On Tue, Feb 02, 2010 23:28:44 PM +0100, Marcello Romani (mrom...@ottotecnica.com) wrote:
> I've been using OpenOffice.org for several years now, both at home > and at work. It's not meant to be a "word processing for kids" > application, so maybe it's not suitable for 6 or 7 years old kids, > but I think 9-10 this is not the main topic, but please note that there also is an OpenOffice version with an interface modified justfor kids in that age range, see http://stop.zona-m.net/node/42 Back to Mrs Walsh problem: Mrs Walsh, I strongly suggest that you send a copy of the file that gave you problems to some of the other users (more expert than me) who offered to check if what you reported is a bug in OpenOffice or maybe just a less than optimal way to use word processors (of whatever name). There may be plenty of ways to unvoluntarily messing up the format of a file even from version to version of Microsoft Office, depending on fonts, paper size and other computer settings etc... that have nothing to do with software quality and lots to do with user practices. There is a possibility that the problems you saw fall in this case, that is that they are something that would have hit you as soon as you changed MS Office version. Only an exam of that file by the people who offered to help can find if this is the case or not. I also share Marcello's concerns about this: > It would be interesting to know how much your school will spend in > MS Office licenes. Maybe those money could be spent in OOo training > courses for the teachers... > > You should also consider that by using MS Office at school, you > force the kids' parents to spend money to purchase MS Office > licenses. (note that in some cases running MS Office may also mean spend more money to upgrade Windows and/or the computer...) Isn't it... let's say unprofessional when a TEACHER ( = "educator...") forces families or schools (especially since *you* yourself said that one of the schools can't afford MS licenses) to either: - spend on licenses money they don't have, that is to make (more) debits or to give up something more important (clothes, new tools for the school lab, paper for the printers, whatever) - behave illegally (so much for education...), that is install pirate copies of MS Office. The only reason why these two things still happen so frequently is ignorance among most parents. If a teacher in my children's school told me that I MUST install MS Office otherwise my children won't be able to do homework, I'd simply refuse and ask the principal to either replace that teacher or prove beyond doubt that MS Office and only MS Office is necessary for the curriculum. This said, I repeat my technical support suggestion: send that file to who offered to analyze it and they'll see what the actual problem is. Marco -- A simple exercise about online privacy: http://stop.zona-m.net/node/83 --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.org
