On 09/01/2007 07:27 PM, Christian Einfeldt wrote: > hi > > I find it easier to do newsletters with Pagemaker,
Please use attributes when replying to posts. At first glance I thought that *you* were saying that you find it easier to do newsletters with Pagemaker. [snip] > > > If anyone need to convince a school about open source, I do remember >> reading information and articles sent from OOo's people about OOo >> and schools. Many schools are either including or switching to OOo. > > > The school does allow me to give them FOSS solutions for the students' use, > because the students' work is considered non-mission-critical, oddly > enough. For the kids, it doesn't have to be perfect, but for the teachers, > it has to be perfect, or at least beat Microsoft on a strictly performance > basis. > Regarding your original problem re the Excel spreadsheet, it appears that you may also have additional problems: 1. Check to see if the spreadsheet is shared. Meaning that teachers can edit etc., at the same time. You won't be able to do this with OOo (at present). 2. Printing to a Windows box is no problem; just use Samba. 3. Technophobe staff; your greatest problem will be the principal. You must first convince her to support a trial. Anyone remember the days of EDI? There was never a successful EDI implementation unless the command came from the top. I solved the technical issues concerning international EDI in the '80's; the bulk of the EDI thereafter were training companies & governments on how to change their practices to actually use EDI. FOSS implentation is no different, there really isn't much to do technically, all of the hard work is in changing management and work practices. Note: You could easily run Excel in a WINE and/or emulation/VMWare environment if need be until such time as you figure out a transition. Ironically enough I am responding to you using a salvaged public school (from the greater San Francisco Bay Area) computer that had been sitting in a recycle bin for nearly 1 year. It has an Intel motherboard, had an 80Gb hard drive (since moved over to another system), has 512Mb of ram and is a solid screamer compared to my old Compaq 450Mhz/384Mb system that I used for over 6 years. It now runs linux; OOo 2.2.1, OOo 2.3dev, SeaMonkey, FireFox, Evolution, Gimp, Scribus, etc. I've another one running in the other room that also contains an Intel Motherboard, 256Mb (capable of 4Gb), 80G + the 80G out of this machine that was also in the scrap heap... Apparently someone convinced the school that neither machine was good enough to run the 'latest & greatest' from M$oft. Pretty ironic from a school district that a year or so ago was asking students to bring their own paper, and donate reams of paper so that the school could print assignments. Point being is that you need to find a valid alternate solution to the problem. If OOo and/or a database is it, then fine. But even if you find a solid technical alternative, you won't accomplish much unless you can convince the top staff that the school's business and adminstrative practices need to change, and that the change is for the better. Spreadsheets and/or datbases can easily be changed as long as the basic data can be exported/imported/copied etc. I reckon that just about any of the regulars on this list could take the 6Mb Excel spreadsheet and provide a reasonable OOo replacement (Calc or Base). I think that you are placing too much emphasis on the ability to use existing data in it's original environment vs the ability to use the data in a new enviroment. You are a lawyer, right? My advise would be to start thinking outside of the 'technical' box, and instead build a defense for the longer term advantages of using FOSS/OOo/etc at the school. I'd also suggest that you have a look at StarOffice. OOo is basically the free version of SO, and Sun have added macro & templates that assist in making a MS to SO transition. It's free to educational institutions, staff, students, etc., and I'm sure that the Sun rep will be quite happy to assist you in making the transition from MS to SO. http://www.sun.com/products-n-solutions/edu/solutions/staroffice.html I suspect that they'd even offer an assist grant and/or tech assist at no charge if you ask them. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
