[Gllug] Office Alternatives

[David L Neil Mailing list a/c]

John G Walker wrote:
> 
> On Thu, 22 May 2008 22:56:39 +0100 "Stephen Nelson-Smith"
> <sanelson at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> the auto numbering and bulleting just doesn't work.  Or
>> at least is almost unuseable compared with Word. 
> 
> How come they work for me? Could you be a bit more specific? Maybe
> there are aspects of them that don't work but that I don't use,


Much/most of this was cleared up at the last major version release.
However choosing custom bullet symbols relies upon font availability -
same problem with HTML and browsers, although I think there are ways
around...

Then there are imagined or apparent issues: Just last week I was helping
our own Chris Bell with a piece of local government bureaucracy using OO
Writer to fill in a Word .doc file. Each question or series of questions
was contained within a table. When the pagination shifted one table went
walkabout, and no matter what I did it wouldn't behave. Lacking time I
fired up the CO's Win2000 machine and started feverishly copying a fresh
copy opened natively within MS-Word. However it turned out that the
issue was user error, in that the table was not anchored
correctly/consistently and thus floated about even in the ?proper?
package! User error in method selection - nothing to do with the tool -
but who has time to analyse all this stuff when users complain of
something similar? Can't even complain that MS-Word got it wrong!

I think the OOo tools work very well, but the non-technical transition
effort should not be under-estimated, nor should the idea that every
external MS-formatted (non-Open Standard!?) document coming in/going out
will require at least some extra ('transition') thought and attention.

That said, the important part of documents SHOULD be their data content,
not their 'frilly bits'! (try telling that to an (anti-)personnel
department)

Moving to OO Calc, I agree that the compatibility aspects are less
successful, and I haven't had dealings with the likes of
accounting/power users attempting a major transition. However
forward-thinking MS-Excel investors have been pondering their future
with (perceived?) uncertainties about M$'s future intent and risks of
backward-incompatibility - unfortunately I have no facts or firm
rationale to offer (as I say, I've not had to pay close attention). If
the scripting language (Excel macros, VisualBasic) changes significantly
and impacts user-developers and backward-compat then we have an upgrade
or re-write scenario, and re-write could justify a move to OO Calc! (to
say nothing of using the proper combination of tools, eg database
storage, instead of massive, monolithic, hard to audit and control,
spreadsheets...)

Regards,
=dn

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