BU?
Back-Ups done by LibreOffice/OpenOffice are placed in a sub-folder inside your
user-profile
http://user.services.openoffice.org/en/forum/viewtopic.php?f=74&t=12426
NOT in the same folder as the original document. Eggs and baskets right? For
a large work it is a good plan to create a copy on a usb-stick or Cds/Dvd
and/or another hard-drive on another machine elsewhere. Some people kept their
back-ups in the other tower thinking that if some catastrophe affected their
copy then the other tower would be safe. Sadly not. I found that i was
keeping an external hard-drive in the same bag as the laptops power-supply but
luckily it didn't have anything crucial on it. And a usb-stick in front of a
Crt monitor was pretty dumb too (on at least 2 counts).
Self Publishing at Lulu.com
http://www.lulu.com/
is worth exploring but i think you are talking about a more traditional,
professional route. Perhaps something like
Editors/Publishing house - Printing company - distribution network/shops?
I thought editors, publishers, printing companies (and all that) demanded using
doc format or now probably docX? ODF will become more acceptable once it gains
market-share through Libreoffice and other programs. Like OpenOffice there
have been strong efforts to make sure it gets under-promoted but the shackles
are off now with TDF driving LibreOffice.
Since people seem used to getting Rtfs from you i think the best bet is to
start giving people a copy of your work in both Pdf and Rtf.
Pdf by default is compressed with very lossy jpg compression but LibreOffice
allows you to change that. A Pdf is a lot like a photograph of your work so
people see how you intended it to be laid out. Rtf, Doc, DocX and Odt all
display differently on different machine partly due to having different
printers and settings.
Just yesterday i started being able to switch from giving Pdf& doc to Pdf& Odt to
some people. Notably (for me) my boss has started using Odt for certain specific documents
that involve images. I think for most people i still need to use Pdf& Doc or Pdf&
DocX. By giving 2 files they get 1 that they can edit and 1 that shows the intended layout.
Most Pdfs editors seem clunky and Adobe's seems to need constant security
updates which does not inspire confidence in using it, nor in viewing documents
that it's edited. LibreOffice can allegedly edit Pdfs but it's easier to edit
the Doc, DocX, Odt, Rtf or whatever and then
File - Export as Pdf
or
File - Print - To File (instead of to a pritner) - Pdf rather than Ps or
whatever
I've only seen the 1st option but some say they have the 2nd one too.
Apparently the 2nd one is better. lol
Rtf
I think Rtf was developed as a format that would allow interoperability between
different programs on different platforms
http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=10725
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_Text_Format
I think it's the default format for Wordpad. Unfortunately it had fairly low
take-up, possibly as a result of being a lot more closed and proprietary than
allegedly intended
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_Text_Format#Criticism
Now, of course, Microsoft has developed a new "Open" standard
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Docx
although MS Office's implementation seems to be sufficiently quirky that documents created in
non-Microsoft programs that are then opened in MS Office appear to be quite messed-up, particularly
pictures. This has effectively forced people to buy the newer MS Office suites, 2007 and 2010 (or
on Mac their MSO 2008) in order to be able to use their new "cross-platform"
"Open" standards.
The new docX format seems to have led to MS stopping development of Rtf.
According to
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/library/dd797428.aspx
(from http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=8628 )
it seems that people can still read/write the current version of Rtf in MS
Office 2010 but it's not clear what will happen in the newer MS Office when it
comes out in a year or two.
Part of the attraction of Rtf was that it eliminated macros. When malicious
code and malware was spread by MS document formats it was often through macros,
so using Rtf was a good security precaution. The newer DocX does allow macros
but, of course, MS assures us that macros are now safe in the new format just
as they previously assured us that macros were safe in their old formats. Rtf
also significantly reduced other clutter and resulted in much smaller
file-sizes and better protection of privacy.
Odf; Odt, Ods
OpenDocument Formats such as Odt (for text or more accurately, word-processor documents)
also allow macros but use a sufficiently different programming language's implementation
that so far there appear to have been no malware, malicious code or exploits "out in
the wild".
MS Office 2007& 2010 can read/write Odt but only using the older version of
the format, unlike most programs that support Odf
http://opendocumentfellowship.com/applications
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDocument_software#Text_documents_.28.odt.29
To make LibreOffice (or i guess OpenOffice too) use the older format to
increase compatibility with MS Office try
Tools - Option - Load/Save - General
(been here before, see Steve's answer) and about halfway down change the drop-down backward up 2
places from "1.2 Extended (recommended)" to "1.0/1.1"
Odf seems to support much more sophisticated placement of pictures or perhaps it's just
LibreOffice/OpenOffice. After saving a document as Odt you can right-click on a picture and change
the "Anchor Point" to a greater variety than Office 2007 offers (and i think 2010 too)
which allows you move pictures around much more easily and freely. On that right-click menu
choosing "Picture" (or frame) brings a pop-up box with many tabs allowing many options
for wrapping text around a picture, creating a border and/or margin around the picture, even easily
adding a hyperlink to make the picture clickable.
Doc
Is the older MS Office format and seems to now be the one format that is most
widely used in the greatest variety of programs. You can set it as the default
in LibreOffice / OpenOffice
Tools - Option - Load/Save - General
(again) at the bottom keep the drop-down that says "Text document" (slightly
inaccurately) but change the drop-down beside it backwards up 1 place to "Microsoft Word
97/2000/Xp". If you change the other types of documents (Spreadsheets (Ods) and Presentations
(Odp)) then it's 2 places otherwise you save things as templates which can get messy and confusing.
Of course Doc is probably about the most vulnerable format and wide open to
malware and a wide range of problems but none of those will be generated from
LibreOffice. A 3rd party might infect it but if the documents is going to go
from
You - Editor/Publishing house - Printers
then it should be fairly safe, or at least fairly obvious who to blame. If
professional printing companies and editors/publishing houses still demand that
only Doc format is used then hopefully the keep their software updated enough
to avoid the problems. If they demand DocX they can probably still cope with
Doc.
Doc probably can't handle the full range of options for pictures and things
that Odt allows and it's vulnerable but at least most people are able to use it!
Pdf
"Portable Document Format". Not many people can edit these. Not many programs
can. Another advantage is that pictures and stuff don't get re-arranged and also the
layout remains the same on every computer no matter what printers are attached or what
settings are chosen for the machine. With most word-processor documents if the person
viewing has their setting set as US Letter and you had yours at A4 then all the text and
everything all get shifted around very noticeably. Pdf is like a photograph of your
document. With LibreOffice, unlike Word, you can easily choose how much compression to
set or even make it lossless to avoid any compression. Even if you choose a high
compression it still gives people a rough idea of the layout you intended.
I hope something there helps! Switching to LO is a huge improvement for me
especially as it has developed so fast, and since the long-awaited official
release of the ODF 1.2 that so many people had been using for ages already
anyway. LO seems much better than Word 2007 and a bit better than Word 2010
both of which are beginning to make me growl when forced to use them. The
ribbon in 2010 is far better than the 2007 and i really miss it in LO but it
takes up a lot of space without really adding anything except glossy good
looks.n Hopefully you will find LO a vast improvement on Wordpad!! lol
Regards from
Tom :)
--- On Wed, 26/10/11, Don Parris<parri...@gmail.com> wrote:
From: Don Parris<parri...@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [libreoffice-users] LO auto save
To: users@global.libreoffice.org
Date: Wednesday, 26 October, 2011, 23:04
<snip />
I can say it is extremely unlikely that your printer relies on a specific
document format - it should print any type of document you send it.
As for document formats, I would think that ODT is a "better" format, but
you can also save as a regular Microsoft Word document (should you need to),
or export to PDF format. I self-published my book using LO (years ago) and
exported to PDF to publish it on Lulu.com.
I am 99.99% certain that, while it might take a little bit of adjustment,
you will find switching to LO a super nice adjustment to make. :-)
Regards,
Don
--
D.C. Parris, FMP, LEED AP O+M, ESL Certificate
Minister, Security/FM Coordinator, Free Software Advocate
https://www.xing.com/profile/Don_Parris |
http://www.linkedin.com/in/dcparris
--------
--- On Wed, 26/10/11, Murray White<phy...@rogers.com> wrote:
From: Murray White<phy...@rogers.com>
Subject: Re: [libreoffice-users] LO auto save
To: "users@global.libreoffice.org"<users@global.libreoffice.org>
Date: Wednesday, 26 October, 2011, 22:41
Thanks to both of you. I'll save this
in a folder as I have a good memory -- just short!
I'm working on a very large document currently at 215 pages
and have been using Wordpad and I do a BU of that each day
when I add any new text which I create in a separate file.
I have to now decide whether to continue with the use of
WordPad for my daily work and just add to the LO file after
doing the WP doc as .rtf. I'm currently saving the LO file
as .odt but will likely do another save as .rtf to see how
it looks as I'm not sure what the differences are. I also
don't know if the printer of the book being created will be
able to work from .odt or will prefer .rtf.
Unfortunately, WP does not show how many pages are complete
or give the page breaks and because this document has both
text and photos (many) the LO is nice to use.
For years I have used Works but for this I felt it might be
an issue when the document goes to a printer as we will be
doing close to 40 books.
Any thoughts from experienced LO users would be
appreciated. At some point I really need to look up some LO
tutorials to fully understand all that the program will do
and offers.
I have not checked the "always make BU as I thought that if
that occurs after each save, it could create some delays
when dealing with a big file but once I adjust the current
file and then begin to do the additional add on of
information, I think I'll try the auto BU. I assume it will
save a file called "copy" (previous file name) into the same
folder.
Thanks again.
MW
________________________________
From: Tom Davies<tomdavie...@yahoo.co.uk>
To: users@global.libreoffice.org
Sent: Wednesday, October 26, 2011 3:48:36 PM
Subject: Re: [libreoffice-users] LO auto save
Hi :)
Yes, or use Steve's answer to set it at a reasonably longer
time-interval (jic you do get carried away and forget).
Hmmm, longest is 60mins apparently. It is a good idea to
have the back-up thing ticked jic but i think that is
unticked by default while the autosave is ticked.
Regards from
Tom :)
--- On Wed, 26/10/11, Steve Edmonds<steve.edmo...@ptglobal.com>
wrote:
From: Steve Edmonds<steve.edmo...@ptglobal.com>
Subject: Re: [libreoffice-users] LO auto save
To: users@global.libreoffice.org
Date: Wednesday, 26 October, 2011, 20:39
Hi.
In options>load/save>general.
this is under my Tools menu item.
I turn off (untick) the backup and auto recovery options.
steve
On 27/10/11 08:29, Murray White wrote:
I just downloaded and install LO today and am trying
out some things. One thing I wonder is if there is any way
to turn off the auto save? I prefer to use Ctrl + S at my
own choosing or to return to auto save if I find I prefer
that option.
MW
