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New York Times Plugs OpenOffice Suite
MrNovember writes "The New York Times (registration blah blah) describes a new choice for office suites. The writer seems a bit slanted toward OpenOffice but it's a fair discussion of its pros and cons. The article has identified some interesting compatibility issues to those who aren't using OpenOffice but might. Again we see major media discussing open source as an actual alternative to a longstanding standard. The article concludes amusingly with 'Every now and then, you get what you don't pay for;' just tack on 'Open Source' to the beginning for the perfect sig." We've gotten numerous submissions recently from people whose [company/school/whatever] is switching to OpenOffice.
It is a fact. I have helped almost all my family (no geeks in there) migrate from Windows + MSOffice to Linux + OpenOffice with no side effects. If you install a nice system, and add the OpenOffice icon to the KDE desktop, you are done.
How many times does your mom install a new printer? even when she had Windows and she got a new LaserJet she called me!. We all know all the people and institutions that are migrating towards Linux and OO, its just a matter of time to see it as a mainstream.
On the other hand, it would come handy if the WalMart Mandrake PCs come with StarOffice preinstalled and with a HUGE icon in the middle of the desktop for all users.
Life isn't like a box of chocolates. It's more like a jar of jalapenos. What you do today, might burn your ass tomorrow.
Spam: every now and then, you get what you don't pay for
Pr0n: every now and then, you get what you don't pay for
Warez:every now and then, you get what you don't pay for...
We're a small tier OEM, and myself and another tech have convinced 'those that be' within our company to include Open Office on our low end systems instead of MS Worksuite 2002 OEM.
Unfortunately the systems still come with MS Windows XP Home on them, but at least it's a step in the right direction. All of us techs now have Open Office installed on our computers and use it for pretty much all of our office app needs except for a few Excel quote sheets that have embedded macros that don't seem to function properly.
So far we've had no complaints from any customers that have purchased these systems, but then again we've gotten no rave reviews either. I would definately say that it is an option though, at least for people who aren't tied directly into the MS specifics of the different file formats. Anyone who just wants to use a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation software and do thier work from scratch should be more than happy with this software.
Duris MUD - The best pkill MUD. Ever.
1. Ugly fonts
2. Can't read ALL the Word documents
3. Still a bit sluggish
Three! I mean three major gripes!
Seriously, font ugliness is a big problem under linux and it's all X's fault. You've seen the hundreds of people gawking at anti-aliased desktops, it just looks cooler.
I believe there are many articles on exactly why fonts are ugly in linux... I also believe that the lack of cool, MS-compatible fonts (let's face it guys, Truetype was one thing MS carried from Win 3.1 to Win XP for a reason) are because of licensing issues.
The next time a big company wants to donate money to open source, get them to design or fund fonts! That'll get Linux on the desktop. That'll cause secretaries to use OpenOffice and that'll make me happy.
'nuff said.
I don't know about VBA from Office, but OpenOffice has an Autopilot that does mass conversions. Run OO's word processor, go to File, Autopilot, Document Converter. Seems to work pretty well for me. It also imports templates and such and automagically guesses where you're keeping most of your Word files.
End of lesson. You may press the button.
One great trick I found for converting excel files to HTML files. Excel does an awful job, writing an html page 10 times the size it needs to be, and the code is IE-centric. However, openoffice can open .xls files, and then save as html, and it outputs nicely formatted, standard HTML at very respectable sizes.
Travis
To my fellow OOo users running under GNOME, you may have encountered a problem where the program will often fail to start properly. This is not a crash. OOo is simply being purged by the GNOME session manager due to its relatively long startup time. I was a bit surprised to encounter this problem in 1.0, having thought it an OO bug. However, this article led me to search Issuezilla for a solution, which thankfully was determined.
There are a couple ways around the purge. The easiest one is to add "unset SESSION_MANAGER" to the soffice startup script. One file, all GNOME users happy. A somewhat more intrusive and wide-ranging solution is to add "exec $PATH_TO_GNOME-SESSION/gnome-session --purge-delay=0" to ~/.gnomerc. Supposedly, this will solve a similar problem with Opera, according to the bug comments.
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
The article poses the question, "Who do you call for tech support?" if your office suite breaks.
That's the big bugaboo question with corporations: Who do we blame if something goes wrong? That's the question that MS wants to stick in your craw, to give the perception that open source software is unreliable.
However, if you're using Microsoft products, when is the last time you got tech support from Microsoft? I've been supporting Microsoft products in a Helpdesk environment for over six years now. I have never even thought of support from Microsoft as much of an option. Am I missing something?
I do know that every time I have submitted bug reports to Microsoft (which I've done on multiple occasions) the report seems to disappear into a black hole. I've never got even so much as an automatic confirmation or anything. And always, the suggestion to correct the bug has gone unanswered, with no bug fix. Yes, I rather resent the poor service back to me, when I was trying to help them.
Every open source project I've submitted bug fixes for have almost always sent feedback back to me. Usually in the form of a personal email from the author. Now how's that for service?
--Yekrats
Ceci n'est pas une pipe.