Maybe. But they *could* sue OpenOffice.org, and probably shut it down, which would effectively slow, if not stop, development of StarOffice as well. I suspect the real reason for the paucity of .doc filters is that it is such a yucky format that writing a good filter is more trouble than it's worth. wv does a passable job but is far from perfect, and even Star Office only got it right with version 6.0. It is a yucky *and* an undocumented format. This means it requires anyone to reverse engineer it before they can write a filter for it. If you check the OpenOffice.org website, you will see that they were forced to re-write the MS Office filters from scratch, because the StarOffice filters were under an NDA from Sun. It wasn't because of MS licensing, but Sun itself was standing in the way (this may, on second thought, be a carry-over from Sun's purchase of StarOffice from the German Star company that originally developed the software). But here's another scary example, to which Civileme alluded: Samba. What will happen if/when UCITA passes in Washington state, and Microsoft sues the Samba team for reverse-engineering their proprietary software and network protocols? If we are lucky, Samba will be able to continue working outside the US, in one or more countries that are willing to largely ignore US extradition requests (or more accurately, that are so difficult to deal with that MS won't even bother). And any US-based Samba developers will need to leave the team, because MS can go after them individually -- again, for both monetary compensation and imprisonment. One need only look at Adobe's ridiculous actions with regard to Dmitri Sklyarov to realize that MS will not hesitate to try the same thing with any known Samba developer that they can reach. Civileme's further point, to which Doug balked, was that we should all be looking to move away from MS' (or anyone else's, for that matter) proprietary file formats, as a pre-emptive move so that we are not locked into yet another MS monopoly if/when UCITA passes. In our own self-interest, we should be changing to open file formats, like xml (which StarOffice 6.0 uses, by the way). We need .doc filters as a stopgap. No matter how often I tell my colleagues that I refuse to read .doc files, sometimes I just have to. XML is a reasonable lingua franca, but for my own purposes, I'm still a LaTeX man. I agree that we need the filters for now, but it would still be wise to stop using MS' proprietary formats ASAP. As far as using LaTeX, is there a free and easy to use LaTeX editor/word processor for Windows and Macintosh? Just curious -- actually, I thought LaTeX was a document layout/markup language for professional publishing, but not something typically used for word processing. I am betting you need to convert your documents to a different format for others (non-Linux users) to read, yes? Dave -- Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy, and good with ketchup. Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] RE: Office Suites
Dave Sherman wrote: I agree that we need the filters for now, but it would still be wise to stop using MS' proprietary formats ASAP. As far as using LaTeX, is there a free and easy to use LaTeX editor/word processor for Windows and Macintosh? Just curious -- actually, I thought LaTeX was a document layout/markup language for professional publishing, but not something typically used for word processing. I am betting you need to convert your documents to a different format for others (non-Linux users) to read, yes? LyX is very easy to use (see www.lyx.org) and is available for Windows (not sure about Mac). It uses LaTeX as its default backend (which makes Windows installation a bit of a pain, since you have to install (La)TeX first). Sure, I have to convert to something else (usually PDF) is I want to send files to Windows users, but it's a small price to pay. One advantage of LaTeX is that it's very easy to convert to whatever format you want: DVI, PS, PDF, HTML, SGML - you name it. Robin Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] RE: Office Suites
Dave Sherman wrote: On Tue, 2002-01-01 at 08:51, robin wrote: Dave Sherman wrote: [cut] I think Civileme's point was that if/when the UCITA law passes in Washington, USA, then Microsoft (headquartered in Washington) will be able to make a minor change to their proprietary .doc/.xls/whatever file formats, and it will be illegal for Sun or anyone else to reverse-engineer that file format to create a new filter for their competing office suite. And if anyone DOES reverse-engineer the file format, then MS can sue them to smithereens, and even try to go for a prison sentence, since their EULA will carry the force of law. I can't seriously see this happening. Microsoft had enough political and economic clout to survive getting sued by Netscape et al., but they don't have the clout to sue Sun - it would be suicidal. Maybe. But they *could* sue OpenOffice.org, and probably shut it down, which would effectively slow, if not stop, development of StarOffice as well. I suspect the real reason for the paucity of .doc filters is that it is such a yucky format that writing a good filter is more trouble than it's worth. wv does a passable job but is far from perfect, and even Star Office only got it right with version 6.0. It is a yucky *and* an undocumented format. This means it requires anyone to reverse engineer it before they can write a filter for it. If you check the OpenOffice.org website, you will see that they were forced to re-write the MS Office filters from scratch, because the StarOffice filters were under an NDA from Sun. It wasn't because of MS licensing, but Sun itself was standing in the way (this may, on second thought, be a carry-over from Sun's purchase of StarOffice from the German Star company that originally developed the software). But here's another scary example, to which Civileme alluded: Samba. What will happen if/when UCITA passes in Washington state, and Microsoft sues the Samba team for reverse-engineering their proprietary software and network protocols? If we are lucky, Samba will be able to continue working outside the US, in one or more countries that are willing to largely ignore US extradition requests (or more accurately, that are so difficult to deal with that MS won't even bother). And any US-based Samba developers will need to leave the team, because MS can go after them individually -- again, for both monetary compensation and imprisonment. One need only look at Adobe's ridiculous actions with regard to Dmitri Sklyarov to realize that MS will not hesitate to try the same thing with any known Samba developer that they can reach. Civileme's further point, to which Doug balked, was that we should all be looking to move away from MS' (or anyone else's, for that matter) proprietary file formats, as a pre-emptive move so that we are not locked into yet another MS monopoly if/when UCITA passes. In our own self-interest, we should be changing to open file formats, like xml (which StarOffice 6.0 uses, by the way). We need .doc filters as a stopgap. No matter how often I tell my colleagues that I refuse to read .doc files, sometimes I just have to. XML is a reasonable lingua franca, but for my own purposes, I'm still a LaTeX man. I agree that we need the filters for now, but it would still be wise to stop using MS' proprietary formats ASAP. As far as using LaTeX, is there a free and easy to use LaTeX editor/word processor for Windows and Macintosh? Just curious -- actually, I thought LaTeX was a document layout/markup language for professional publishing, but not something typically used for word processing. I am betting you need to convert your documents to a different format for others (non-Linux users) to read, yes? Dave Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com Well, the output of Tetex/LaTeX, if printed to a file, is postscript format, printer-ready just about anywhere, and readable by adobe acrobat reader and other programs. LyX is a document processor close to WYSIWYG that runs cross-platform (yes, windows too) which is indispensible if you are dealing with lots of special symbols, margin notes, footnotes, and so on and you don't want to learn native LaTeX commands. KLyX was written for the Qt widget set and X ain a marathon session to show how effective Qt widgets could be. It has great potential if developed. A very nice translator was written quite a while ago called SDF, which can convert postscript, SGML, HTML, pdf and oher formats. It also has its own metalanguage for making documents. It too runs on Windows as well as on others though some Microsoft license agreements might be violated in the latest versions of windows (the Netkit is licensed against living under the same roof with GPL software and Perl--at least Microsoft's atttorneys haven't required that all Microsoft competitiors be addressed as the
Re: [newbie] RE: Office Suites
On Tue, 1 Jan 2002 09:12:25 -0500 Ed Tharp [EMAIL PROTECTED] studiouisly spake these words to ponder: On Tuesday 01 January 2002 01:38, you wrote: On 31 Dec 2001 20:05:55 -0500, Michael Leone [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I think Civileme's point was that if/when the UCITA law passes in Washington, USA, then Microsoft (headquartered in Washington) will be able to make a minor change to their proprietary .doc/.xls/whatever file formats, and it will be illegal for Sun or anyone else to reverse-engineer that file format to create a new filter for their competing office suite. Sun licenses the file formats from MS, don't they? They didn't reverse-engineer them, I thought. Nope, they are reverse-engineered. That's why it has taken so long for the filters to reach their present level of quality (which is very good). Calling it reverse engineered is a little of a dangerous reach, (in my HUMBLE opinion), my guess is a lot of the info is from APIs released by M$, to allow third parties to be able to write macros and other programs that will work with M$ applications, the rest would be obvious to someone studying, say, word processor programing. I don't say this lightly, or with any reservation or apology at all. I think it's past time to just tell MS to take a fly leap on a rolling donut and move away from them in mass. For some it may be a bit difficult, but not impossible. If we don't we've only got ourselves to blame for the feeling of being held hostage by their proprietary systems. I for one am going to begin recommending, and loudly, to my superiors that its time we begin productivity migration away from MS. There just isn't any future in it. O, well, _their_ future, but certainly not one of choice and freedom. -- daRcmaTTeR - If at first you don't succeed do what your wife told you to do the first time! Registered Linux User 182496 Mandrake 8.1 - 7:05pm up 16 days, 10:54, 2 users, load average: 0.39, 0.54, 0.52 Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] RE: Office Suites
On Tuesday 01 January 2002 19:23, you wrote: On Tue, 1 Jan 2002 09:12:25 -0500 Ed Tharp [EMAIL PROTECTED] studiouisly spake these words to ponder: On Tuesday 01 January 2002 01:38, you wrote: On 31 Dec 2001 20:05:55 -0500, Michael Leone [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I think Civileme's point was that if/when the UCITA law passes in Washington, USA, then Microsoft (headquartered in Washington) will be able to make a minor change to their proprietary .doc/.xls/whatever file formats, and it will be illegal for Sun or anyone else to reverse-engineer that file format to create a new filter for their competing office suite. Sun licenses the file formats from MS, don't they? They didn't reverse-engineer them, I thought. Nope, they are reverse-engineered. That's why it has taken so long for the filters to reach their present level of quality (which is very good). Calling it reverse engineered is a little of a dangerous reach, (in my HUMBLE opinion), my guess is a lot of the info is from APIs released by M$, to allow third parties to be able to write macros and other programs that will work with M$ applications, the rest would be obvious to someone studying, say, word processor programing. I don't say this lightly, or with any reservation or apology at all. I think it's past time to just tell MS to take a fly leap on a rolling donut and move away from them in mass. For some it may be a bit difficult, but not impossible. If we don't we've only got ourselves to blame for the feeling of being held hostage by their proprietary systems. I for one am going to begin recommending, and loudly, to my superiors that its time we begin productivity migration away from MS. There just isn't any future in it. O, well, _their_ future, but certainly not one of choice and freedom. Just to add my experience with M$ bondage: ALL my documents, in their original format, were in MS Word for Windows 2.0c format. Some I had used in Ventura for DTP. When I decided to switch to LM 8.0, I was left in a quandry. All those documents had to be converted. Unfortunately, W2W 2.0c file format cannot be imported directly in StarOffice 5.2. If I had not made a firm decision to continue with LM, I would have backed out because of this major import problem. Luckily, I could import rtf -- so converted all the documents. My Win partition awaits to be deleted (the kids use it for Caesar III). As far as businesses are concerned, most have upgraded to Word 95/97 etc. So, if the switch would be relatively painless. When I ran my publication, it was a constant struggle to get different programs to work together (in WIn 3.1) . With Linux, I've had few problems, aside from learning a new OS. StarOffice, though it's sort of slow, allows me to plan what I'm about to do -- at least I have time to grab a coffee while it loads! From my limited business experience, I would not trade the stability, ease of use, and functionality of LM, for all the glitz and promise of continuous reboots that I had encountered with M$ products. Furthermore, the threats of forced upgrades, dubious registration tactics, and cost of operating MS might tip the balance for other businesses to switch from MS. It's just a question of time. I agree that there isn't any future in it -- but getting businesses to take that first step. . . . Have a Blessed New Year! Regards, Andre [Btw -- And I'm REALLY Off-Topic here: My wife received the neatest present from her mother: PJ's with a whole bunch of cute,smiling little penguins. Guess that makes her a Linux-Lady -- Maybe LM should promote these? Or send one as a present for Billy's wife???] -- Please pray the Holy Rosary to end the holocaust of abortion. Remember, in your prayers, the suffering souls in Purgatory. May God bless you abundantly with His love! For a free Cenacle Scriptural Rosary Booklet -- http://www.webhart.net/csrb/ Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] RE: Office Suites
On Sun, 2001-12-30 at 17:52, Doug Lerner wrote: I wouldn't mind doing that myself, and encouraging our company to do that. I have no particular love for Microsoft proprietary products. But I can't force our customers to change. As we say here in Japan, the customer is God. If the client wants to send me an Office file I have to be able to see it. And I have to be able to send something back to the customer that they can open. doug I hear you. As a consultant, I deal with customers' Word and Excel docs on a daily basis. For my own work, I use StarOffice 6 beta, and all my files are saved in SO's native xml formats. When I need to send a document to a customer, I export it to the appropriate MS Office format, then send it to them. I also, without trying to sound like a zealot or something, warn them about these kinds of things, so they aren't surprised when it finally happens. There's a really good article at: http://www.troubleshooters.com/tpromag/200104/200104.htm which I found very informative, and which I emailed several of my customers. They are all ignoring my warnings, but I will have the last laugh, and will likely make a *really* good living when they suddenly need to convert their systems and data... Dave -- Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy, and good with ketchup. Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] RE: Office Suites
I think Civileme's point was that if/when the UCITA law passes in Washington, USA, then Microsoft (headquartered in Washington) will be able to make a minor change to their proprietary .doc/.xls/whatever file formats, and it will be illegal for Sun or anyone else to reverse-engineer that file format to create a new filter for their competing office suite. Sun licenses the file formats from MS, don't they? They didn't reverse-engineer them, I thought. -- -- Michael J. Leone Registered Linux user #201348 mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]ICQ: 50453890 AIM: MikeLeone PGP Fingerprint: 0AA8 DC47 CB63 AE3F C739 6BF9 9AB4 1EF6 5AA5 BCDF PGP public key: http://www.mike-leone.com/~turgon/turgon-public-key.gpg Foreman, roving paving crew, Dept. of Roads, Hades. signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: [newbie] RE: Office Suites
Michael Leone wrote: I think Civileme's point was that if/when the UCITA law passes in Washington, USA, then Microsoft (headquartered in Washington) will be able to make a minor change to their proprietary .doc/.xls/whatever file formats, and it will be illegal for Sun or anyone else to reverse-engineer that file format to create a new filter for their competing office suite. Sun licenses the file formats from MS, don't they? They didn't reverse-engineer them, I thought. Well, no one requires Microsoft to offer such licenses, but the point again is that your data is hostage if they want it to be, and you will have to purchase upgrades on their schedule or lose what you have. If you do not keep your data on windows proprietary formats now, it is wise to remain in that position. You may have to run their OS to communicate with their captives, but you don't need to keep your data there. Send stuff out as HTML, and they can read it, or use .rtf, their open format, and run one Winsystem with Office to receive their communiques. (Printing to a file might help or to a computer which is masquerading as a plain-text printer, under Samba, for as long as the free software community can keep Samba compatible). Civileme Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] RE: Office Suites
On 31 Dec 2001 20:05:55 -0500, Michael Leone [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I think Civileme's point was that if/when the UCITA law passes in Washington, USA, then Microsoft (headquartered in Washington) will be able to make a minor change to their proprietary .doc/.xls/whatever file formats, and it will be illegal for Sun or anyone else to reverse-engineer that file format to create a new filter for their competing office suite. Sun licenses the file formats from MS, don't they? They didn't reverse-engineer them, I thought. Nope, they are reverse-engineered. That's why it has taken so long for the filters to reach their present level of quality (which is very good). -- Sridhar Dhanapalan The linux kernel has had an interesting release pattern: usually the .0 release was actually fairly good (there's almost always something stupid, but on the whole not really horrible). And every single time so far, .1 has been worse. It usually takes until something like .5 until it has caught up and surpassed the stability of .0 again. -- Linus Torvalds Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] RE: Office Suites
On Sat, 2001-12-29 at 20:32, daRcmaTTeR wrote: On Sun, 30 Dec 2001 09:17:59 +0900 Doug Lerner [EMAIL PROTECTED] studiouisly spake these words to ponder: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Sunday, December 30, 2001): One of the things that _no_one_ should be concerned about any longer is compatibility with MS Office. This is absolutely impossible for me. I exchange so many files (spreadsheet, doc and presentation) with so many customers and other staff members that unfortunately Office has become the standard by which we exchange compatible files. Not being compatible with MS Office - at least in my case - is unthinkable. I know I'm coming in late on this thread, but Star Office handles this very thing beautifully. ALL of it. I think Civileme's point was that if/when the UCITA law passes in Washington, USA, then Microsoft (headquartered in Washington) will be able to make a minor change to their proprietary .doc/.xls/whatever file formats, and it will be illegal for Sun or anyone else to reverse-engineer that file format to create a new filter for their competing office suite. And if anyone DOES reverse-engineer the file format, then MS can sue them to smithereens, and even try to go for a prison sentence, since their EULA will carry the force of law. Civileme's further point, to which Doug balked, was that we should all be looking to move away from MS' (or anyone else's, for that matter) proprietary file formats, as a pre-emptive move so that we are not locked into yet another MS monopoly if/when UCITA passes. In our own self-interest, we should be changing to open file formats, like xml (which StarOffice 6.0 uses, by the way). Dave -- Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy, and good with ketchup. Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] RE: Office Suites
On 30 Dec 2001 09:27:29 -0600 Dave Sherman [EMAIL PROTECTED] studiouisly spake these words to ponder: On Sat, 2001-12-29 at 20:32, daRcmaTTeR wrote: On Sun, 30 Dec 2001 09:17:59 +0900 Doug Lerner [EMAIL PROTECTED] studiouisly spake these words to ponder: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Sunday, December 30, 2001): One of the things that _no_one_ should be concerned about any longer is compatibility with MS Office. This is absolutely impossible for me. I exchange so many files (spreadsheet, doc and presentation) with so many customers and other staff members that unfortunately Office has become the standard by which we exchange compatible files. Not being compatible with MS Office - at least in my case - is unthinkable. I know I'm coming in late on this thread, but Star Office handles this very thing beautifully. ALL of it. I think Civileme's point was that if/when the UCITA law passes in Washington, USA, then Microsoft (headquartered in Washington) will be able to make a minor change to their proprietary .doc/.xls/whatever file formats, and it will be illegal for Sun or anyone else to reverse-engineer that file format to create a new filter for their competing office suite. And if anyone DOES reverse-engineer the file format, then MS can sue them to smithereens, and even try to go for a prison sentence, since their EULA will carry the force of law. Civileme's further point, to which Doug balked, was that we should all be looking to move away from MS' (or anyone else's, for that matter) proprietary file formats, as a pre-emptive move so that we are not locked into yet another MS monopoly if/when UCITA passes. In our own self-interest, we should be changing to open file formats, like xml (which StarOffice 6.0 uses, by the way). Dave -- I whole-heartedly agree with that. The last thing we need is for MS to bring yet another monopoly situation down upon a computing public make us more and more dendant upon them for everything. Their craddle-to-grave mentality leaves me with a sour taste in my mouth. -- daRcmaTTeR - If at first you don't succeed do what your wife told you to do the first time! Registered Linux User 182496 Mandrake 8.1 - 1:05pm up 14 days, 4:54, 1 user, load average: 0.77, 0.81, 0.65 Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] RE: Office Suites
Michael Scottaline wrote: On Fri, 28 Dec 2001 01:28:01 -0500 Maureen L. Thomas [EMAIL PROTECTED] scribbled gleefully: I upgraded to KDE 2.2 and am using K-Office. So far it hasn't crashed or froze on me and I have imported all the documents I was using from Lotus SmartSuite and it hasn't lost a thing. I am very pleased with it. Some small improvements in K-Spread are needed, like multi copy, but otherwise it works just fine. KWord does everything that I need for home and for a couple of non profit orgs I help out. All in all it all works fairly decently. Interesting, Maureen, but how about the export filters? Will K-Office successfully export to M$Office or Lotus SmartSuite. Can a document be saved in .doc or .xlm or whatever. When I tried to import a form (lots of tables) from a Word file that that StarOffice handled flawlessly, there were too many errors in the K-Word version to make the form usable. Ordinary Word docs (mere text) seem to work OK. Thanks for the review, Mike Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com One of the things that _no_one_ should be concerned about any longer is compatibility with MS Office. FYI, there is an act purchasing its way through various state legislatures in the US called UCITA, which places some obligations on software manufacturers but gives their license agreements the full force and effect of law. When it passes in Washington State, the upgrade after its passage will be _illegal_ to reverse engineer for the purpose of making import filters, and folks who use MS software will no longer be able to call their data their own. UCITA does not obligate the software maker to provide export filters. So if someone wants to make a conversion after this event, it will be with a printer and an OCR-enabled scanner. Civileme Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] RE: Office Suites
On Sun, 30 Dec 2001 09:17:59 +0900 Doug Lerner [EMAIL PROTECTED] studiouisly spake these words to ponder: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Sunday, December 30, 2001): One of the things that _no_one_ should be concerned about any longer is compatibility with MS Office. This is absolutely impossible for me. I exchange so many files (spreadsheet, doc and presentation) with so many customers and other staff members that unfortunately Office has become the standard by which we exchange compatible files. Not being compatible with MS Office - at least in my case - is unthinkable. I know I'm coming in late on this thread, but Star Office handles this very thing beautifully. ALL of it. -- daRcmaTTeR - If at first you don't succeed do what your wife told you to do the first time! Registered Linux User 182496 Mandrake 8.1 - 9:05pm up 13 days, 12:54, 2 users, load average: 1.11, 1.29, 1.19 Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] RE: Office Suites
On Fri, 28 Dec 2001 01:28:01 -0500 Maureen L. Thomas [EMAIL PROTECTED] scribbled gleefully: I upgraded to KDE 2.2 and am using K-Office. So far it hasn't crashed or froze on me and I have imported all the documents I was using from Lotus SmartSuite and it hasn't lost a thing. I am very pleased with it. Some small improvements in K-Spread are needed, like multi copy, but otherwise it works just fine. KWord does everything that I need for home and for a couple of non profit orgs I help out. All in all it all works fairly decently. Interesting, Maureen, but how about the export filters? Will K-Office successfully export to M$Office or Lotus SmartSuite. Can a document be saved in .doc or .xlm or whatever. When I tried to import a form (lots of tables) from a Word file that that StarOffice handled flawlessly, there were too many errors in the K-Word version to make the form usable. Ordinary Word docs (mere text) seem to work OK. Thanks for the review, Mike -- Alcohol is the anesthesia by which we endure the operation of life. -- George Bernard Shaw _ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
[newbie] RE: Office Suites
I upgraded to KDE 2.2 and am using K-Office. So far it hasn't crashed or froze on me and I have imported all the documents I was using from Lotus SmartSuite and it hasn't lost a thing. I am very pleased with it. Some small improvements in K-Spread are needed, like multi copy, but otherwise it works just fine. KWord does everything that I need for home and for a couple of non profit orgs I help out. All in all it all works fairly decently. Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] RE: Office Suites
Maureen L. Thomas wrote: I upgraded to KDE 2.2 and am using K-Office. So far it hasn't crashed or froze on me and I have imported all the documents I was using from Lotus SmartSuite and it hasn't lost a thing. I am very pleased with it. Some small improvements in K-Spread are needed, like multi copy, but otherwise it works just fine. KWord does everything that I need for home and for a couple of non profit orgs I help out. All in all it all works fairly decently. Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com I have the same feeling. StarOffice has much more than I need and is non-free. Open Office is not ready with its features. KWord is OK if you stay away from the Lucida fonts (which will permanently destroy the structure of your document for printing) and you take care and don't try to stretch its abilities into a framemaker. For docs in excess of 20 pages and for all technical works, I lean to LyX and LaTEX, because I learned on what eventually became Borland's Sprint. StarOffice I see as something nice if you want to make a presentation with photos printed right in them, but even then I would prefer the higher performance available from Applix, even though I have to pay for it. So I agree, why use something with more capability than you need? Open Office has some mighty concepts, the most powerful of which is to use a plain-text data storage format (with XML encoding, but no special characters), and it might be wonderful someday, but right now you cannot install it to the spot specified by the Linux Standard Base for add-on software and expect it to work, which is a fatal flaw for a distro that is trying to comply with the LSB. AbiWord is good for some. I like emacs and LyX, and sometrimes use Ted, which will give me richest text format output, and I have used KWord successfully for smaller reports. The important thing is not what your personal preference is but that it will handle the work you do. Civileme Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
