[Wylug-discuss] Linux on the desktop (was [Wylug-help] Fw: Re: Installing a speedtouch modem)

[Jim Jackson]

On Wed, 19 Nov 2003, Nik Jewell wrote:

> I knew somebody would challenge me on OO :-)

glad to oblige :-)

> Its 'ghastliness' for me is mainly on aesthetic grounds; I just find it
> ugly and clunky.

Maybe - as I said having to use a GUI for me is lowering my standards
anyway, further "looks" judgement seems superfluous :-)

> More importantly, however, is interoperability with others and with
> other apps.  On the former, I do a great deal of collaborative editing
> of documents and OO doesn't have the kind of 'track changes' type
> functionality that can interoperate with Word users (I'm not sure that
> it has any such functionality at all ?) .
>
> I have also found in the past (though there may be improvements now)
> that OO could not be trusted to open a Word doc with complex formatting
> and preserve that formatting after editing it and returning it to its
> creator for further editing in Word..

Interoperability is fair to good, but not brilliant. For a lot of very
general stuff it's ok - modulo a bit of tweaking with layout. I've not
looked at the "changes" support in OO yet. Which I can see would be
important in collaborative contexts.

As an aside however someone from a world famous consultancy once sent me a
wonderful word doc, with all sorts of MS Word locked (secure)  sections
that were supposed to be uneditable without a password! In OO all you got
was the full document (pretty well formatted as well) fully editable!
Guess what the document was a consultancy report on IT security! LOL! So
OO has a place - like catdoc. Always run catdoc on word docs you get, if
the sender used quick save, you'll see their previous versions and edits.
Can be interesting.

> Maybe I should use OO at home, and I used to, but I cannot any longer be
> bothered to use two different apps when one will do.  As I said in my OP
> it's all a matter of getting my job done.

I've done the opposite. I can use word if I want to, but since OO came
along I've given up and use OO all the time.

Jim