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OpenOffice 1.1 RC 1 Released

Heartz writes "OpenOffice has released OpenOffice 1.1 RC 1. Get details here. Neat features include built in PDF and Flash export, better MS Office document filters and more!"

554 comments

  1. xooo by DrWhizBang · · Score: 3, Insightful

    wooHOO!!! now we just need Ximian to make it purty!

    --
    Schrodinger's cat is either dead or really pissed off...
    1. Re:xooo by TheRaven64 · · Score: 2, Informative

      Since Ximian have released the code to the modifications that they made to OOo, there's no reason why their icons couldn't be integrated back into the main codebase.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    2. Re:xooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

      um, how can a first post be modded "redundant"?

      It's a workaround due to the fact that, currently, there is no mod "-1 Gay."

      We apologize for the inconvenience; we hope to have this fixed in the next update of the Slashcode. Thanks for your patience.

    3. Re:xooo by soullessbastard · · Score: 2, Informative
      Their code has been released only under the LGPL license.

      To commit code back into OpenOffice.org, three things must happen:

      1. The code must be released under both LGPL and SISSL (the "closed source is fine as long as you use the same XML schemas" license). Right now Ximian's source is available under LGPL only.
      2. A Joint Copyright Assignment form must be on file giving copyright to your changes to Sun Microsystems.
      3. You need to go through the fun patch submission process and politics of forcing your patches down Sun's throat.

      As an example, all y'all linux, *bsd dudes could have had three-modifier (e.g. use Alt, Control, and Meta for keyboard shortcuts) but project politics kept these patches from being accepted into the source base. Silly that such a simple community-contributed feature wasn't accepted, no?

      This patch submission difficulty is one of the reasons why Ximian icons and patches are not within OpenOffice.org. It's also one of the reasons the Tru64 patches never made it back into OpenOffice.org. The Tru64 team got 1.0.0 compiling, but the patch submission/approval process was so daunting they just didn't bother.

    4. Re:xooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      When a project is open source, you don't *have* to get your patches approved.

  2. Missing features still... by jkrise · · Score: 4, Informative

    Simplicity, like AbiWord.
    Less bloat, like Gnumeric (which yet scores over Excel)
    Performance - It's a lot slower than MS Office, specially on Linux.

    --
    If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
    1. Re:Missing features still... by georgep77 · · Score: 5, Funny

      "It's a lot slower than MS Office, specially on Linux".
      You've run MS-Office on Linux? It was faster? Have you tried it with one of the newer 2.5.x kernels, you may notice a speed increase.

      Cheers,
      _GP_

    2. Re:Missing features still... by SecGreen · · Score: 2, Funny

      How is it slower than MS Office on Linux?

      --
      Dupe posts are /.'s tacit protest on the rights of users to time-shift content...
    3. Re:Missing features still... by PhysicsExpert · · Score: 0, Troll

      here in the lab we adopted open office about a year ago as Microsoft did not give a comprehensive equation editor in which we could create our theorums. So far our experiences have been mixed, major findings are:

      File formats are causing a problem. We are unable to send people Open office documents as they can only support MS files. We thus always convert to HTML but valuable information can get lost in the process.

      The spreadsheet is good and has proved invaluable when used for nth level modelling. There is no option for a r squared analysis in the statistics package.

      The word processor is good, although somewhere it is set to autoreplace the word lepton with leprechaun which is proving most annoying as I write my paper on particle physics.

      --
      All that glitters has a high refractive index.
    4. Re:Missing features still... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes you can run MS Office on Linux with WINE, and yes OpenOffice.org is MUCH slower. Slower loading, slower operating, just plain slower.

      JC

    5. Re:Missing features still... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sadly, right
      it's the biggest slowest app I use on linux.Since I only need it for reading MS word/ppt it's frustrating there's no lightweight wordviewer xlsviewer etc especially since OO say they have a really nice object model SDK which helps building
      specialized apps/components :(

    6. Re:Missing features still... by jkrise · · Score: 4, Informative

      You've run MS-Office on Linux? It was faster?

      About 80% of my clients use Windows to run Office, mail and a bit of browsing. The speeds I measured were on the same system:

      MS Office (Word) on MS Windoze : 100
      Open Office on Windoze : 134
      Open Office on Linux : 176
      AbiWord on Linux : 27

      MS Office (Excel) on MS Windoze: 100
      Open Office on Windoze : 110
      Open Office on Linux : 140
      Gnumeric on Linux : 33

      Both AbiWord and Gnumeric support the Windoze MS Office formats quite well. In short, I can't think of any reason to run OpenOffice on Linux systems - except for hyper-sensitive users.

      -

      --
      If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
    7. Re:Missing features still... by mark_lybarger · · Score: 1, Flamebait

      this was modded interesting? wtf? the parent is a troll comment. haven't we realized that the right tool is for the right job? if you need to print a paragraph, then abi might work, if you need a simple spreadsheet, then sure try out gnumeric. if you'd like something cross platform that's supported by a major hardware and software vendor, then go for OpenOffice or its derivitive(s).

      Slower than MS Office on Linux, that's not even really funny? I just don't get these trolls today. Let's try this one; "hey, and if you open a document that contains the words "hot grits" and "natalie portman" and press ctrl+shift+alt+F5, then you get a nice picture of natalie portman grits and all with the caption, "IN SOVIET RUSSIA LINUX RUNS ON MS OFFICE!"

    8. Re:Missing features still... by jkrise · · Score: 1

      How is it slower than MS Office on Linux?

      Refer reply to similar query. Thanks.

      -

      --
      If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
    9. Re:Missing features still... by Rogerborg · · Score: 2, Informative

      It's slower than MS Office running on wine on linux. It starts up more slowly, it responds more slowly, it uses more memory. Is that clear enough for you?

      --
      If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
    10. Re:Missing features still... by Kefaa · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I have to disagree, at least a little. ;)

      AbiWord - It has the simplicity of Works. While that his not a bad thing, it is not the same as comparing to office.

      Bloat - Integrated packages will always suffer from this more than stand alone products (Wordpad versus Office). And Gnumeric is limited in it does not support all the similar functions of Excel.

      Performance - This is an old complaint that beyond opening I don't see. The MS Word application opens about twice as fast (I just tested it on Windows at 4 seconds versus 9 seconds), but once it is open the speed is not any different. As for the open, MS has the advantage of being able to give priority to their own applications at the base code level or taking advantage of "undocumented features."

    11. Re:Missing features still... by AllUsernamesAreGone · · Score: 1

      "lthough somewhere it is set to autoreplace the word lepton with leprechaun which is proving most annoying as I write my paper on particle physics." Maybe OO knows something you don't eh? ;)

    12. Re:Missing features still... by Rogerborg · · Score: 3, Funny

      > it is set to autoreplace the word lepton with leprechaun which is proving most annoying as I write my paper on particle physics.

      Well, changing the dictionary or turning off auto-replace isn't exactly, er, rocket science.

      --
      If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
    13. Re:Missing features still... by Craig+Maloney · · Score: 1

      Might help your case to put units in your measurements. I'm not sure what you're measuring there.

    14. Re:Missing features still... by 3rd_Floo · · Score: 1

      Cross Office will run it on linux, though the speed is that of OO, esp with that D*** CLIP!!!

    15. Re:Missing features still... by Rogerborg · · Score: 0

      You can run Office (Word, anyway) using wine on a linux system. It starts faster, runs faster, and uses less memory than Open Office swriter.

      You can claim that it's not a fair comparison because it's not running native, or properly, but the point is that it does run, it runs better than Open Office, and it does so even it's an unfair comparison in Open Office's favour.

      --
      If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
    16. Re:Missing features still... by Yarn · · Score: 3, Interesting

      LaTeX is there for physics papers. I wrote up my notes in LaTeX after getting fed up with writing my reports in OpenOffice

      --
      -Yarn - Rio Karma: Excellent
    17. Re:Missing features still... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      I think he's scaling it, using MS Office as the base (100).

    18. Re:Missing features still... by dabuk · · Score: 3, Insightful
      These speeds are meaningless unless you give us some context. I assume you're giving relative speeds at performing some task since both the MS Office speeds are 100.

      But what's the task? Considering that AbiWord (good though it is) has only a subset of the features of Word and Open Office, you must just be comparing features that they share, which is never going to give the whole picture.

      If you really have performed some benchmarks you should publish them properly but I suspect that your numbers are meaningless.

    19. Re:Missing features still... by jkrise · · Score: 1

      Look who's trolling...

      if you need to print a paragraph, then abi might work

      Is a 64-page proposal with snaked-columns and pictures and graphs, a paragraph???

      if you need a simple spreadsheet, then sure try out gnumeric.

      For your info., Gnumeric supports the same size as MS Excel - it in fact gives you a simple way to extend beyond 65536 elements - it's Excel which locks out users from this.

      if you'd like something cross platform that's supported by a major hardware and software vendor, then go for OpenOffice or its derivitive(s).

      Why? 'Cos OpenOffice is something holy? I admit it's a great piece of code, but choice of app should not be based on names or compatibility with silly MS bloatware. Both AbiWord and Gnumeric can safely and painlessly exchange documents from Windows systems - no problems at all.

      In fact, RC1 does state 'more' compatibilty with Windoze files now. Chew that.
      -

      --
      If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
    20. Re:Missing features still... by jkrise · · Score: 4, Informative

      These speeds are meaningless unless you give us some context. I assume you're giving relative speeds at performing some task since both the MS Office speeds are 100.

      All speeds are in seconds - MS Office speeds are pegged at 100 for scaling. For Word, I measured 'file- open speed' for 10-page files (there's little point in measuring 'editing' speeds). For Excel I opened 6 page spreadsheets with a bit of formulae. Again 'updating' and 'editing' speeds were not measured.
      -

      --
      If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
    21. Re:Missing features still... by jsailor · · Score: 1

      Doesn't Office preload a bunch of things at bootup? Also, it seems if you're forced to Outlook, it defaults to using Word as an editor and essentially loads that too.

    22. Re:Missing features still... by martin-k · · Score: 1

      Then look into TextMaker for Linux, for Windows, and for Pocket PCs. Much faster than OpenOffice (it's even fast enough on a lowly MIPS-based Pocket PC...) and many more features than Abiword.

    23. Re:Missing features still... by AndyS · · Score: 1

      how do you extend it beyond 65536 elements?

      By simple do you mean - edit the source code (not that I actually mind doing this, I'm just curious), or change a variable somewhere?

    24. Re:Missing features still... by dabuk · · Score: 1
      I'm not sure that scaling the times (not really speeds as that implies that high numbers are good) is useful. If for instance it takes only half a second to open the document on Word that means that it's not really much worse for Open Office. If on the other hand it takes 10 seconds on Word, this is significant.

      While file-open speeds are important and might give some indication of the speed of other operations, I don't think they're really that useful. Editing speeds are far more important, although they're obviously very difficult to quantify.

    25. Re:Missing features still... by DarkSarin · · Score: 1

      did you miss the part that allows you to export to MS Office format? Yeah I thought so.

      --
      "We don't know what we are doing, but we are doing it very carefully,..." Wherry, R.J. Personnel Psychology (1995)
    26. Re:Missing features still... by loginx · · Score: 1

      I'm assuming that you *are* refering to the latest OpenOffice that this article is here to talk about right?

      I mean, it's a little quick to do benchmarks IMO, but when I fire up OO.o 1.1 beta2 on this box, it's just pretty darn fast compared to the old 1.0.2 and 1.0.3.

      It's still slower than MS-Office on Windows but MS-Office emulated runs a lot slower here as well.

      Also let's not forget that the reason why OO.o is so slow is because it relies in technologies that offer poor performance in order to provide true cross-platform applications...

      OpenOffice is getting a lot better but I don't see them catching up with features, speed and interface in the next 5 years anyway, however, it's just "Good Enough For Me" (tm)

    27. Re:Missing features still... by afidel · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Last I had read Gnumeric has all Excel functions plus a couple hundred unique ones, can you please list something that Excel supports that Gnumeric doesn't??

      --
      There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
    28. Re:Missing features still... by SN74S181 · · Score: 1

      but... but... but... that's because Microsoft takes advantage of the hidden API calls in Wine for their Office Suite.

      Heh.

    29. Re:Missing features still... by goranb · · Score: 2, Insightful
      For Word, I measured 'file- open speed' for 10-page files (there's little point in measuring 'editing' speeds). For Excel I opened 6 page spreadsheets with a bit of formulae

      I'm assuming that you opened the same files with the appropriate program in Open office, right? This doesn't really seem all that fair to me, as the Open office programs have to filter the documents to their internal representation.

      Just a thought off course...

    30. Re:Missing features still... by con · · Score: 0, Redundant

      Now the file formats should be less of a problem due to teh improved MSOffice compatibility and I think the more important feature of being able to save your file as PDF.

    31. Re:Missing features still... by egreB · · Score: 4, Insightful

      did you miss the part that allows you to export to MS Office format?

      This raises an important issue. The main reason Microsoft is able to keep such a good grip on office-suites, is the file formats. Everything is kept in Microsoft Word og Excel-formats. It's all well and good that the alternatives can read and write these formats (though they're not perfect), but what we need, is an alternetive. We need an open format common to all word processors. The only format I know of that Word will read, is RTF. But RTF is rather limited. When I send a document from OO, I want to do it in an open format, readable by all (including Microsoft Word). These days, KOffice won't even read OO-documents.

    32. Re:Missing features still... by jkrise · · Score: 1

      While file-open speeds are important and might give some indication of the speed of other operations,

      Okay.. I'll qualify it even more: to measure the speed, I type c:\ winword testfile.doc This measures the time taken for winword.exe to load, plus the time taken to load the document test.doc. This is the speed that makes sense to most users.
      -

      --
      If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
    33. Re:Missing features still... by Troed · · Score: 2, Insightful

      OpenOffice v1.1 can export to PDF - most people can read that. Alternatively, they can always rename the files to .zip, open them and read the text in their favourite notepad .. ;)

      The OpenOffice fileformat

    34. Re:Missing features still... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      PDF output has been available for a long time. Maybe doze users need to install ghostscript to activate it?

    35. Re:Missing features still... by greenrd · · Score: 1
      Wine uses Win32 libs for some calls, although they are working on rewriting all the libs to be native Linux.

    36. Re:Missing features still... by stienman · · Score: 4, Funny

      Well, changing the dictionary or turning off auto-replace isn't exactly, er, rocket science.

      Well duh. If it was rocket science he'd have no problem.

      -Adam

    37. Re:Missing features still... by cerberusss · · Score: 1
      Cross Office will run it on linux, though the speed is that of OO
      Have you actually tried this? I'm running RH9 here on a 2Ghz intel and CXOffice starts Word 2000 in 3 seconds, while OO's writer starts in 17 (read this: SEVENTEEN) seconds.
      --
      8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
    38. Re:Missing features still... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There actually is an option for r squared analysis (I used it myself for my stats project) but there is no DubinWatson statistic (yet).

    39. Re:Missing features still... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      These days, KOffice won't even read OO-documents.

      That is a fault of KOffice, not OpenOffice. The file format for OO is well documented so adding support should be easy.

    40. Re:Missing features still... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Decent plotting.

    41. Re:Missing features still... by mj01nir · · Score: 3, Informative

      Reveal Codes! Please give me WordPerfect style reveal codes. I haven't used WP in 6 years and I still miss reveal codes.

      That said, I've been using 1.1b1 and 1.1b2 for some time now and have been quite pleased with the progress. With OOo 1.1, I finally moved my wife's computer from Win2K to Linux. No regrets.

      --
      the no .sig .sig
    42. Re:Missing features still... by Rogerborg · · Score: 1

      Hey, give me a chance to download it. ;-)

      Nah, this is Office 2000 versus OpenOffice 1.0. I'll try again with 1.1. Note that I do use and love OO, it just irks me that it's a dog compared to MS Office.

      --
      If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
    43. Re:Missing features still... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      If you're going to compare speeds, you should measure the time to open a second OpenOffice window while the first window exists.

      An unknown amount of MS Office is already loaded as part of MS Windows. Part of that is also the .doc file reading routines, which OpenOffice has to load and initialize.

      There also is a difficulty with trying to measure time-to-open-second-window with MS Office: we don't know how much of the second-window processing is done by MS Office before you request the window. We can find out if OpenOffice does any preparation for a second window before it is requested.

    44. Re:Missing features still... by bzzzt · · Score: 1

      Remember: clippy is unsupported with crossover office ;)

      But really: microsoft office with crossover office starts up faster than openoffice.

    45. Re:Missing features still... by aes12 · · Score: 1

      I have tried to export files from OO to MS Word at work, as part of my own little open-source advocacy project... It works well for simple files, but as soon as you try to convert a more complex file, such as a user's manual, with images, multiple columns, headers, footers, etc..., the deficiencies of the filter becomes quite apparent.

      OO is a great program, but as far as MS Office inter-operability, it's not quite ready for prime-time.

    46. Re:Missing features still... by christopherfinke · · Score: 2, Funny
      Windoze [...] Windoze [...] Windoze [...] Windoze [...] Windoze
      You spelled Windows wrong, and it seems especially curious since your post was about how Windows actually runs this program faster than Linux.
    47. Re:Missing features still... by killmenow · · Score: 1

      I don't know...so I'm asking:

      With Excel, I can "Get External Data" to query a database and return my result set directly into my spreadsheet. That is a useful feature. Is there any similar feature in Gnumeric that allows me to directly query any ODBC database and return my results into the worksheet?

      I couldn't find anything on the gnumeric site. The manual appears to have a section on getting external data but when you look at it, all it says is: "This has not yet been written. "

    48. Re:Missing features still... by jridley · · Score: 1

      It's been available in the *nix versions for a long time. It's not been available in the Windows version up to now. I just tried it in Windows and it works fine in this release.

    49. Re:Missing features still... by Keith+Russell · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Ah, scaling. I do believe that was Chapter 2 of How To Lie With Statistics. (And thank you, Dr. Schlossnagel, for making that book required reading in your Statistics class.) How about some raw numbers? For all we know, the unscaled difference between MSO and OOo is as marginal as a Q3A benchmark between a GF FX 5900 Ultra and a Radeon 9800 Pro.

      And were both MSO and OOo "quick loaders" used on Windows? (And do please note the spelling. You do want to be cited as a credible source, don't you?)

      --
      This sig intentionally left blank.
    50. Re:Missing features still... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful
      You have to count an unknown amount of the memory which is used by the MS "operating system", as MS Office undoubtedly uses routines which are loaded before it is started. At a minimum, it is quite likely that some file input/output routines for .doc files are preloaded before MS Office is started.

      Perhaps it would be simplest to compare the amount of RAM used by Linux+OpenOffice to MS OS+Office?
      Oh, that's not right either. OpenOffice might have to load .doc filter code which it wouldn't need if it was going to read only its own file formats. Well, if Linux+OO uses less RAM then the comparison doesn't fully have to deal with that. Or you can examine or modify OO to find out the amount of .doc overhead or to remove that code for measurement.

    51. Re:Missing features still... by molarmass192 · · Score: 1

      Which version and what task are you measuring? You need to look into the 1.1 releases on Linux since they did a lot of performance related work there. If you looked into a 1.0.x release, the results are no longer valid.

      --

      Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws-Plato
    52. Re:Missing features still... by kalidasa · · Score: 1

      here in the lab we adopted open office about a year ago as Microsoft did not give a comprehensive equation editor in which we could create our theorums

      Given enough practice, even trolling may become an art. Bravo! You, sir, are on your way to becoming an artist.

      [Note to slashdot readers: one does not "create theorems" in an equation editor. YHBT.]

    53. Re:Missing features still... by skryche · · Score: 4, Funny
      Open Office on Windoze : 134
      Open Office on Linux : 176

      For this to be really fair, you should be comparing Windoze to Linsux.

    54. Re:Missing features still... by N7DR · · Score: 1
      File formats are causing a problem. We are unable to send people Open office documents as they can only support MS files. We thus always convert to HTML but valuable information can get lost in the process.

      This is a real problem with OOo. I desperately want to be able to recommend OOo to my company (who, like most companies these days, would jump at the chance at saving some money by reducing the number of M$ Office licenses). But I just can't do it. Even fairly simple OOo documents that one saves in so-called Word format do not reproduce correctly in real Word.

      I brought one of these to the attention of the developers recently, and the response came down to "yes, it's different, but it's working the way we designed it to work", and the issue was marked as closed. Frankly, I don't care how it's supposed to work. All I know is that if I save something in M$ Word format, I'd better be able to open the document in M$ Word and work on it without information getting lost in the process.

      So while I am happy to use OOo myself, if someone else is also going to have to work on the document, I find that it's far safer to use Word instead :-(

    55. Re:Missing features still... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      All speeds are in seconds - MS Office speeds are pegged at 100 for scaling
      Once you've scaled to 100, the units are anything at all, except centi-Scales. Thats (partly) what scaling is for, you're saying "x is 10% slower than y"
    56. Re:Missing features still... by Gleng · · Score: 1

      I can back that up. Word under Crossover Office starts up on my machine (1.6GHz Athlon, 256MB RAM) running Slackware 9 pretty much instantly.

      OpenOffice 1.1beta starts up in....~clicks the icon to see~

      Oh, six seconds. Not too bad. I have been using it though, so it's probably cached up a fair bit of stuff.

      First run after booting up, it normally takes about 20 seconds or so.

      Still, I much prefer using OO Writer to Word, so it's worth the wait. It's not much cop as a quick document viewer though.

      --
      "Proudly Posting Without Reading The Article"
    57. Re:Missing features still... by N3WBI3 · · Score: 1
      run OpenOffice on Linux systems - except for hyper-sensitive users

      Or if you want to have the same office suite across your systems in a large environment..

      --
    58. Re:Missing features still... by Captain+Rotundo · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You haven't been paying attention, have you? Gnumeric now supports ALL excel functions and then some.

    59. Re:Missing features still... by cerberusss · · Score: 1

      *laughs*
      The sig is funny!

      --
      8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
    60. Re:Missing features still... by egreB · · Score: 1

      Well, OpenOffice doesn't read KOffice files. So there. (-:

    61. Re:Missing features still... by jcupitt65 · · Score: 1
      In short, I can't think of any reason to run OpenOffice on Linux systems - except for hyper-sensitive users

      abiword is nice, but it's still missing a lot of quite basic features (eg. tables). OOo is much closer to a drop-in word replacement.

    62. Re:Missing features still... by u-235-sentinel · · Score: 1

      Hmmm... Yes.. MS-Office on Linux is faster when firing it up. Using the program isn't all that different in comparison (to me at least).

      Oh and how do I get MS-Office on Linux working? Send $54 to the crossover office boys. There is much MUCH more in the magic hat than people realize. I've been using crossover office for about a year now. Very impressive software. I have v2.0 now and many of the little annoyances (besides running MS-Office) have disappeared.

      If you are forced (like me) to run it then crossover office is for you.

      --
      Has Comcast disconnected your Internet account? Same here. You can read about it at http://comcastissue.blogspot.com
    63. Re:Missing features still... by JCholewa · · Score: 1

      > I think he's scaling it, using MS Office as the base (100).

      That still doesn't answer the question (though your point is useful).

      Which app is he testing? Is he doing a complex spreadsheet batch function? Is he repaginating War and Peace? Is he testing how long the app takes to load?

      It's entirely possible that OpenOffice is inferior in some aspects of performance while MSOffice is inferior in other aspects of performance.

      Of course, that's why I use EditPad and Kate. Can't beat the sheer speed of a plain text editor. ;)

      --
      -JC
      http://www.jc-news.com/coding/SFi/

    64. Re:Missing features still... by Manic+Ken · · Score: 1

      One of the most important things to be able to do, is saving in word format. However the trail d/l page says "Saving to Microsoft Word and RTF is disabled. Opening such files is possible, well...since I really cant pay money for something I cant test, I woun't even d/l the trail. To be fair, I've heard it's great stuff.

    65. Re:Missing features still... by ShavenYak · · Score: 1

      It doesn't make sense for users that open their word processing program at the beginning of the day, and don't close it until the end of the day. For them, file opening, file saving, and editing speed are all that really matter.

      --

      Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!
    66. Re:Missing features still... by Nadir · · Score: 1

      Yes you can.

      You need to use GDA, part of the Gnome-DB effort.

      --
      --
      The world is divided in two categories:
      those with a loaded gun and those who dig. You dig.
    67. Re:Missing features still... by iantri · · Score: 1
      Reveal codes exists because of how WordPerfect was designed. WordPerfect works with streams of text which have formatting codes interspersed in them. This is probably due to the time WordPerfect was created and how printers worked then. Dot Matrixes (Matrices?) print text a certain way until you send them a formatting code (let's say bold). Then they keep printing bold until you tell it to do otherwise. This is consistent with how WordPerfect views documents.

      Word takes a more modern (but not necessarily better) approach by applying styles to containers. I imagine that OOo works the same way. Note that both have much better style sheet abilities than WordPerfect..

      See this page for details.

    68. Re:Missing features still... by abe+ferlman · · Score: 1

      I think "view source/view xml" might be equivalent/more appropriate. You can do this by firing up your text editor now, since the OO files are just xml files, but putting the feature into the app as a view option would be awesome (assuming it's not already there somewhere- I'm looking forward to trying this as soon as my admin can come around to install it here.)

      --
      microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
    69. Re:Missing features still... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Did you enable DRI under linux? Helps a lot for the actual GUI aspect.

    70. Re:Missing features still... by mt_nixnut · · Score: 2, Insightful
      users don't care.

      The best measurement is users reaction to clicking and having nothing happen for 10s of seconds, opposed to clicking and having a window pop up almost instantly.

      I know this because I have converted an entire office full of people over from MS to Linux and office to OOo in the last year. I have also used the beta 1.1b2. It is much better but still no where near as quick on the draw as office. I know MS cheats with its preloading but as I said before users don't care. I would use a preload feature if a (good) one existed. ( I have tried the quickstart hack but found it to be pretty useless especially in a multiuser environment like a terminal server. It is still slower loading than OOo on MS) But it is still the best thing going for Linux that I am aware of. Hopefully this speed thing can get worked out somehow because I consider it to be the biggest drawback at this point.

    71. Re:Missing features still... by aonaran · · Score: 1

      here in the lab we adopted open office about a year ago as Microsoft did not give a comprehensive equation editor in which we could create our theorums. So far our experiences have been mixed, major findings are:

      Funny, that was what my girlfriend cited as the reason FOR using MS Office, (the equation editor) she's a PhD student in Physics at McMaster University in Hamilton Ontario.

      What would you say are the advantages of the equation editor in Open Office over the MS version?
      (I know nothing about either myself)

    72. Re:Missing features still... by martin-k · · Score: 1

      Yeah, I know. I'd love to have that feature in the trial. However, we haven't found a way to enable it and at the same time prevent people from installing the trial over and over again. In our own file format, we can save trial code information, in .doc files we cannot. Any better ideas?

    73. Re:Missing features still... by axxackall · · Score: 1

      The only one I know that is missed in Gnumeric is a support for ActiveX. Although, I don't know if you want to call it a "missed feature".

      --

      Less is more !
    74. Re:Missing features still... by BrokenHalo · · Score: 1

      Seems to me that the only major performance failure of OpenOrifice is the time it takes to load in the first place. Everything else is pretty much the same as any other application. I love this project (with reservations) but this load-time issue has been dragging on for way too long.

    75. Re:Missing features still... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I run ms office on Linux every day at work and home using crossover and it is WAY faster on linux than OOo.

      Sorry. It is true.

    76. Re:Missing features still... by ShavenYak · · Score: 1

      No, if it were (grammar nitpick: don't use was, this sentence is subjunctive mood) particle physics he'd have no problem. There's no guarantee that he knows anything about rocket science.

      --

      Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!
    77. Re:Missing features still... by AstroDrabb · · Score: 1

      I don't know why some idiot modded this as a troll. The guy is just stating HIS experience.

      Why don't you just send the docs in native OOo format and require people to download OOo if they want to use them? OOo is free and runs on tons of platforms. There is no reason that someone cannot view your OOo documents. No one thinks twice about sending a proprietary Ms Word file in which case a user needs to spend a few hundred bucks to use that file on an office suite and a more money on a proprietary OS.

      When you start to type out lepton, OOo will start to replace for you, however the replace is not complete unless you press ENTER. Just keep typing and OOo will not replace lepton with leprechaun. Alos OOo can export to many formats, including MS word and I think Post script or PDF. If it does PostScript you can easily convert that PS file to a PDF using ps2pdf.

      --
      If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land,
      it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. -James Madison
    78. Re:Missing features still... by BrokenHalo · · Score: 1
      Gnumeric now supports ALL excel functions and then some.

      Except when it comes to plotting. I don't have Winbloze on either of my home computers, but it would be nice if OO or Gnumeric came up to scratch with statistics plotting.

    79. Re:Missing features still... by mj01nir · · Score: 1

      I think "view source/view xml" might be equivalent/more appropriate.

      I could probably live with that. So long as I could edit in that window. A nice thing about the WP reveal codes is that you got your WYSIWYG doc in a large top panel and the reveal codes in a smaller panel at the bottom. Editing in either panel automatically updated the other.

      You can do this by firing up your text editor now, since the OO files are just xml files

      That's what I thought, but I just tried it and it looks like the file is converted into some sort of binary (compressed?). Or am I just doing something wrong?

      --
      the no .sig .sig
    80. Re:Missing features still... by Jason+Earl · · Score: 1

      I agree OpenOffice.org is slow to start. However, that is easily remedied by using a quickstarter that loads OpenOffice.org into memory when you log in. Quickstarters are available for Windows, Gnome, and KDE and they cut down the load time considerably.

      Yes, this "wastes" memory, but you can buy a lot of memory for the price of MS Office.

    81. Re:Missing features still... by AstroDrabb · · Score: 1
      Dont save in MS Word format. Use OOo's native format and no data will be lost. If people complain about what format it is, send them the link to OOo and tell them that it runs on tons of platforms and is free.

      If you expect OOo to make perfect ms word docs then you are silly. MS guards the proprietary office file formats like hawks. They are not going to let that out. It is pretty hard to figure out all the possibilities of a document format when you don't have the specs.
      So while I am happy to use OOo myself, if someone else is also going to have to work on the document, I find that it's far safer to use Word instead :-(
      How is it safer to user word? If you send an OOo document you KNOW that ANYONE can use it. They just have to download the FREE OOo suite. However, if you send an ms word doc, then there will be people that cannot use it either because of cost or because of platform. What if it was saved in a newer version of ms word? Then the user is SOL and they have to jump on the non-stop MS upgrade chain.
      --
      If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land,
      it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. -James Madison
    82. Re:Missing features still... by AstroDrabb · · Score: 1

      MS Office has been in the game a lot longer then OOo. OOo has only been heavily developed for what about 2 years or so? It does take time to make a complex office suite, especially one that does not tie you in to ONE platform and ONE file format.

      --
      If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land,
      it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. -James Madison
    83. Re:Missing features still... by mobiGeek · · Score: 1
      It's MS-Windows.

      Sorry.

      --

      ...Beware the IDEs of Microsoft...

    84. Re:Missing features still... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Try this.

    85. Re:Missing features still... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      You do want to be cited as a credible source, don't you?
      Please, this is jkrise. He isn't credible here, he isn't credible at ZDNet.

      Although it is interesting that Mr. "Linux rOoLz, Windows sucks" is almost advocating Windows over Linux here. (Note the "almost.")
    86. Re:Missing features still... by _Sprocket_ · · Score: 1


      That is a fault of KOffice, not OpenOffice. The file format for OO is well documented so adding support should be easy.


      Isn't that missing the point?

      Why haven't those involved with the various office application projects (diversity is good) hashed out a standard office document file format? While I don't wish to imply that this would be trivial, it does seem like it would be better than generating additional incompatible file formats. All of which are incompatible and less widely used than MS Office formats.
    87. Re:Missing features still... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So is that with the OO preloader running?

    88. Re:Missing features still... by bruthasj · · Score: 1

      Funny?

      See www.codeweavers.com. It does load faster: under wine! Good luck boyz.

      *rant*
      Plus, I'm tired of the constant replies: upgrade to whizbang version 5000.34.2.1 Build 39480 with Shmackeroo patch in order for the speed to increase. They've replied in this manner with artsd in kde for years: it still don't work and it still is choppy.

      Some programs you write in C, others in C++, others in Java. But you never write everything in one language just because its "superior". Imagine the Linux kernel written in Java....
      */rant*

    89. Re:Missing features still... by Rutger+Swarts · · Score: 1

      MS Office (Word) on MS Windoze : 100 MS Office (Word) on Linux : 30 Open Office on Windoze : 134 Open Office on Linux : 176 AbiWord on Linux : 27 (estimation based on your abiword and Openoffice on linux scores)

    90. Re:Missing features still... by abe+ferlman · · Score: 1

      I believe it's just zipped, but you'll have to check the spec.

      --
      microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
    91. Re:Missing features still... by arkanes · · Score: 1

      The XML is zipped.

    92. Re:Missing features still... by Physics+Dude · · Score: 1

      They're zip archive files. You may have to rename the extension to .zip to access them.

    93. Re:Missing features still... by Avenging+Sloth+337 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Actually, yes and yes. On my machine (Debian unstable w/ Crossover Office) MS Word starts in 3 seconds and OpenOffice.org Writer starts in about 11 seconds. Once running, they seem to be roughly comparable in speed.

      I'd really love to be able to ditch Word, but for long (100+ pages), complicated (proposals with lots of formatting) documents that I need to share with Windows users, OpenOffice.org doesn't quite cut it. For simple documents that don't need to be maintained in any meaningful way by a group of coworkers who insist on Word, OpenOffice.org is perfectly fine.

    94. Re:Missing features still... by jhunsake · · Score: 1

      One thing that really annoys me is how slooooow OOo is at saving and loading spreadsheets. On a multiple sheet book, Microsoft Excel saves instantly. In OOo, it takes 10 seconds (in it's native format). Since I save frequently, this is extremely annoying.

    95. Re:Missing features still... by Karn · · Score: 3, Insightful

      This reminds me of the people who used to bash Mozilla in its early days. Interesting how you don't see too much of that around here anymore. The last valid complaint about Mozilla is "I don't need an IRC/Mail/HTML Editor in my Browser!", and the Mozilla project is fixing that as we speak.

      OpenOffice IS relatively new, even though its code is based on StarOffice. Give it some time and I'm sure they'll work out the speed issues. As for simplicity, well, if Abiword already fills the niche for a simple word processor, why do you want another? Why have yet another simple word processor when the world lacks one that is compatible with Microsoft Word, which has become the defacto standard?

      --


      Why do I keep typing pythong?
    96. Re:Missing features still... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Your homework assignment for the day is to look up the word 'Irony' and use it in seven sentences.

    97. Re:Missing features still... by martinde · · Score: 1

      > You've run MS-Office on Linux? It was faster? Have you tried it with one of the newer 2.5.x kernels, you may notice a speed increase.

      I run MS Office on Linux all of the time - see Codeweavers for info. BTW, Office on CXOffice is definitely faster than OpenOffice. But I tend to use OpenOffice for everything that I can, given that it's free and all, and world domination would be a Good Thing in my opinion.

    98. Re:Missing features still... by hackstraw · · Score: 1

      You mean like ODMA?

      However, we all know how well standards are followed, not "extended", etc.

    99. Re:Missing features still... by dunstan · · Score: 1

      Most cases of document sharing there doesn't need to be a read/write copy. In these cases PDF is widely readable, and preferable to a read/write format.

      Everything shouldn't be kept in Word or Excel formats - inability to import these formats into OO exactly demonstrates the problem: they are secret formats. In contrast, open an OO document with Winzip and it is in absolutely clear XML, to a published schema.

      While OO is currently the only app which imports these files into a word processing application, the format is clearly open. I look forward to seeing Lotus Smartsuite and Corel Office with OO import and export filters.

      Dunstan

      --
      The last scintilla of doubt just rode out of town
    100. Re:Missing features still... by rsborg · · Score: 1
      The last valid complaint about Mozilla is "I don't need an IRC/Mail/HTML Editor in my Browser!", and the Mozilla project is fixing that as we speak.

      Of course, for all those complaints, you can forward them right on over to Firebird. I'ts everything that Mozilla wants to be (faster, lighter, more extensible). Gee, I wonder if the could do the same for OOo? I'd use *that* in a heartbeat.

      --
      Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
    101. Re:Missing features still... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If your file format is as opaque as Excel's it's easy to quickly serialize the data structures to disk. If you want a fully-documented open file format, you are going to sacrifice something. Not that there probably isn't room for improvement in OOo.

    102. Re:Missing features still... by Laur · · Score: 1
      With OOo 1.1, I finally moved my wife's computer from Win2K to Linux. No regrets.

      This seems like a bit of a troll. You do know that OpenOffice.org runs on Windows, and that MS Ofiice runs superbly on Linux w/ Wine (even faster than on Windows, if you believe it). While there are many reasons to switch from Windows to Linux, your office software is not one of them.

      --
      When you lose something irreplaceable, you don't mourn for the thing you lost, you mourn for yourself. - Harpo Marx
    103. Re:Missing features still... by Jason+Earl · · Score: 1

      OpenOffice.org files are somewhat more complex than that. Basically they are a zip file containing several different individual files.

    104. Re:Missing features still... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You open source zealots have an excuse for everything. And then when you lack an excuse, you tout it as a benefit. Amazing.

    105. Re:Missing features still... by N7DR · · Score: 1
      Dont save in MS Word format. Use OOo's native format and no data will be lost. If people complain about what format it is, send them the link to OOo and tell them that it runs on tons of platforms and is free.

      Not in my job, I can't. When I create a document, it is circulated among people in at least a dozen companies. So they have got to be able to read it in Word.

      However, if you send an ms word doc, then there will be people that cannot use it either because of cost or because of platform.

      I assume that you say this becuase it has happened to you. It has not happened to me. No one at any of the aforementioned companies has ever complained that a Word document I have circulated is broken. They did complain when I experimented by saving a OOo document in Word format and sending that instead.

      Now, please don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that I really expect OOo to be able to produce perfect Word documents. I am saying, though, that OOo (and/or their users) should make it a lot more clear that it really isn't very practical to save any but the simplest documents in M$ Word format and expect Word users to be happy with the result.

      Some sort of real warning (a "data has been lost during conversion" rather than a "data may be lost") when the conversion breaks would be useful. Maybe that would help people like me to identify features that I shouldn't use if I want the conversion to be accurate.

    106. Re:Missing features still... by stevew · · Score: 1

      The 1.1RC version is considerably faster than the 1.0 tree - like nite and day literally! In powering up under Linux Mandrake 9.0 I'm seeing a couple second start time as compared to 8-10 seconds with Openoffice 1.0. So that is an improvement! As for compatibility - there is a reason this is an RC still - I've had it crash on me already reading Word docs that 1.0 can read.

      --
      Have you compiled your kernel today??
    107. Re:Missing features still... by Maxwell · · Score: 1

      1)

      OSA.EXE

      Office Startup assistant. Installs by default in 2000 and XP, silently and without asking. It PRELOADS parts of ofice, so word/excel.etc launch faster.

      OO has a similar feature - 'quick starter' but it is NOT installed by default.

      2)
      You are forcing OO to do a file conversion when it loads the xls or doc file. if you really used oo the files would be in oo format and not have to be converted. Use an open, published file format for both offices. Whoops, can't do that for MSOffice, sorry.

      On my PIII-1k laptop they launch and run at teh same speed.

      JON

    108. Re:Missing features still... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      He brought up some decent points. Was quick launch loaded for both? It's on by default for MS Office. I don't think there's a way to disable it in the install. MSConfig or RegEdit (I'm sure there are others) will have to be used to disable it.

      This will seriously affect load times.

      You're nothing but a whiney little bitch with your welcome to my foes list bs. Big fucking deal.. A 12 year old doesn't like him. I'm sure he's hurt.

      Cock sucking mother fucking cum guzzling clown shoe whiney bitch asshat. It's really the only thing that describes you.

    109. Re:Missing features still... by mj01nir · · Score: 1

      You do know that OpenOffice.org runs on Windows,

      Which made it easy to change her PC in stages. Replace MS Office with OOo. Then replace Win with Linux later.

      and that MS Ofiice runs superbly on Linux w/ Wine

      With all of the drawbacks of MS Office still intact (upgrade treadmill, exorbitant pricing, format lock-in). No thanks.

      --
      the no .sig .sig
    110. Re:Missing features still... by SuDZ · · Score: 1

      Does anyone know why it actually takes a littlle while to open. I always hear people complain about it but never see anyone say what causes it. Anyone have any ideas?

      SuDZ

    111. Re:Missing features still... by stinky+wizzleteats · · Score: 1

      I'd really love to be able to ditch Word, but for long (100+ pages)

      I'm in the same boat, but I've noticed that Word goes nuts with documents that big and/or complex. We've seen Visio add-ons appear and disappear, changes get garbled, etc, when the document is that big. The only thing holding me back from pushing OO as a solution is that I don't want to become the OO support bitch. This may seem hypocritical considering my very pro- free software stance, but you must understand, I work for a Fucked Company. The stupity is just too much to try to overcome.

    112. Re:Missing features still... by halibut007 · · Score: 1

      I run MS Office on Linux (through crossover office). It still ran better than OpenOffice (installed through Ximian redcarpet).

      I hope this new version of OpenOffice is more stable and faster.

      Abiword doesn't have a decent feature set (tables?), headers and footers are a pain, and even moving abiword files from linux to windows causes problems.

      Gnumeric kicks ass though. I use that over Excel most of the time.

    113. Re:Missing features still... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ehh sorry to burst your bubble mate but PDF IS editable/copyable whatever you want it to be.
      Just depends on the implementation

      and for fear of flaming myself into oblivion i think that many things we normally has around with should in reality be kept in PDF files.
      Quark,Indesign,Photoshop,Illustrator,Freeh and,Word etc etc.

    114. Re:Missing features still... by kannibal_klown · · Score: 2, Informative

      Have you had a lot of experience with large corporations? They have certain standards, rules, regulations. For example, anything in my company with even the slightest bit of importance has to be readable by MS Word. I'm not saying whether this is right or not, but that's just the way it is. If you work for a big corp, you have to follow their rules. And by the way, many corporations have give their user very limited acess to their machines, retstricting installations to only developers. I'm not just talking about simple Windows permissions, but third-party addons and such. If you want OOo to spread corporately, you have to convince the higher (WAY higher) ups that it's good. Simply sending them OOo fiels will jsut piss them off and wind up with someone getting reprimanded.

    115. Re:Missing features still... by duck_prime · · Score: 2, Funny
      It's MS-Windows
      That's GNU/MS-Windows to you, pal.
    116. Re:Missing features still... by greenrd · · Score: 1
      Your homework assignment for the day is to look up the word 'Irony' and use it in seven sentences.

      I was pointing out that Office could well be relying on hidden API calls in the Wine system (because it includes win32 dlls).

    117. Re:Missing features still... by Rutulian · · Score: 1

      if Abiword already fills the niche for a simple word processor

      While Abiword does fit the niche, it does not aspire to be a simple word processor. The goal is to make a good word processor that is compatible with Microsoft Word. The Abiword folks have already implemented probably 90% of the functionality most users would ever need. Floating frames and drawing functions come to mind as two features that have not yet been implemented but are planned.

      The thing is, making a good word processor takes time. It has taken close to 5 years for Abiword to get where it is today. OpenOffice has a lot of features, but it is, in my opinion, a poor office suite, which isn't the fault of the guys currently working on it. It has a lot of cruft associated with it, and while efforts are underway, it will never integrate as well with GNOME as a pseudo-native application like Abiword. It has the same drawbacks as Microsoft Word without as many benefits. Abiword does not have as many features, yet, but it is a great word processor, and I can see it eventually becoming a drop-in replacement for Microsoft Office.

    118. Re:Missing features still... by Laur · · Score: 1
      Which made it easy to change her PC in stages. Replace MS Office with OOo. Then replace Win with Linux later.

      Well, you could have gone the other way too. Replaced Win w/ Linux, then replace MS Office w/ OOo later.

      With all of the drawbacks of MS Office still intact (upgrade treadmill, exorbitant pricing, format lock-in). No thanks.

      Hey, I'm certainly not advocating running Windows or MS Office (I run Linux & OOo myself). I think it's great you've been able to make the switch. I was merely pointing out the fact that office software is multiplatform and so has no bearing in the decision to switch platforms. I repeat my earlier statement "While there are many reasons to switch from Windows to Linux, your office software is not one of them." Linux advocacy is all well and good, but let's back it up with facts, not FUD.

      --
      When you lose something irreplaceable, you don't mourn for the thing you lost, you mourn for yourself. - Harpo Marx
    119. Re:Missing features still... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You aren't going to get the same speed out of Linux GUI apps until everyone agrees on the same framework and widget sets so you don't page in many megs of different shared libraries every time you start a program or move the mouse to a different window. Or, we spend the money saved on the OS on more RAM and figure out how to pre-load everything and keep it from swapping out.

    120. Re:Missing features still... by Slime-dogg · · Score: 1

      It isn't so marginal, you're just being arbitrary for the sake of being arbitrary.

      OpenOffice consumes massive amounts of RAM anyways. I've got the "start center" enabled, since it makes things very quick, but looking at the task manager, you see that it eats 60 MB of memory, 50 MB of paging memory.

      Conversely, Word starts up without a "Start Center" at about the same speed, and takes 18 MB or RAM, 13 MB of paging memory. Excel starts quickly, and uses 6 MB of RAM and 2 MB of paging memory.

      OpenOffice is a piggy. I use it primarily because I admire the principle behind it, and not because it is a superior software package. It's functionally equivalent, I'd say, but it sure does gobble the RAM.

      --
      You need to restart your computer. Hold down the Power button for several seconds or press the Restart button.
    121. Re:Missing features still... by styopa · · Score: 1

      Someone else mentioned using LaTeX for their paper on Lasers, I suggest you follow their example and use LaTeX for writing papers on particle physics. If for no other reason than Feynmann diagrams are fonts.

      --
      Disclamer - Opinion of Person
    122. Re:Missing features still... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think that hype sensitive users, not hyper...

      oo needs a bit more growing methinks... (not too much, though its getting close to catching M$ for usability)

      A note to the developers, make and keep it bulletproof for shells up to 5". :)

      Think A-10 cockpit tub and you get the idea...

    123. Re:Missing features still... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Would that be 'language science' or its time to figure out how to work the spellchecker?

      (It should be easier than String theory)

    124. Re:Missing features still... by AstroDrabb · · Score: 1
      Not in my job, I can't. When I create a document, it is circulated among people in at least a dozen companies. So they have got to be able to read it in Word.
      Sure you can. It might get a few complaints at the beginning, however people care about the content inside of that file, not the file format itself. MS knows this and that is why they abuse their monopoly and keep all their office doc formats locked up. The fortune 500 company I am a programmer at buys some content for intranet use from a smallish company. About 3 months ago they changed their format that they compress data in from zip to Mac's sit (stuffit) format. While some might say it was a bold move, no one really cared. We are still able to get the data, we just had to find other tools. Thankfully in this case there is a free version of unstuff for Linux. I would try sending one document out as OOo with an explanation of OOo and where it can be downloaded for FREE. You never know util you try.
      --
      If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land,
      it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. -James Madison
    125. Re:Missing features still... by AstroDrabb · · Score: 1

      Actually I am a programmer at a fortune 500 company with 110,000+ employees. They do have rules, however rules are meant to be broken : ) I put out technical specs on the stuff I do. When I write them up I do them in OOo and then convert to HTML, PDF and MS Word. I put all the docs out to a file server for others and most people use the HTML. They are pretty easy with "rules" where I work. For example, the admins have locked down the internal network pretty well and to make life easier for everyone, all corporate workers are allowed to have local admin to their PC. They can install what they want, well with some exceptions like P2P, warez, etc. The fact is, is if you are an employee there then you are expected to be professional. I personally would not work somewhere where they micro-manage and baby sit their employees. Maybe if you put out a document that is meant to be read-only, try HTML to get some people open to the idea of other formats. I do a lot of "preaching" at work about open standards and user choice. So they expect silly stuff from me from time to time. Maybe write up an intelligent position paper on how trying to switch a small group to OOo could save your company tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousand of dollars. Pass the position paper up the chain and see where it leads. I have done this when some people were considering MS .Net and I was pushing Java as a better enterprise technology to work in our heterogeneous environment. While my recommendations were not the last word, they did help in the process and we went with Java. You never know until you try and the first step is always the hardest.

      --
      If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land,
      it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. -James Madison
    126. Re:Missing features still... by Mr.Ned · · Score: 1

      Crossover Office allows Linux to run MS Office. And yes, sadly, MS Office does start up more quickly on the same machine than OpenOffice does, but it's not a huge difference.

    127. Re:Missing features still... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      "You open source zealots..."

      Ok, you want to play "computer scientist", little boy? Give a different analysis of the system design tradeoffs.

    128. Re:Missing features still... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What you don't seem to understand is... who the fuck cares?! If it's slower, it's slower. Come up with all the excuses you need, it doesn't change a damn thing. Until it's at least as fast, you do think users will give a shit?

    129. Re:Missing features still... by kmilani2134 · · Score: 1

      I tried some very large data sets > 20,000 rows (>10 MB) files in MS Office, Open Office and Gnumeric and found that only MS Office handled the very large data sets with any speed. I also find myself going back to office when I need to do any scripting work. Otherwise, I am quite content to use Open Office. (Actually, run MS Office using CrossOver Office, so at least I am not having to run Windows)

      --
      Those who trade freedom for security will lose both, and deserve neither" -- Ben Franklin
    130. Re:Missing features still... by Spoing · · Score: 1
      Performance - It's a lot slower than MS Office, specially on Linux.

      Well, I don't have MS Office let alone Windows on this machine for comparison yet the RC1 release of OpenOffice 1.1 is snappy -- even without any pre-loading tricks.

      (Snappy = 1-2 seconds to load on a Celeron 1.8.)

      --
      A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
  3. Great! by Carrion+Creeper · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Does it do wordperfect files yet?
    That is what stops my household from using 1.0.x Instead we're still using Corel 7

    1. Re:Great! by tomstdenis · · Score: 1

      save your corel files in a intermediate type [ms word, rtf, etc...] then open then in OO.

      And to think I'm going to college to learn shit like this... :-)

      Tom

      --
      Someday, I'll have a real sig.
    2. Re:Great! by Carrion+Creeper · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Now convince your 60 year old father who runs a home office that he should do this to 3,000+ of his archived documents from projects dating back to the wordperfect 5.1 days, just so you can uninstall a piece of software he already owns, and you'll have an argument.
      The only reason he'll even use openoffice at all is if he gets a file in email that corel won't open.
      The technical ability do do something does not mean that your wetware will be compatible, especially if your method is tedious and painful. You learn that stuff after college.

    3. Re:Great! by tomstdenis · · Score: 1

      Well does he really need to actively access his 3000+ files?

      I mean I've probably made 1000+ word processing documents but I don't cherish them for a lifetime.

      And you're more than right. If he has a legacy with wordperfect why even bother thinking of making the switch?

      Tom

      --
      Someday, I'll have a real sig.
    4. Re:Great! by iantri · · Score: 1

      Never mind that you'll lose a bunch of formatting a long the way...

    5. Re:Great! by Carrion+Creeper · · Score: 2, Interesting

      1. Using openoffice would have the advantage of being legal, since he only has once license for Corel 7 2. Using openoffice would be a net install of a modern piece of software, which I think is a good idea in terms of compatibility. Otherwise I would just let him keep using netscape 4 3. Converting files one at a time would only annoy everyone as an added step to using old documents. It would also be confusing to them about with documents have been converted. 4. If Corel has to be installed anyways to do gradual conversions, no one will ever use openoffice. 5. He's an architect (which of course you didn't know) Buildings last a long time, and when someone comes back 10 years later the related documents are very relavent. He's lucky if he doesn't have to pull out the 5 1/4" floppies.

    6. Re:Great! by ThePyro · · Score: 1

      Another very beneficial file format to implement would be the Microsoft Works files. Last time I tried it, OpenOffice couldn't open them.

      I've tried convincing several friends (who are not really computer literate) to switch to OpenOffice, and a frequent barrier I encounter is that it won't open their old Microsoft Works documents. Being home users, Works either came pre-installed on their machines (that seems to be a very common case) or they bought Works for its cheaper cost rather than fork over half their inheritance for a copy of Office.

      Sure, you can just save the documents in RTF or a similar friendly format, but your average user just wouldn't think of something like that. You need to be able to handle the default format.

    7. Re:Great! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Funny you should mention that.
      Algonquin College in Ottawa Canada is working on this as we type.

    8. Re:Great! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I've heard that Algonquin College in Ottawa Canada has a team of students working on OO .wpd support.

    9. Re:Great! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You do know that floppies corrupt themselves after that long, right?

    10. Re:Great! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      6. Learn to use the BR tag in writing posts...

    11. Re:Great! by dominator · · Score: 3, Informative

      Please see http://libwpd.sf.net/ - a couple of AbiWord hackers wrote libwpd, and then wrote an OOWriter plugin for it. Complete with screenshots and downloadable binary plugins.

      Dom

    12. Re:Great! by mrscott · · Score: 2, Insightful

      This isn't a matter of a document here and a document there. For some of us, a product without native support for wpd files is less than useless. Now... if you would like to spend your summer between semesters in DC at my workplace converting all 40,000 wpd files to an intermediate format, I'd be happy to provide you with a computer and an office. Oh -- and make sure to preserve the formatting.

    13. Re:Great! by kalidasa · · Score: 1

      Does it do wordperfect files yet? That is what stops my household from using 1.0.x Instead we're still using Corel 7

      Well, I wouldn't be surprised if it NEVER supports WordPerfect files (not sure whether it does or not at the moment). They've already said they wouldn't support PFS: Write conversion, because the paid product has a plugin to do that. That's the problem with OS software that's part of a commercial project: sometimes the OS part can't give you something because it would undercut its own funding source.

    14. Re:Great! by tomstdenis · · Score: 2, Funny

      They do. [They're actually in the same class/stream as I am].

      But coming from Algonquin College means the code will be submitted in Visual Basic, only work on 1/4 windows boxes and have a slew of trivial buffer overrun errors.

      [and yes I realize that I'm a foron for going to this school too].

      Tom

      --
      Someday, I'll have a real sig.
    15. Re:Great! by blibbleblobble · · Score: 1

      "Now convince your 60 year old father who runs a home office that he should do this to 3,000+ of his archived documents from projects dating back to the wordperfect 5.1 days, just so you can uninstall a piece of software he already owns, and you'll have an argument."

      Does OpenOffice do batch-convert? Can you run "open .doc, save as .sxw" from the command line?

    16. Re:Great! by iantri · · Score: 1

      The formatting is a bit of an issue, but surely there exists a command-line interface to the filters? Couldn't you write a bash script or a perl one-liner in about 30 seconds that will convert all of those files?

    17. Re:Great! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Dammit Jim, I'm a computer, not some kind of programmable automaton... oh wait.

    18. Re:Great! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Me too. Wordperfect is used throughout my organization. I have to convert to Word before converting to OO. Its a pain in the ass!!!

    19. Re:Great! by Shapeless+Blob+(-1) · · Score: 0

      Your 60 year old father shoulda never sold that PC XT 4MHz with MS-DOS and the Hercules graphics adapter on the 13'' monitor, connected to the dot-matrix printer. He shoulda kept it to edit and increase his 3,000+ archieved documents, poetry, studies and tales. And that MS-DOS script to automatically backup everything!

    20. Re:Great! by RatBastard · · Score: 1

      As someone who just converted all of his old WP5.1 for DOS files I can tell you that is a right pain in the ass. And I haven't seen program to do mass conversions, either.

      Actually, I don't even use Open Office format for my files now. Being that my formatting is pretty basic, I use RTF format as just about anything (other than WP 5.1) can read it.

      --
      Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
    21. Re:Great! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ahhhh, the memories. Test drive 1 in all it's orange and black glory.

      I beat the first four Kings Quest, 3 Space Quests, 2 police quests (1 was figgen tough) and a leisure suit larry... All in beautiful orange and black.

      Ahhhhh.

    22. Re:Great! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Heh. See the posts immediately above and below this one. :-)

    23. Re:Great! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      and yes I realize that I'm a foron for going to this school too

      We can see that.

    24. Re:Great! by JohnFluxx · · Score: 1

      I don't know whether you can or not....but..

      I know this is probably unacceptable for this situation, but you can quite easily write java code that communicates with openoffice. I did this in a day to convert word documents to pdf's, and manipulate them. An added bonus I got for free was to also convert from a webpage to a pdf.

      It's neat to watch it :)

    25. Re:Great! by JohnFluxx · · Score: 1

      yeah okay - pay me for a weeks work and I'll do it, or money back :)

    26. Re:Great! by jimlintott · · Score: 1

      You say that over 3000 files in Word Perfect format is a strong incentive not to switch. I see a large amount of data (that you say he may still need) at risk of being lost to proprietary format hell. As long as he has a machine around that can read them fine, but what about the future?

      I think it would be prudent to switch to an open format on an open system in order to protect this information.

    27. Re:Great! by tomstdenis · · Score: 1

      foron == fucking moron.

      You foron!

      Tom

      --
      Someday, I'll have a real sig.
    28. Re:Great! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or that there will be a moment, when all the 5 1/4 floppy drives still around are going senile, when he will have to manually change the files to a more modern storage media.

      But I'm sure he learned it when he got out of college :)

    29. Re:Great! by Zork+the+Almighty · · Score: 1

      This is a great comment. Then again, if he doesn't care about most of those 3000+ files he won't switch, because there's no desirable benefit to doing so. It should be fairly easy to convince someone to save new documents in a new format however; to what extent has the software industry has survived by doing precisely that ?

      --

      In Soviet America the banks rob you!
    30. Re:Great! by Eccles · · Score: 1

      Now convince your 60 year old father who runs a home office that he should do this to 3,000+ of his archived documents

      Convert to PDF via PrintToPDF or the like. If they're an archive, he doesn't need an editable format, just a viewable one.

      --
      Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
    31. Re:Great! by maitas · · Score: 1

      I believe StarOffice opens Corel files. Since that's a propietary 3rd pary filter (not from Sun) it is only available in the paid StarOffice suite.

  4. new and improved! by zornorph · · Score: 4, Funny

    Neat features include built in PDF and Flash export, better MS Office document filters and more

    So now it filters out MS Office documents better?
    *drum hit*
    Thank you, thank you, I'll be here all week ;)

    --
    http://bike.stu.ph/rides - free GPS routes available for Garmin, Magellan, GPX and Google Earth
    1. Re:new and improved! by flacco · · Score: 1, Informative
      *drum hit*

      That punch-line drum thing is called a "rimshot".

      --
      pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
    2. Re:new and improved! by connsmythe96 · · Score: 1

      No, actually it's not. A "rimshot" is hitting the drumhead and rim at the same time. It has nothing to do with the little "da-doo crash" thing people do after jokes. Everyone just misuses the word rimshot.

      I'm a drummer, I'm not just makin this up. :)

      --
      if(!cool) exit(-1);
    3. Re:new and improved! by flacco · · Score: 1
      Everyone just misuses the word rimshot.

      Then for the love of god we must find the name for that thing!

      --
      pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
    4. Re:new and improved! by connsmythe96 · · Score: 1

      Drum fill would work.

      Or *drum hit* (like he said the first time :)

      --
      if(!cool) exit(-1);
  5. BitTorrent by Whispers_in_the_dark · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Anyone have a .torrent for this puppy yet?

    1. Re:BitTorrent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What do you need it for?

      Just download it from the bloody OOo website.

    2. Re:BitTorrent by Manic+Ken · · Score: 1

      Now, when stacking sust with deca and dbol, you have to limit the cykle. Try 5 mg medroxyprogesterone ed.

    3. Re:BitTorrent by ShavenYak · · Score: 1

      I'm getting 178kbytes/sec from the ibiblio OOo mirror. I've never seen any .torrent deliver that speed in the real world. So why do you need a .torrent, again?

      --

      Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!
  6. MS Office document filters? by GammaTau · · Score: 4, Funny

    Neat features include built in PDF and Flash export, better MS Office document filters and more!

    So, how well do the MS Office document filters work with procmail and spamassassin?

    1. Re:MS Office document filters? by aposch · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Who the hell modded parent up? I assume it should be funny (as the poster wanted) or offtopic (as I see it). But "informative"?

      There are days when I don't understand /.

  7. Nice by broothal · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Openoffice has really matured lately. With at least two free (not as in beer) Exchange server substitutes, I reckon OpenOffice is ready for... the office.

    What I would like to read is a review of OpenOffice from some non-techie end user from a company that has switched to OO. Did the migration work seemlessly? Did the $ saved in software license measure up to the manhours the IT department had to use for support? Basically, a cost-benefit analysis, because a positive analysis like that is what it takes for the suits to recognize OO.

    1. Re:Nice by yelvington · · Score: 4, Interesting

      We're not exactly "non-techie," but we have been happy with OpenOffice in a Web design/development workgroup as a crossplatform substitute for MS tools. Our designers and developers aren't heavy users of word processing and spreadsheet documents, but they do have to correspond with the outside world, and OpenOffice has allowed us to save quite a bit on licensing fees.

      IT support manhours: Zero.

    2. Re:Nice by wolruf · · Score: 3, Informative

      there's one here: http://oootools.free.fr/memoire_cnam/ in french.
      Others (still in french): http://bureautiquelibre.org/

      --
      wolruf@gmail.com
    3. Re:Nice by Alkarismi · · Score: 1

      Great idea!

      I've just started doing a monthly column for LinuxUser & Developer magazine in the UK. I think this would make a fantastic case study.

      I'll speak to some clients who've done this and see if we can put one together...

      Thanks!

      btw - the short answer is yes, migration works and £s saved in licenses DO measure up.

    4. Re:Nice by Jellybob · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Well, here goes your review (not an extensive one, but it'll do)...

      We're using it to train people in basic computer usage and word processing, and to display a powerpoint XP presentation for the course, because we don't have the funds to buy new Office licenses for the latest batch of laptops we got for off-site courses.

      MS Office "likeness" can be easily implemented by customising the toolbars (~1 hour to get it right), and is close enough that we've had few complaints from the people who (having looked terrified at the prospect of using a computer) started on OOo, and then moved to using Office XP at our main centre (where we already have licenses).

      Speed wise, it's a little sluggish starting up on the salvaged P233/64mb laptops we use, but once it's started (15-30 seconds), there's no noticeable speed difference.

      As ever there's the odd niggle, clipart works differently to MS Office (it would be nice to have a compatibility mode... I prefer the OOo way of using folders. Clients disagree, and prefer clear categories, and search function), and a few of the keys need re-mapping to work the same as the MS offerings, but overall, it's been a very successful trial, and saved us a couple of thousand in new Office licenses (even at charitable rates).

    5. Re:Nice by FauxPasIII · · Score: 1

      > Openoffice has really matured lately

      I knew it had arrived when I heard Clark Howard, the self-declared "techno-idiot" talk about it.
      http://clarkhoward.com/shownotes/2002/06/20.html

      --
      25% Funny, 25% Insightful, 25% Informative, 25% Troll
    6. Re:Nice by pacman+on+prozac · · Score: 2, Informative

      We didn't really switch to OO, it came down to everyone needing some office software and the options being to spend about 5000$ on ms office for everyone or 0$ on openoffice.

      We are not a huge company (20 people in 2 depts) so we're not really an OO posterchild :)

      What we are however is a realistic example of IT companies trying to work in a dwindling economy (Germany) with the IT market being pretty messed up anyway. For someone in our position to spend the equivilant of an extra staff member or two on software which does not help our core business would be suicidal.

      Support = zero. The only times I ever had to do anything was one bug in file-saving (random bug, didnt happen again) and fixing the font sizes in redhat which is hardly the fault of OO. We don't have an office full of drones cranking out vbs infected spreadsheets. We do have a printing department but they wouldn't use an office package anyway as they need more accuracy. For "normal" office use OpenOffice is perfect for us.

    7. Re:Nice by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      P223/64mb laptop? can't afford MS Office license?
      And you are talking about how to make user switch to OOo? How about switch you job?

    8. Re:Nice by Paolomania · · Score: 2, Insightful

      One hour to configure OO like MS Office? You must be getting deep down into the nitty-gritty of replicating the MS Office interface. It would be great to see all that experience configuring OO translated into a Configure-OO-to-act-like-MSO-HOWTO. ;)

    9. Re:Nice by lpret · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Is it possible to write a script to be able to change all those settings? That would be really nice to be able to download and/or use on a whole lab of computers.

      --
      This is my digital signature. 10011011001
    10. Re:Nice by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My company switched to OOo after the BSA sent a few nasty letters. The sales guys don't really notice the difference. Everything's cool, and the BSA'll be up a creek if they come in here looking for violations.

      No problem.

    11. Re:Nice by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How about switch you job?

      How about you go back to watching monkey-boy dance video?
    12. Re:Nice by Jellybob · · Score: 1

      Well... it appears to be possible to save your configuration settings, but when I tried to load them on another machine, it stubonly refused to change anything... I'm sure given some time it's possible to wrangle it round, but I needed a batch ready for the next day, and didn't really have time when I knew I could just configure the menus etc. by hand quickly.

    13. Re:Nice by HiThere · · Score: 1

      OpenOffice is great on Windows and on Linux. The Mac version still needs a lot of work.

      Warning: The following comments are based on less than an hours use.

      Actually, it's not really the OpenOffice part that needs the work, it's the interface via X (I finally installed the Apple version of X and got OpenOffice to work without crashing, but...). I could use it, but it's a bit hard (i.e., silly) to recommend it to my wife. The X application really needs to be less visible. (Well, I don't really expect Apple to encourage that, but the Apple version of X at least worked. The one that came with it didn't [work with OpenOffice].)

      That OUGHT to be the right way to port it. OS X is, essentially, BSD, after all. But it needs to be made more user friendly (i.e., faster, not opening up "stupid" windows, etc.).

      Also, copy/paste doesn't seem to work between OpenOffice (on the Mac) and native Mac applications. I need to experiment a bit more to be certain, but so far that seems correct. This would, in an of itself, be sufficient to render it's use dubious in many applications.

      The place that I should post these comments is the OpenOffice bug list, but I intend to work with it a bit more before I do that. This is based on a fresh install made last Saturday.

      --

      I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
    14. Re:Nice by Slime-dogg · · Score: 1

      Very much like my company. We have over 150 branches, all requiring office software. We decided to go with the latest StarOffice, primarily because it's easier to blame Sun than it is to blame a nebulous group of hackers.

      The MS Office licensing outlook appeared to be around $300,000 for us. We spent $60,000 on StarOffice. OpenOffice would have been even cheaper, but PHB's can be pretty stupid sometimes. ;-)

      --
      You need to restart your computer. Hold down the Power button for several seconds or press the Restart button.
  8. Woohoo, Open source all the way by Bio-Hazzard · · Score: 1

    Open Office is a wonderful tool and shows that OS is capable of producing high end flash products. Open office is great in that it combines all of the tools you could need for manipulating spread sheets, diagrams and of course words.

    --

    Give a man a fire, he is warm for a day.
    Set a man on fire, he is warm for the rest of his life.

  9. This is really great by PhysicsGenius · · Score: 1, Troll
    Projects like OpenOffice, Gimp and Mozilla keep making Linux more and more competitive with Windows on the desktop. And export to Flash--wow, I never even realized that was something people needed, but now that I've read about it I wonder how I'm living without it. I wouldn't be surprised a bit if Bill Gates was browsing the OO site right now, noshing his teeth in anger and frustration and we just keep coming, like some non-giving-up-programmer guys.

    OTOH, maybe he's just laughing at us. MS Office came out in, what, 1994? Here is it almost 10 years later and we're just barely getting that same functionality. Instead of trying to play catchup from so long ago, I can't help but wonder if Linux should be doing something new. I, for one, could do with having my ping times halved.

    1. Re:This is really great by jocknerd · · Score: 1

      You've got to remember that Microsoft probably put 1000 developers on Office. How many does Open Office have?

      You also have to remember where Star Office was a few years ago.

    2. Re:This is really great by Amomynos+Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      I, for one, could do with having my ping times halved.

      I've written a simple bash script to halve the ping times. If you want it, just send $5 and the output format of your ping-command.

    3. Re:This is really great by Dr.+Evil · · Score: 0, Troll

      Linux on the desktop still barely has the functionality of Windows 3.1. Win3.1 still has a more tightly integrated clipboard, a good printing system, excellent screen fonts, no crazy sound managers, etc etc etc.

      The Windows product is not an OS, it is an API. 'Linux' as a desktop OS still doesn't have a 1.0 API. And who would target or invest in a moving platform?

      The fact that MS Office on Win3.1 worked well on a 386 with 8MB of RAM should cause people to pause for thought.

    4. Re:This is really great by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      IIRC, Office existed back in the 80's.

    5. Re:This is really great by Rogerborg · · Score: 1

      >Linux on the desktop still barely has the functionality of Windows 3.1. Win3.1 still has a more tightly integrated clipboard

      When was mod-clipboard released?

      If you don't even know whether you're talking about linux, KDE or GNOME, I suggest that the terrorists - sorry, Microsoft - have already won.

      --
      If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
    6. Re:This is really great by popeyethesailor · · Score: 3, Funny
      I, for one, could do with having my ping times halved.

      Have you greased your Modem lately? Most of the latency you experience is because of rust.

    7. Re:This is really great by cowbutt · · Score: 1
      IMHO, the Bitstream Vera fonts, coupled with sub-pixel rendering thrash anything from Microsoft prior to Windows 2000.

      If the sub-pixel rendering looks blurry, your distro is probably using freetype compiled without the bytecode interpreter (blame software patent stupidity), or the application you're using has been statically linked against a version of freetype so compiled (e.g. the OpenOffice binaries, last time I looked at 1.0.3).

      --

    8. Re:This is really great by iantri · · Score: 1

      Bullshit argument.

      Yes, an OLD version of MS Office (4.0?) would work well on a 386 with 8MB of RAM on an OLD version of Windows. Try and run Office XP on that 386.

      What? Can't do that?

      An old version of Linux with an old word processing or typesetting system (TeX?) would would work well on a 386.

      Microsoft has more developers and has been going at this for longer. Star/OpenOffice has been around for what, 5 years? Microsoft has been doing office apps since the mid eighties.

      Considering how quickly OpenOffice has matured I think this really says something about the open source development model.

    9. Re:This is really great by MeNeXT · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Yikes! Man I moved off 95 because of the poor implementation on windows. I may be able to cut and paste in Windows but I am unable to save and open unless all softaware is written by MS (Yes this is exagerated like his statement).


      What I can't stand about Windows is all the people telling me how great it is, and most of them do not even know how to UNINSTALL some shit software that they have installed. These same people do not even pay for the software that they claim is soooooo great.


      Mark this as a troll I don't care!!! I have systems running which have been installed when 3.11 was the main OS for MS, and they are still usefull. The programs may no longer be availabe on the current systems which I'm using but MY WORK is still accessible. I had files that were on MS doc format and had to be converted into W97. They fell apart!! Then I went to RTF and never looked back. I will not go into the accounting package that ran on W3.11 (which could not even export to ASCII). I stopped trying to fit into my systems and started getting systems to fit my needs. Ever tried to share files on 3.1?? Have you setup a network printer with 3.11? I think not, otherwise you would never have made the above comment...


      My files are portable and can be viewed on ALL OS's including Windows. I can remotely and securely connect and access my files since 95. I can view, and work on a MAC, FreeBSD, Linux,and yes even Windows. I am FREE of Windows restrictions, as you can see from sig, for a very long time. In order to meet my needs Windows costs me more and offers less than most open source solutions. If tomorrow their is some new OS named OZ I'm ready baby...nothing to convert. NOTHING! Is all OPEN....

      --
      DRM? No thanks, I'll just get it somewhere else...
    10. Re:This is really great by swordboy · · Score: 1

      Projects like OpenOffice, Gimp and Mozilla keep making Linux more and more competitive with Windows on the desktop.

      They also make the rest of the Unices more competitive with Windows.

      "Linux" != Desktop

      X/KDE/Gnome/etc fit that bill. Until someone puts together a collaborative OS that includes *one* desktop, then there will be a competitor for Windows.

      Oh, wait... Apple already did that. Now, if they'd release it for commodity hardware, then we'd have something. Until then, I'm waiting for some other deep-pocket giant to put something together.

      --

      Life is the leading cause of death in America.
    11. Re:This is really great by SN74S181 · · Score: 1

      He was talking about it working well on a 386. Not wether it was the shiney-brite version with the 2003 release date.

      And feature for feature, Office 4.0 has pretty close to as much functionality as the latest release of OpenOffice. No HTML integration, of course, but for someone needing an integrated office suite for real work, as opposed to a feature checklist, it's damn good.

      It should be mentioned that Microsoft had a hell of a time surpassing Office 4.3 themselves. Many businesses standardized on Windows 3.11 with Office 4.3 and wouldn't budge for years, which really cut into Microsoft's revenue.

    12. Re:This is really great by JohnHans · · Score: 1

      Really, only the functionality of Windows 3.1. I spent years using Windows 3.1 and 3.11, and the current Linux desktop, KDE or Gnome are far above Windows 3.1. In fact, if you stick to a single desktop and the software that comes with it the Linux desktop experience is easily comparible with the latest from Microsoft.

      --
      John
    13. Re:This is really great by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Microsoft probably put 1000 developers on Office. How many does Open Office have?
      A whole planet of whining Open Source users!

    14. Re:This is really great by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      He should also add the command string ATH0 to the end of his dialin script to get an extra speed boost.

    15. Re:This is really great by iantri · · Score: 1

      I know. I like OOo. I think it is good. Essentially what I am saying is that open source is playing catch up because many of the projects are very recent, but look at how far they've come when the competing proprietary software has been developing for much longer.

    16. Re:This is really great by justsomebody · · Score: 1

      Linux on the desktop still barely has the functionality of Windows 3.1.

      Win3.1 still has a more tightly integrated clipboard
      Even Windows XP hasn't got middle click copy/paste, so tightly or not tightly integrated clipboard, Linux has better

      a good printing system
      Looking at my printed documents I expect some example why linux should have bad printing system

      excellent screen fonts
      Win 3.1????? My god on which planet do you live?
      Even XP Cleartype is bad. My desktop computer fonts are just ughly, I must admit right size fonts on my notebook look beatifull (but they look bad when they are too small), while on CRT they're just ughly. My notebook has 1400x1050 and 15", and XP desktop looks nice when set Cleartype and 112DPI, smaller fonts get too blurry

      no crazy sound managers
      I agree they're crazy, but sound with alsa is just better than same computer on windows, but I can say that for SB Live only

      , etc etc etc.
      I agree and I can answer all of them

      Do not read if you don't want to read just some stupid example reasons why some system is not good enough. Not trolling, just showing stupid example that some ./ users write to take on some system. btw. this aren't real reasons for someone to hate OS, they're just annoyances

      Let's take on Windows. Ok, now try something.

      1. Get a load of pictures and movies. Rename them so they'll be without extension.
      Open explorer, what are those unknown types?
      On every modern desktop real MIME type exists, meaning Windows is not a real desktop OS.

      2. Uninstall softwares trough Add/Remove
      Why the hell are they still there (at least most of them). Every decent OS should know how to install/uninstall software, meaning Windows is not a real OS

      3. XP Example. Open My Computer. Delete Explorer icon, press F5, he's back
      even my Mozilla icon (swaped that one instead of E icon) in Start Menu changed it's path to explorer, every real OS should allow to change browser, haven't tryed it with latest SP

      4. XP. Name of user contains country-local character, rename user without local character
      Why the hell do I have now one user with two locked home folders, and my desktop contains always different files, but never all of them.
      Every OS should handle user after rename, meaning Windows is not even OS.

      I could go on and on, just shut up and don't talk stupid things. Hell, I could do the same about GNOME, KDE, macosx(this one I really hate, so I should come up with preety good excuses).

      --
      Signature Pro version 1.13.2-3 release 83.5 beta3try7 after-breakfast edition
    17. Re:This is really great by drpatt · · Score: 1

      Most of the latency you experience is because of rust.

      Sounds like BellSouth's phone lines.

    18. Re:This is really great by Dr.+Evil · · Score: 1

      I have no idea what mod-clipboard is. Can you provide a reference?

      I'm talking about "Linux on the Desktop", if you're going to divide desktops up into "Linux" "KDE" and "Gnome" when you want to say that desktop applications interact well, you can't turn around and argue that "Linux on the desktop" has a lot of full featured applications.

      With the clipboard, I'm talking about copying and pasting stuff more complex than plain text, using something more sophisticated than the X primary selection middle-button buffer. I also mean doing so beyond a carefully crafted unified destkop environment like KDE or Gnome. You may be able to point to bleeding edge projects to get the KDE and Gnome clipboards to speak plainly to one another, or some pre-1.0 ware which allows you to fudge some kind of bizzare behaviour from non-standard applications... but my point is not that it is impossible, just that these are problems Linux is still struggling with but Win3.1 had solved 12 years ago.

  10. PDF by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I can't get MS Office to create a new pdf using pdf 6.0 so I'm excited to give this a try. With better filters I might be able to switch completely to a linux box!!!

    1. Re:PDF by Daengbo · · Score: 1

      The PDF export has been backported to OfficeTLE 1.0.2 and has been in there for several months already. I am excited about the MySQL access, instead of going through ODBC, which is a pain for me on a redhat 8/9 based system. Hopefully OfficeTLE 1.1 will be out soon.

  11. Re:#1 Problem by gilesjuk · · Score: 2, Informative

    It does both of the things you mention. Not perfectly, but then neither does Word when importing older doc versions.

    What rock have you been hiding uder?

  12. Talkback by Amomynos+Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    In RC1 is also a talkback style crash reporter to collect stacktrace and error information. I hope this will help OOo team to get rid of the bugs faster.

    1. Re:Talkback by azaroth42 · · Score: 1

      You mean like:

      $ ./setup
      /usr/local/OpenOffice.org1.1RC/program/setup.bin: relocation error:
      /usr/local/OpenOffice.org1.1RC/program/libvcl645 li.so: undefined symbol: FT_Activate_Size

      Hopefully ;)

  13. My experience by anonymous+coword · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Ive tried the betas, and yes, they ARE FASTER, but there is still some problems. First it still struggles with the fonts. It dosen't have Font config support So about 50% of my fonts don't work (including my MSTTF fonts).

    Secondly its annoying that it naggs you if you save in .doc format and tries to make you use its own proprietary format.

    Finaly That lightbulb has got to go. It's a horrible paperclip clone. Other than that, it's great, and that PDF export is REALLY helpful.

    1. Re:My experience by lederhosen · · Score: 1

      >Secondly its annoying that it naggs you if you save
      >in .doc format and tries to make you use its own
      >proprietary format.

      It uses xml.

    2. Re:My experience by CanadaDave · · Score: 1
      Secondly its annoying that it naggs you if you save in .doc format and tries to make you use its own proprietary format.

      It's not proprietary AFAIK.

    3. Re:My experience by archen · · Score: 1

      Unfortunatly there are issues with the PDF export. A while ago I was trying one of the developer builds of 1.1 and the PDF support just had problems and the PDFs were messed up. I downloaded a newer build last week and tried it. The results from a plain OO text document (with 2 lines as dividers).

      Adobe PDF writer (4): 9.8k
      Adobe Distiller (4): 9.4k
      Open Office 1.1: 95k

      Obviously it had major issues. I mean the open office document it self is only around 8k (but zipped obviously). Aside from that I've been pretty happy with the improvments... once I figure out how to turn off some of the 'auto indent' type harassment. It seems like unfortunatly OO is trying to emulate MS Office with how they're starting to push their help down your throat. =/

    4. Re:My experience by Captain+Large+Face · · Score: 4, Informative

      own proprietary format

      Surely you mean it's own open format?

    5. Re:My experience by Neil+Watson · · Score: 1

      Doesn't Adobe use the LZW algorithm for compressing PDFs? Isn't that patented, thus not included in OpenOffice?

    6. Re:My experience by Julian+Morrison · · Score: 1

      It's a compressed directory full of xml. But that doesn't matter a damn when the real question is "who else can load it?" and the answer is "only other geeks with OOo".

    7. Re:My experience by Planesdragon · · Score: 1

      It's not proprietary AFAIK.

      Name five other programs that can read and write it. Raw text-editing doesn't count.

      OoO's docs are just zip'd XML, and definitly conform to the standard--but if nothing can read them, then they're almost as bad as DOC.

    8. Re:My experience by mpe · · Score: 1

      Secondly its annoying that it naggs you if you save in .doc format and tries to make you use its own proprietary format.

      It's native format is zipped XML.

    9. Re:My experience by con · · Score: 1

      1st : Ximian have patches for fontconfig support - but I think that they were received to late to go into 1.1.

      2nd: you can change this ( but it's in the XML files - look for warning ).

      3rd: "Help" -> "Help Agent" to turn off the light bulb.

    10. Re:My experience by anonymous+coword · · Score: 0

      You are right. Koffice is the only office suite I know that has ALPHA filters for sxw files. Abiword dosen't have it either. But then they have their own XML formats that are not compatible with each other. I think if ALL the open source office suites settled on ONE open standard and have FLAWLESS import/export of .docs then we will be ready for primetime.

    11. Re:My experience by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Didn't the LZW patent expire last month?

    12. Re:My experience by devilkin · · Score: 1

      The patent on LZW expired recently or is due to expire soon - thereby freeing a lot of things, including GIF

    13. Re:My experience by greenrd · · Score: 1
      The patent on LZW expired in the US recently. However, it may not have yet expired in all jurisdictions in which Sun does business, so that could be the reason.

    14. Re:My experience by SN74S181 · · Score: 1

      Until there are six or seven other apps from seperate organizations that open and save to the same format it is a proprietary format .

    15. Re:My experience by CanadaDave · · Score: 4, Insightful
      WTF? You're missing the point. Non-proprietary means that it's an open-standard, and so anyone can write a program to read-write in that file format. Compare that to Word, where people have had to hack it to figure out the file format.

      Nothing can read them because nobody has written software to do this yet! Not because they can't! OOo has such a small market share right now, there's no point in anyone creating coversion filters yet. If it ever had a larger market share than MS Office, MS would be forced to support the format, in order to increase market share. Or they'd be silly not to.

    16. Re:My experience by CanadaDave · · Score: 2

      Sorry there's a different between proprietary and supported. Why would any of those six or seven other apps you are referring to want to support OOo? MS is winning the war, and all the others are just vying for a piece of the market. Companies that make Palm-Office software or PocketPC software are obviously too tied up in MS and licensing to be able to support OOo right now. It's a bit of a chicken-and-the-egg problem though...so it will take some time.

    17. Re:My experience by the+bluebrain · · Score: 1
      • Finaly That lightbulb has got to go.
      Just a note: I fired up OOo on reading your comment just to see the lightbulb: I'd never noticed it before (OK, I don't use OOo much, because my clients don't etc etc).

      And the one Good Thing about the lightbulb compared to Clippy is that when you close it, you don't have to watch it *wink* at you before it zooms up and back home, i.e., to some inner circle of hell.

      Winking Clippy ... it's about the only thing I can think of that will reliably make me cringe.
      [shudder]
      --
      yes, we have no bananas
    18. Re:My experience by CanadaDave · · Score: 1

      Oops, that should say unsupported, not supported

    19. Re:My experience by Planesdragon · · Score: 1

      You're missing the point

      No, I'm making a different point.

      It (again, _almost_) doesn't matter how open OOo is, if no one else can read the files! If I have to hire a programmer to write a reader, then I may as well just stay with MS office.

      What I'd like to see to fix this problem, of course, is plug-ins for popular programs hosted on the openoffice.org website. They don't have to be fast--they just need to allow me to install them, and open OOo files in an appropriate office program (or display an error message telling me why I can't read them--"You can't read MathML files with your stinky proprietary program" would work.)

    20. Re:My experience by hobbezak · · Score: 1

      Secondly its annoying that it naggs you if you save in .doc format and tries to make you use its own proprietary format. Besides it not being proprietary, I totally agree with you that it's annoying that it nags about formats though, but I do recall that you can set .doc/.xls as the standaard format in which to save your documents.

    21. Re:My experience by tzanger · · Score: 1

      Secondly its annoying that it naggs you if you save in .doc format and tries to make you use its own proprietary format.

      Tools / Options / Load/Save / General. Edit to your heart's content. Been there since 1.0.1 IIRC.

      Finaly That lightbulb has got to go. It's a horrible paperclip clone. Other than that, it's great, and that PDF export is REALLY helpful.

      I had written a nice little feature request utilizing that light bulb on ooforum.org... Basically light up the bulb if it sees you doing something over and over again (e.g. fighting the automatic caps correction)... not when it sees you do something once.

    22. Re:My experience by snofla · · Score: 2, Informative
      IANAL, but see here: http://groups.google.com/groups?&threadm=a5aa8dd0. 0208271613.3cd18da6%40posting.google.com
      Summary:
      • US, expired last month
      • Europe, expiring June 19, 2004
      • Japan, June 20, 2004

      --
      i don't like style guides
    23. Re:My experience by CanadaDave · · Score: 1
      It (again, _almost_) doesn't matter how open OOo is, if no one else can read the files! If I have to hire a programmer to write a reader, then I may as well just stay with MS office.

      Why do you need a reader? Are people sending you OOo files by email but you don't have OOo installed?

    24. Re:My experience by jridley · · Score: 1
      Secondly its annoying that it naggs you if you save in .doc format and tries to make you use its own proprietary format.

      Tools / Options / Load/Save / General. Edit to your heart's content. Been there since 1.0.1 IIRC.


      For me, that's NOT what I want. I want the DEFAULT to be OO format, but if I open up a word .DOC file and try to save it again, I want it to just save it, not pester me every time.
    25. Re:My experience by Planesdragon · · Score: 1

      Are people sending you OOo files by email but you don't have OOo installed?

      No--because they know that I probably can't read them.

      Maybe I don't want to use OOo. Maybe I'm microsoft. Maybe my users refuse to change. Maybe I'm mandated by my government to use for-sale software, or software made by my country. Maybe I'm just ornery.

    26. Re:My experience by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Who the heck has a longer patent term than the U.S? If it has expired in the U.S then you can pretty much bet it has expired elsewhere, but ten years earlier.

    27. Re:My experience by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      A friend of mine is working on a gtk based OOo viewer (can already do plain text with formatting) to spare people of downloading several megabytes just to access OOo docs. I can only assume many more projects will spring as OOo becomes more popular.

      As he haven't announced it yet, I can't point you to the viewer I mentioned. If he is still keeping up the initial schedule, you might see a 0.1 version soon.

    28. Re:My experience by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Name one other program that can interoperate with OpenOffice.

      Don't "it uses xml" me. Microsoft Office XP can save as XML too, but that doesn't mean that everyone else plays along with it.

    29. Re:My experience by Ovidius · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If I have to hire a programmer to write a reader, then I may as well just stay with MS office.

      I know this isn't the point you're making and that you don't want to hire a programmer to write a reader (and you're right that you should be able to get plug-ins from the OpenOffice website), but I just want to say that it an open format is better for human society than a closed format. The fact that you could hire a programmer to do what you want to do, thus retaining the exercise of your free will, is important (or even that I could and you might benefit). It is much better than a world in which you are constrained in more and more of your daily activities by what is possible with mass-produced products that the marketplace has decided are the winners.

      A couple of posts below someone stated that Microsoft is winning the war, which is true, but the importance of choosing applications like OpenOffice and/or AbiWord, is not so that they might win the war over Microsoft, but so that our lives stop being treated like a battlefield by people we don't know and have nothing to do with!

      It will be a major victory (for us, not over Microsoft) when Microsoft realizes that what people want are open formats and interoperability, and that they'll make their software choices based on fearutes and quality. Of course people have to want that. I want it enough that I sacrifice a little convenience to use not-quite-ready but more open software. And I want you to want that. I don't think it takes very much courage to make that choice.

      Also, I'm a firm beleiver that it's better to hire people than to buy from corporations. I'd much rather transact my business one on one with a human being who gets the full benefit of what I pay him or her than be one of a million blips in the bank account of a corporation that milks every ounce of "productivity" from its workers.

    30. Re:My experience by bagofbeans · · Score: 1

      Absolutely. Paint Shop Pro does exactly what you want, AND you can turn off the 'colours/layers not supported in this format' nags. I know PSP is not a WP; just pointing out that the UI you want (and I want too) exists in another common prog.

    31. Re:My experience by mysticgoat · · Score: 1

      It's a compressed directory full of xml.

      More accurately, it is a zip file that contains the content, style and meta information of the document in separate XML files, and also any embedded images, etc. The only thing vaguely proprietary are the file extensions-- the file format itself is plain old zip.

      But that doesn't matter a damn when the real question is "who else can load it?" and the answer is "only other geeks with OOo".

      Actually these OOo files can be opened with WinZip or any other tool that reads zip files. So it is easy to set up scripts that can feed all or any part of an OOo document to any application that understands XML.

      I'm slowly working through the conversion of years of Office97 .doc and .xls files to OOo, since OOo's file system is a better bet for long term archiving (neither zip nor XML is going to go away any time soon).

      On a separate point, since OOo incorporates file compression into every save and read operation, there is no fair way to compare times between OOo and MS Office when any file operations are involved. It should also be noted that OOo files don't benefit from external compression-- they are already compressed.

    32. Re:My experience by greenrd · · Score: 1
      Who the heck has a longer patent term than the U.S? If it has expired in the U.S then you can pretty much bet it has expired elsewhere, but ten years earlier.

      Not if the non-US patent was applied for, or first came into first, later than the US patent.

    33. Re:My experience by ShavenYak · · Score: 1

      In any of those situations, you'd be just as well served by getting OOo and using it to open the file and export to your office-program-of-choice's native format. I'm sure the OOo programmers would rather spend their time on OOo, instead of writing OOo import filters for MS, Lotus, and Corel.

      --

      Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!
    34. Re:My experience by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The reason why it wants you to save in its own format is that it cannot guarantee that text formatting will be preserved in another file format.

      I think I've used up all my "format" word usage for today. I need a thesaurus.

    35. Re:My experience by Planesdragon · · Score: 1

      The fact that you could hire a programmer to do what you want to do, thus retaining the exercise of your free will, is important (or even that I could and you might benefit). It is much better than a world in which you are constrained in more and more of your daily activities by what is possible with mass-produced products that the marketplace has decided are the winners.

      The problem with this argument, actually, is that the supposedly closed and enslaving proprietary formats are very frequently hacked open by those that want to use a different program.

      Using MS Office doesn't give MS dominion over me--it just gives them market share. Inside of a week, I can switch over just about everything I do to Open Office if I want to--and I will, actually, just as soon as all my showstoppers are fixed. (Maybe earlier if I feel adventuerous.)

    36. Re:My experience by Planesdragon · · Score: 1

      I'm sure the OOo programmers would rather spend their time on OOo, instead of writing OOo import filters for MS, Lotus, and Corel.

      Which is why it won't happen. But SUN should pay someone to do it, if nothing else.

      Lack of document interopability (getting a 70 MB program to open a few files isn't always viable) is a fair-sized hurdle for OOo.

      Of course, exporting MHTML files would help, too.

    37. Re:My experience by Ovidius · · Score: 1

      The problem with this argument, actually, is that the supposedly closed and enslaving proprietary formats are very frequently hacked open by those that want to use a different program.

      Until you are stopped by laws and courts that favor the "rights" of corporations over individuals. Look how far the notion of copyright is being extended, to toner cartridges for instance. Market share does gives you the money and status to throw your weight around like that.

      It's for reasons like this that even if you aren't interested or concerned about the politics of it, choosing software (or any product) that is more open is a small but important act of dissent. I don't mean to make this point to you personally or to encourage you to do something that you're already inclined to do anyway, I'm just saying that making this kind choice should not to be discouraged or underestimated, and that there are reasons to make it beyond whether or not readers for various formats are available yet.

    38. Re:My experience by Chester+K · · Score: 2, Informative

      Surely you mean it's own open format?

      No, it's own proprietary format, as in "designed by them, and only used by them".

      --

      NO CARRIER
    39. Re:My experience by Planesdragon · · Score: 1

      Until you are stopped by laws and courts that favor the "rights" of corporations over individuals.

      (IANAL-RU?)

      Even the most vile, despicable corporation is formed of people. MS could be a partnership or a sole prorpietorship, and it'd have pretty much the same standing in this part of the law.

      Look how far the notion of copyright is being extended, to toner cartridges for instance. Market share does gives you the money and status to throw your weight around like that.

      As bad as the tonor cartridge bit is, it really won't apply to file formats. MS doesn't own the copyright on the works that I write, and therefore they can't use the DMCA to keep me from accessing my own files. In fact, this kind of hacking is specifically allowed by the DMCA.

      It's for reasons like this that even if you aren't interested or concerned about the politics of it, choosing software (or any product) that is more open is a small but important act of dissent. I don't mean to make this point to you personally or to encourage you to do something that you're already inclined to do anyway, I'm just saying that making this kind choice should not to be discouraged or underestimated, and that there are reasons to make it beyond whether or not readers for various formats are available yet.

      I know. The politics and economics of OpenOffice are fairly appealing--but the program itself has a few showstoppers that annoy me more than the politics and economics motivate me.

      But, in regards to the file formats, OOo (and others OSS works) need to make the open format effectively open, not just open in theory, or it's little better than .DOC

    40. Re:My experience by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Open Formats:

      Rename your .swx Open Office document to .zip. Next, unzip it. Next, read your document in plain text (XML).

      How is the closed or proprietary???

    41. Re:My experience by po8 · · Score: 1

      While OOo doesn't currently have fontconfig support, the fontconfig and OOo developers are actively working on it, and with luck it should be in shortly. I agree: it will be a relief.

    42. Re:My experience by Captain+Large+Face · · Score: 1

      I'll agree with the designed by them, but as for the only used by them, I do not agree.

      If I so wished, I could generate an OpenOffice.org document without using the OpenOffice.org suite, because the standards are available for all to manipulate. Therefore, it has potential to be used by all.

    43. Re:My experience by HiThere · · Score: 1

      It may be, in your sense, a proprietary format. But it's also an open format. It WILL be possible for anyone who wants to put in the work to support it.

      I haven't heard of any word processing format that's perfect, but the .doc format is not only less than perfect, it specifies several different formats, and they are all proprietary in the much stronger sense: "This format is owned by someone else. It is subject to change without notice. You aren't allowed to know it's full current definition. And we may decide to make it a secrecy protection method, in which case it will be illegal for you to even TRY to read it."

      Being able to read *.doc formats is very nice. Being dependant on them would be suicidally foolish. Perhaps they should enable you to turn off the warning if you want that kind of foolishness. But a future law case may well decide that they have no right to read files in that format. So it's reasonable for them to be protective.

      --

      I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
    44. Re:My experience by rngadam · · Score: 1

      But that doesn't matter a damn when the real question is "who else can load it?" and the answer is "only other geeks with OOo".


      Funny that you would say that because my colleague has just written a Ruby script to convert automatically all the worksheets to load it to an SQL database... A format that uses XML is what made it possible.
    45. Re:My experience by 4of12 · · Score: 1

      struggles with the fonts.

      Yeah, this afflicts me, too, with the free OpenOffice distributions.

      I've heard that if you lay down some money for either Star Office or Ximian Office that they come with "metrically equivalent" fonts, anti-aliased and TrueType, too.

      Since MyCorp has site licenses for Windows and Office already, it would be really handy if there was an easy way to get OpenOffice to use those fonts directly.

      A little effort using cabextract and Microsofts limited subset of freely distributable fonts can help the ameliorate the problem.

      --
      "Provided by the management for your protection."
  14. Showstopper #1820 still open. by deragon · · Score: 5, Informative

    But bug #1820 remains unresolved. In all fairness though, things are a bit moving for this showstopper. Hopefully there will be a solution for it in the near future.

    For the few unaware of this bug, in Calc, if your locale uses "," (comma) as a decimal separator, your numeric pad is worthless because the num pad "." (dot) is interepreted as something else than a decimal separator. You imagine how difficult it is to convert people using Excel when you must explain that they cannot use their num pad anymore. And before you suggest remapping keys, please read the bug report. Many non english locales are affected by this bug.

    --
    Remember the year 2000? They promised us flying cars. They delivered the PT Cruiser...
    1. Re:Showstopper #1820 still open. by makapuf · · Score: 1

      in excel, when you want to enter text with a dot with your keypad in a spreadsheet (like I do, since for some countries, where comma is used as a separator, but dot is a shifted key, it's simpler t use the "." numpad), you have a problem because the key which is labelled ".", enters a comma.

      Try to explain this to a sensitive person !

      I prefer to have a semi intelligent algo which uses either , or . as a separator, but let the key "." enter a damned DOT.

    2. Re:Showstopper #1820 still open. by the+bluebrain · · Score: 1

      I've had this problem under Windows, too. Comma on the keypad, but set "." as decimal separator in the OS localisation => can't use keypad under Excel.

      It's not so much an OOorg problem as it is a hardware one. From the bug report: "[...] all Spanish keyboards sold in Spain [have] a dot in the numeric keypad, but the decimal point character in Spain is the comma. [...]".

      ... WTF?

      Any "solution" in the OS (including the current MS one for Excel) is going to be a nasty kludge anyway. If I see a "." key on the keypad, hit the key in Excel, and a "," appears - now *that* is a bug :)

      Fix the keyboards I say.

      --
      yes, we have no bananas
    3. Re:Showstopper #1820 still open. by renoX · · Score: 1

      > Any "solution" in the OS (including the current MS one for Excel) is going to be a nasty kludge anyway. If I see a "." key on the keypad, hit the key in Excel, and a "," appears - now *that* is a bug :)

      Calling it a bug is a bit too harsh IMHO.
      I think that it should be customisable in the locale settings.
      Or even better, to avoid the possibility of customising the keyboard in two different location, have a redirection to a special subwindow of 'keyboard customisation'.

      I think having three posibilities for the numeric dot would be interesting:
      - always a dot.
      - always the "," in the locale.
      - the dot in normal application but the "," in numeric fields.

      It is a bit complicated and I don't see how to make it work correctly with xmodmap and the like, but it seems to me the best solution.

    4. Re:Showstopper #1820 still open. by IncohereD · · Score: 1

      "For the few unaware of this bug"?

      This affects a (an admittedly large) subset of OpenOffice users who are a (possibly biggish) subset of slashdot readers.

      Thanks for actually providing the description, though, it's informative.

    5. Re:Showstopper #1820 still open. by deragon · · Score: 1

      All keyboards should have their numpad "," or "." renamed "DS" for decimal separator, including US layout. Yep, because in many multi national cies, US keyboards are used but many use their own local with them (I use US intl. layout with french canadian locale). Thus, naming the key "DS" and have it generate the decimal separator would be the solution.

      But this requires to change a standard that is too much entrenched. So only a patch to the software is reasonable. :(

      --
      Remember the year 2000? They promised us flying cars. They delivered the PT Cruiser...
    6. Re:Showstopper #1820 still open. by prudek · · Score: 1

      This bug is a keyboard layout issue. For instance Czech and Norway keyboard layouts generate comma when you press numpad dot.

      This has nothing to do with OpenOffice.org.

  15. Is it star faster? by Delifisek · · Score: 1

    Main problem is just fast execution. Is it star and run faster ?

    --
    [My english is better than most other people's Turkish, so please point out mistakes politely. Thank you.]
    1. Re:Is it star faster? by tzanger · · Score: 1

      StarOffice is no faster than OpenOffice. I bought StarOffice 6 for Win32 and Linux and it was a waste of money. The support is no better, WP import is nonexistent (despite their marketing blah-blah) -- I called them on this and they first said that it wasn't available on linux because it used win32 dlls, then they said that it wasn't available "yet", even for win32.

      The one thing that was nicer was the upgrade patches. For US$70 it's not bad even if you never use it over OO, as you're helping fund OO. I just wish they'd have been more honest in their WP compatibility and support.

  16. For enterprise deployment... by Ciderx · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It seriously needs to be packaged as an MSI installer, preferably with a Transform creator so that the install can be customised as much as possible. To create a custom MS Office install for the entire enterprise takes 15 minutes, OpenOffice can take days to repackage...

    1. Re:For enterprise deployment... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Dear Sir,

      This is an open source project and since it appears that you know what you are talking how about you do the packaging and contribute to the project? Otherwise, you are nothing more than a do nothing arm chair quarterback Microsoft Office loving troll.

      Sincerely,

      ESR
      Keeper of the opensource flame.

    2. Re:For enterprise deployment... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      RE-Package OpenOffice into MSI?
      I could do this. It's my day job.
      Would the Ooo project be interested?

    3. Re:For enterprise deployment... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      actually for this, and all things wanting to deploy theres a simple MSI wrapper
      Its a simple program which take an exe (like setup.exe) and puts it inside an MSI so you can deploy it. Recently used it to deploy a security fix genius M$ didnt offer as an MSI. Ive only used it a few times so i cant say its perfect but it hasnt failed since.
      http://sywan.nl/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID= 18 has more and a link to the download and instructions.
      enjoy

      ahh i cant figure out how to linkify this, youll have to resort to copy/paste.

    4. Re:For enterprise deployment... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes! An MSI is needed. Many large companies use Microsoft's SMS server to distribute software. This is the project I've been working on all through grad school so far. If the package isn't MSI it's almost impossible to distribute easily. Untill an SMS compatable package can be created easily many very large places won't adopt Mozilla or OO.

  17. Did they fix the spell check by CastrTroy · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I hope they've done something about the spell checking bugs. The support for anything other than United Statesian English is pretty bad. I wish I could just select Canadian/British English, as a default, and that it would actually have spell check capabilities for at least one of these languages. Considering the good international support of many other Open Source apps. This one just isn't up to par.

    --

    Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
    1. Re:Did they fix the spell check by Manos+Batsis · · Score: 2, Informative

      The support for anything other than United Statesian English is pretty bad.

      Actually, I've been using the Greek spellchecking and autocomplete features since the betas and they beat MS Office out of the water as far as my native language goes...

      Manos

    2. Re:Did they fix the spell check by kalidasa · · Score: 1

      Manos:
      Would you be interested in providing a more complete review of OO for Greek in another comment?

    3. Re:Did they fix the spell check by marko123 · · Score: 1

      I thought it was a bug when the Canadian English autospellchecking changed all my "about"s to "aboot" until I watched South Park.

      --
      http://pcblues.com - Digits and Wood
  18. Re:#1 Problem by MauMan · · Score: 1

    I don't have a problem reading/writing word docs with open office? Do you?

    --
    ------- Code to try when you're bored: qsort( 0, UINT_MAX, sizeof( int* ), IntCompare );
  19. OpenOffice for Palm? by amichalo · · Score: 3, Funny

    Does/will OpenOffice have/plan to have a build for Palm OS or other (read MS) variants?

    As more mobile devices appear in business markets (particularly new growth in the medical and industrial markets) I believe it is sound to include a strategy for atleast view if not edit capabilities for these smaller than life devices.

    Get an Apple and enjoy computing again

    --
    I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
    1. Re:OpenOffice for Palm? by iantri · · Score: 1

      My god. Openoffice on a Palm? Not likely. It is way too bloated to be usable on a Pentium 133, I doubt it would be portable to the Palm. Not to mention you'd have to completely rewrite the UI...

    2. Re:OpenOffice for Palm? by swtaarrs · · Score: 1

      Well the Windows binary package is 63MB and the Linux binary package is 75MB, and those are both compressed. I imagine it would take a lot of trimming to even get OOo to fit on a palm, and even more trimming to get it to run well.

    3. Re:OpenOffice for Palm? by afidel · · Score: 1

      How about export to pdf, or save as rtf, both work well on just about any platform out there (pdf for exact layout and rtf for basic layout and preservation of information)

      --
      There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
    4. Re:OpenOffice for Palm? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Instead of jumping to ridiculous conclusions before installing, yes it does have support for palm and pocket pc exports in writer and calc.

    5. Re:OpenOffice for Palm? by ShavenYak · · Score: 1

      I would assume exporting from Writer to Palm would produce a PalmDoc formatted file, but what does Calc export to Palm give you?

      --

      Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!
    6. Re:OpenOffice for Palm? by ShavenYak · · Score: 1

      Obviously you can't run OOo on Palm, but it would be possible to create something like Documents To Go, which syncs files back and forth and provides somewhat limited editing functionality on the Palm side.

      --

      Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!
    7. Re:OpenOffice for Palm? by amichalo · · Score: 1

      But what about the ability to modify the data? It is useful to be able to read, but to change a spreadsheet number and have the corresponding calculations be made is many times more useful than read access.

      I know that my first handheld ran PocketPC and the big draw was that I could use pocket Excel.

      I am not promoting full code on the Palm, I am suggesting a palm version - one with "core" functionality and not all the bloat code (we ALL talk about how many useless features there are - so trim the fat and give us OpenOfficePalm for mobile needs)

      All typos included at no extra charge

      --
      I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
    8. Re:OpenOffice for Palm? by welshsocialist · · Score: 1

      Have you heard of Documents To Go? Word To Go works prety well.

      --
      Support the Chagossians
    9. Re:OpenOffice for Palm? by benjamindees · · Score: 1

      OpenOffice.org 1.1 RC Features:

      Support for mobile device formats like AportisDoc (Palm), Pocket Word and Pocket Excel.

      That's close to what you want.

      --
      "I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
  20. scripting by thoolihan · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I still can't see a lot of big companies switching because of embedded scripts/macros. The embedded vb stuff is pretty handy and makes up a lot of dynamic spreadsheets and stuff.

    I wonder if ooo.org will work in perl or some other handy dandy scripting tool. For what I do at home, it's good enough now, though.

    -t

    --
    http://unmoldable.com W:"No one of consequence" I:"I must know" W:"Get used to disappointment"
    1. Re:scripting by Jugalator · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Doesn't it already use a Visual Basic language for macros/scripts? Seemed so when I checked in 1.0

      --
      Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
    2. Re:scripting by Alkarismi · · Score: 1

      Actually most translate just fine ;)
      Besides, since when did an upgrade from, say, Office 95 to Office 97 not kill off a few macros and have to be rewritten!
      A migration is a migration is a migration. All that matters is how you sell it to Management/Bean Counters

    3. Re:scripting by axxackall · · Score: 2, Interesting

      As I can see in a changelog, Python now is a first class language to create components. I guess, soon in OOo you will have a scripting language, which will work same way in both Windows and Linux. Besides, Python is a real OOP language to be attractive for former Java programmers and it's a real scripting language to be attractive for former VB and Perl users.

      --

      Less is more !
    4. Re:scripting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Damn! Just put Perl in it and all problems will disappear like magic...

  21. Changes since 1.1 beta 2 by ChrisRijk · · Score: 4, Informative

    New features in OpenOffice.org 1.1rc over OpenOffice.org beta2 release:

    # a "talkback" style crash reporter to collect stacktrace and error information
    # new command line parameter -start to automatically start a presentation after the document is loaded
    # ability to update existing OpenOffice.org 1.0.x single user installations
    # support for drawing objects in headers and footers
    # an example XSLT filter for Office 2003 XML format
    # support for MS Excel 95 and older form controls
    # UNO python bridge - python is now a first class language for creating UNO components for OpenOffice.org
    # built in spell checking dictionaries for English (UK) and Italian
    # built in hyphenation support for Danish, English (UK), German and Russian
    # integrated Bitstream Vera fonts
    # improved spelling suggestions using n-gram scoring

    1. Re:Changes since 1.1 beta 2 by moeman · · Score: 1

      # improved spelling suggestions using n-gram scoring

      Thats good. I am an awful speller, and I have many times had to resort to using the spell checker in Gaim in order to find the correct spelling of a word I can't spell. Hopefully OOo will be able to do as well as my instant messaging client.

      --
      Ambition is a poor excuse for not having enough sense to be lazy.
  22. Features by oever · · Score: 0, Redundant

    New features in OpenOffice.org 1.1rc over OpenOffice.org beta2 release:

    • a "talkback" style crash reporter to collect stacktrace and error information
    • new command line parameter -start to automatically start a presentation after the document is loaded
    • ability to update existing OpenOffice.org 1.0.x single user installations
    • support for drawing objects in headers and footers
    • an example XSLT filter for Office 2003 XML format
    • support for MS Excel 95 and older form controls
    • UNO python bridge - python is now a first class language for creating UNO components for OpenOffice.org
    • built in spell checking dictionaries for English (UK) and Italian
    • built in hyphenation support for Danish, English (UK), German and Russian
    • integrated Bitstream Vera fonts
    • improved spelling suggestions using n-gram scoring

    For full list of features please see the OpenOffice.org 1.1 RC features list.

    --
    DNA is the ultimate spaghetti code.
    1. Re:Features by Rik+Sweeney · · Score: 1

      So close...

      as we can see typing a # is quicker than typing <UL><LI>

    2. Re:Features by oever · · Score: 1

      So close ...
      I'm lazy and copied the HTML.

      --
      DNA is the ultimate spaghetti code.
  23. Big vs little improvements by FTL · · Score: 2, Insightful
    Yes it imports Word documents better, yes it exports as PDFs, yes it does many nice new things. But I don't care. The only thing I care about is the fix for menus. When you right-clicked in the 1.0 version, the popup menu popped up on the wrong monitor. A stupid one-line bug. And quickly fixed (according to their Bugzilla). But one that has been driving me up the wall.

    Programmers take note. The media (this includes Slashdot) will report the Big Features. But the users will love it for the little features. For a successfull release you need both Big Features (so that word of the release gets out) and little features (so that users will like it).

    --
    Slashdot monitor for your Mozilla sidebar or Active Desktop.
    1. Re:Big vs little improvements by moeman · · Score: 1

      If it is such an easy fix, and it bothers you that much, make an open offer to pay someone like $20 to fix it. In fact, it would be nice if there was some official way to do this. Say you, our a company wants to see some bug fix or some feature added to some open source project, it would be great if they could just easily make an offer to pay someone $X to get it in.

      --
      Ambition is a poor excuse for not having enough sense to be lazy.
  24. OpenOffice 1.0.3 behavior hopefully changed by Jugalator · · Score: 3, Informative

    Something I thought was a very annoying feature in OpenOffice 1.0.3 was that it tries to be "smart" and open a file in a part of the office suite it "thinks" is best fit to do the job, and no apparent way to turn that function off.

    For example, if I choose to open a tab-delimited .txt file in Calc, it still open it in Writer. What?! I didn't tell it to open it in Writer. Even MS Office is more smart than that and imports it as best as it can by figuring out the delimiter etc, and certainly not tries to open it in the word processor, when I basically issued the command "ooocalc.exe table.txt". If it lacks the intelligence to open it, at least go confused and show me the Import dialog so I can properly import it as a tab-delimited text. But there doesn't even seem to be a setting for this...

    I noticed there's a setting in OO that let you select the default program to use. But I don't want to open any document in a "default" program, I want to open a document in the program I'm opening it with!

    So right now, I have to go through the looong path of starting Calc stand-alone, File->Open, select the .txt file, pick the .txt file format to be something like "Comma-delimited txt file" somewhere deep in its combo box and then it finally understands "aaah, it's delimited!" and stops forcing me to use another program than I'm trying to open it with.

    I really hope I'm missing something here, or this behavior will be fixed in OO 1.1, because I really despise programs that think, no... assumes, they know more than you do. I was also shocked to once again have to disable the paper clip feature in OO! Only difference was that the current incarnation was now a light bulb and not a paper clip. What progress the world is making. :-(

    --
    Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
    1. Re:OpenOffice 1.0.3 behavior hopefully changed by dylan_- · · Score: 1

      Yeah, there is. Don't "Open" it, instead "Insert...External Data" into a sheet. This gives you the proper options. I agree that OOo should give you this option on the Open dialog.

      Hope this has saved you some time!

      --
      Igor Presnyakov stole my hat
    2. Re:OpenOffice 1.0.3 behavior hopefully changed by Jugalator · · Score: 1

      OK, but that might only make it slightly faster (Insert->External Data instead of File->Open). What I'm really after is a way to make OO start up and open a file in the same program that I'm telling it to when I'm giving it the file name on the command-line.

      Windows has this "Send To" feature where you can place shortcuts to programs in a special folder, such as Calc in this case, and then just right-click on a program and select "Send To"->Calc and have it open using that file. What that actually does is just use the program and put the file name as a command-line argument.

      Windows XP also support associations of one file extension (.txt) in this case to more than one program. That's an excellent feature IMHO, and let you right click on a file and pick "Open With...->Calc" in this case.

      Neither of these ways that both are quicker than starting a stand-alone version of OpenOffice work because the program has a non-standard way of open files (i.e. doesn't open files in the program you tell it to)

      --
      Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
    3. Re:OpenOffice 1.0.3 behavior hopefully changed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Errr, you're trying to open a .txt file. .txt implies TEXT, so it opens in the Writer, as would be the expected behavior.

      If you rename the file to idicate WHAT IT ACTUALLY IS, i.e. a .csv file, then it will open the way you think it should.

      It's OK to expect a lot from FLOSS, but I think expecting it to be psychic is a bit much, don't you think?

    4. Re:OpenOffice 1.0.3 behavior hopefully changed by Jugalator · · Score: 1

      Errr, you're trying to open a .txt file. .txt implies TEXT, so it opens in the Writer, as would be the expected behavior.

      No, not if I open it in Calc. I agree that if I opened a .txt file in Writer, that would be the expected behavior.

      If you rename the file to idicate WHAT IT ACTUALLY IS, i.e. a .csv file, then it will open the way you think it should.

      So the solution is to rename all my txt files (that HAVE to use this extension since the software access the tables using these names) back and forth between .csv, just because it refuse to open/import the files in the program I'm executing. Yes, it sounds like a method that would be necessary in a brain dead MS program, but this time the roles seem to be reversed. :-(

      It's OK to expect a lot from FLOSS, but I think expecting it to be psychic is a bit much, don't you think?

      How hard is it for it to understand that it should open a file in the same program I'm asking it to? My problem is that it tries to be psychic and ignore what I want to open it in, and pick a program that "seem to be right" judging by its extension and not content.

      --
      Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
    5. Re:OpenOffice 1.0.3 behavior hopefully changed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You could try to rename the txt file to a .csv file so it imports in Calc? I haven't tried this, so I don't know if it works.

      Hans

    6. Re:OpenOffice 1.0.3 behavior hopefully changed by dylan_- · · Score: 1

      Ahh...I see. I can't think of a way to force it to either. I guess the only way at present would be to open a macro to do the job for you, or something.

      Have you reported this as a bug?

      --
      Igor Presnyakov stole my hat
    7. Re:OpenOffice 1.0.3 behavior hopefully changed by Cyno · · Score: 2, Informative

      I have no problems moving text and data around between Open Office formats and portable text files. But I usually call them *.csv, which brings up the import dialog whenever you double click on it.

      Normally a spreadsheet is exported as a list of common separated values. Even Excel can do this, but it has trouble exporting the data in the proper format with the right delimiters for importing into my CGI scripts. For converting *.xls to a comma delimited text file Open Office is the best thing I've ever used.

    8. Re:OpenOffice 1.0.3 behavior hopefully changed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So the solution is to rename all my txt files (that HAVE to use this extension since the software access the tables using these names)

      So, you've got the source for this program, right? Go in and change it to open/read/write from .csv files.

      Oh, wait, lemme guess, it's a commercial program, right? Don't have the source? Too bad.

      Here howabout this:


      #!/bin/bash

      MYFILES=/dir/where/my/txt/files/are

      cd $MYFILES

      for FILES in `ls *.txt`
      do
      ln -s $FILES $FILES.csv > /dev/null 2>&1
      done

      #
      # I'm assuming this is in your path.
      #
      exec soffice private:factory/scalc


      There. Symbolic links created before you begin.

      Bottom line: .txt is text, plain and simple and should be loaded in a text processor.

      It's like receiving images from Outlook that are tagged with a mimetype of binary/data and saying that "Well, I'm in Mozilla, so it should KNOW it's an image!!" It should know no such thing. Files should be named properly.

    9. Re:OpenOffice 1.0.3 behavior hopefully changed by mihai · · Score: 1

      In fact OOo doesn't have different programs for each task; Write, Calc, Impress are just shortcuts/symlinks to a single executable, soffice(.exe).
      So it doesn't matter much what component you have opened; it's the same program running.

    10. Re:OpenOffice 1.0.3 behavior hopefully changed by Jugalator · · Score: 1

      Yes, it's closed source, but your script a decent workaround. However, I still believe that a user's choice should go first: If I choose to open a file (regardless type, even a JPG file) in a program I explicitly tell, I don't want it to be opened in another one. The least I think OO should do is to show the Import File dialog. It has one. Let's use it.

      --
      Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
    11. Re:OpenOffice 1.0.3 behavior hopefully changed by Jugalator · · Score: 1

      No, but I was thinking of doing that. At least give a user the option to bring up the Import File dialog when opening files using file extensions unknown to the specific program.

      --
      Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
    12. Re:OpenOffice 1.0.3 behavior hopefully changed by Jugalator · · Score: 1

      OK, FYI I checked before I filed anything, and it was already filed... :-)

      Issue #8967:
      http://www.openoffice.org/project/www/issu es/show_ bug.cgi?id=8967

      --
      Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
    13. Re:OpenOffice 1.0.3 behavior hopefully changed by Spoing · · Score: 1
      If you rename the file to idicate WHAT IT ACTUALLY IS, i.e. a .csv file, then it will open the way you think it should.

      Renaming a file doesn't change what it "ACTUALLY IS". If you have access to some Unix-style tools, run the file command;

      1. file *

      For example, the OpenOffice 1.1 RC1 files return these results;

      f_0425: Zip archive data, at least v2.0 to extract
      install: Bourne shell script text executable
      LICENSE: ASCII English text, with very long lines
      LICENSE.html: HTML document text
      README: UTF-8 Unicode English text, with very long lines

      Three of the files have no extention at all. If I rename it to LICENSE.txt, file still reports;

      LICENSE.txt: HTML document text

      It's OK to expect a lot from FLOSS, but I think expecting it to be psychic is a bit much, don't you think?

      Psychic, no. It should do what it's told (even if a dumb idea) and if it attempts to guess, it could be wrong. Renaming the file doesn't help in either case since it's an awkward workaround that based on an old idea from the DOS and CPM days; file extentions mean nothing!

      --
      A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
  25. Great for us, not yet for wide deployment... by Alkarismi · · Score: 5, Interesting

    We have tried rolling this out at a number of sites. YMMV but this is our experience:

    OO is *perfect* for a large range of users, it handles all the bases and it's interoperability with the rest of the world (i.e. MS Office) is 'good enough'.

    A significant proportion of users like it better than "the real thing" - heh, heh

    When a user comes down to the IT department asking for a copy of 'Office' for home it is the perfect opportunity for evangelism ("We can't let you have office, it's £500, but you can have this for free - it's almost as good, so you won't even see much difference").

    Management/Bean Counters *love* it - if you can lose £200-£500 *per desktop* every 3 years they'll think you can walk on water - especially if you've just lost them a few £100k off the cost of their back-end systems ;)

    HOWEVER...

    Much a I have unbridled enthusiasm for OO, and I believe it is an essential part of Open Source's killer nature, it is *not yet* a no brainer for the enterprise.

    Try giving it to a secretary. Worse yet, give it to a whole department of them. You will not get our ALIVE.

    OO needs much stronger mailmerge capabilities. Then it will be awesome from the secretarial point of view. Until then they would rather die than give up MS Office.

    OO, or a seperate project also needs a replacement for 'Access'. Yes I know we should be moving them to LAMP (and in fact we do a lot of this ourselves), but the honest truth is there are sh*t loads of companies out there with hundreds of little access applications. This is our market too.

    Anyway, as I said, YMMV

    1. Re:Great for us, not yet for wide deployment... by WatchMaster · · Score: 1

      postgreSQL+openODBC is a great replacement for MSoft Access. In OO the data tool is much like access for accessing data in an RDB. In addition you can more easily share data with others since postgreSQL can be a database server.

    2. Re:Great for us, not yet for wide deployment... by Kefaa · · Score: 2, Interesting

      People like what they are used to. The do not like the new unless it is a significant improvement. This means, it is exactly what I had, only better. To get something different even if it is free, especially when it is corporate and not personal dollars at stake, is a fight with the Borg.

      In the early 80s the secretaries were certain that should they type a document it could just "disappear." And backups? They did not need to backup the typewriter, so why do I have to do something on the computer I did not need to do with the typewriter? However, show them a spreadsheet and whoa! That six hours with the ledger and cross checks just became 30 minutes and done.

      New meets resistance. OO could have reduced this a little by reconfiguring the menus to look like MS office by default (or maybe not it could be a legal issue). However, other than finding rare use items, I think this is more of an emotional issue than an application one. Not that those are not important, but they are not application specific nor fixable.

      In most cases a "management mandate" gives everyone something to cry about, but gets over the transition in record time.

    3. Re:Great for us, not yet for wide deployment... by Alkarismi · · Score: 1

      Absolutely agree, I like the MySQL + openODBC combo too ;)
      As you say, the OO tool is great, I use it plenty myself. It's just that it's not *yet* as simple/easy to use as Access. The day will come however, the day will come...

    4. Re:Great for us, not yet for wide deployment... by Alkarismi · · Score: 1

      Exactly. I couldn't agree more.

      This is why that 'management mandate' is the key that unlocks the next phase of Open Source deployment. We must learn how to speak in ways that convince 'management'.

    5. Re:Great for us, not yet for wide deployment... by pillohead · · Score: 2, Informative

      OO, or a seperate project also needs a replacement for 'Access'.
      There is one it's called mysql, check out the trail of tears article at linuxworld. I find it funny that all his problems are attributable to RedHat's piss-poor package management system (or any Linux distro for that matter). I did it using FreeBSD as the server with no hassles, on a mixed FreeBSD and windows network.

    6. Re:Great for us, not yet for wide deployment... by CanadaDave · · Score: 1
      OO needs much stronger mailmerge capabilities. Then it will be awesome from the secretarial point of view. Until then they would rather die than give up MS Office.

      Have you tried OOo mailmerging, using data sources? I thought it was awesome. I just used a tutorial I found on Openoffice.org (it's slashdotted right now) and I was up and running in no time. I was doing a wedding invitations merge from a CSV file of invitees. I just dragged the fields into my document, created some conditionals, and merged it into a 49 page PDF file ready for printing.

    7. Re:Great for us, not yet for wide deployment... by Alkarismi · · Score: 2, Informative

      Hey, thanks for the tip - I'll bamf over and check it out when everyones calmed down ;)

      Secretaries are a *real* conservative bunch and likely to p*ss themselves if you so much as mention csv files. For you and me this is a great thing. For them, if it deviates too far from the current (read MS) way, it's a no-no.

      Thanks again for the tip, I'll look into it.

    8. Re:Great for us, not yet for wide deployment... by Alkarismi · · Score: 1

      Hey, I *LOVE* MySQL!

      FreeBSD's what I tend to live in (works great on thinkpads!) and, like you, I found mysql/OO integration trivial. I have to say, for balance (and to quell any nascent my Open Source OS is better than yours pissing contests) that it was trivial setting up under Debian too. Don't know about Red Hat, I tend to avoid it as much as possible.

    9. Re:Great for us, not yet for wide deployment... by Ktulu_03 · · Score: 0

      My wife just got a new computer for her to use, where most of her use is writing on her novel. The new box from Dell only had MS Works on it. I put Open Office on there for her instead. She was skeptical at first, but Open Office opened up her 200 page word document, and the only problem was the page numbers were screwed up. After resetting those, she was up and running. She has found it to be fairly intuitive, and good enough for what she uses it for, and is happy with it. However, I can see problems where people who use the more advanced features, such as macros and access is probably not going to like Open Office. But I do think there is an audience for this software, and over time that audience will grow as the feature set grows.

    10. Re:Great for us, not yet for wide deployment... by Alkarismi · · Score: 1

      Thank you for this. Again your experience appears to be the same - Open Office is *good enough* for most uses.
      It's interesting what you have said about the 200 page document. In my experience Word ofter struggles with docs this size.
      Thanks for your insight...

    11. Re:Great for us, not yet for wide deployment... by Anime_Fan · · Score: 1

      mySQL is NOT a replacement for Access. Access is like a front-end. It uses ODBC connections as much as anything.

      Access is to ODBC as phpMyAdmin is to mySQL. Sort of (I know I'm way off, but still...).

      What we need is an application capable of doing what Access is doing - but using mySQL or another database for back-end. Templates and macros are things people use at my office - they hate it, but it gets the job done ( it sometimes^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Halways^H^H^H^H^H^Husual ly crashes and leaves the file locked, making me wanna bash some server's a$$... Stupid thing ;) ).

    12. Re:Great for us, not yet for wide deployment... by Ktulu_03 · · Score: 0

      and *good enough* is enough for most users, especially home users, because I think i've heard about 90% of Word users only use the basic 10% functionality. The rest of the features are geared towards the other 10%.

      I don't know how true it is, but to the average person who writes a few letters, surfs the web, and checks email, open office is a perfect fit. IMHO of course.

    13. Re:Great for us, not yet for wide deployment... by fobbman · · Score: 1

      That's swell, but where is the application that supports the MS Access format? That's the issue here. Thousands upon thousands of already-written Access databases would have to be rewritten in MySQL, which would be a tough sell to the bean counters. Open Office already can open Microsoft's Word, Excel, and PowerPoint formats so there's no loss of previous work there.

      No Access support is still a MAJOR corporate show-stopper.

    14. Re:Great for us, not yet for wide deployment... by Joey+Vegetables · · Score: 1

      Nothing useful can read the .MDB format as far as I know, but you can fairly trivially write VBA macros that can run from within Access to export the data and queries, as well as many aspects of other objects (forms, reports, and VBA modules, although those objects won't be useful outside Access).

    15. Re:Great for us, not yet for wide deployment... by Alkarismi · · Score: 1

      The MS Access format is proprietary (and crap). Fortunately, this is irrelevent as it's not how you do it.

      You simply migrate the underlying tables over to a MySQL back end, leaving all the queries, forms, reports, macros and other assorted Access s*ite untouched. That way the users can continue using their little Access front-ends while your LAMP team uses the same underlying tables (now in MySQL) to write a superior (and Open Source based) front-end in XHTML and PHP.

      You then ask management/bean counters if they'd like to lose the cost of deploying MS Office Professional rather than standard on all the desktops that currently 'require' Access.

      Problem solved...

    16. Re:Great for us, not yet for wide deployment... by follower-fillet · · Score: 1

      Don't know if you'd consider this "useful"...

      http://mdbtools.sourceforge.net/

    17. Re:Great for us, not yet for wide deployment... by rossz · · Score: 1

      I agree 100% regarding MS Access. There is no direct replacement for Access. I've tried piecing together different programs to make a replacement but haven't quite achieved a prefect replacement. Replacing the actual database portion is easy enough, MySQL and PostgreSQL are more than a match for Access. There are a number of excellent report generators available, so that's covered. It's the data entry part that's a problem. There are lots of web based projected, but I don't want to use a browser for data entry. Access has the advantage of having "smart" forms (if programmed well). What you enter in a field (or fields) can change what you can enter in other fields. This is extremely important. A web interface can't do this unless you use javascript (not a chance!) or java (yuck).

      --
      -- Will program for bandwidth
    18. Re:Great for us, not yet for wide deployment... by Alkarismi · · Score: 1

      Hmm, interesting.

      Thanks!, added to my list of projects to keep an eye on...

    19. Re:Great for us, not yet for wide deployment... by Alkarismi · · Score: 1

      If your reluctance doesn't extend to php, then that may well be your answer.

      We've found that in a number of cases, all full migration can be made from Access to a LAMP (or FAMP for us FreeBSD heads!) solution. In others you can get the guts over to MySQL/PostgeSQL and leave Access on the desktop as merely the GUI. To be honest it's quite a good front end on a windows desktop anyway (apart from the *ridiculous* price tag)

    20. Re:Great for us, not yet for wide deployment... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Mail merging was pretty smooth, (though not as intuitive as office). I recently did a merge from a csv file for mailing labels. The main downfall I found is that it doesn't seem to be able to do more than one page of labels. This is quite a pain to do the merge in batches.

    21. Re:Great for us, not yet for wide deployment... by Joey+Vegetables · · Score: 1

      I wasn't aware of this project but based on their Web page they seem to have had some success deciphering the Jet .MDB format. That's good to know, although so far, I've had good success working from within MS Access when necessary to export data to more readily accessible formats.

    22. Re:Great for us, not yet for wide deployment... by rossz · · Score: 1

      I've considered LAMP (I'm using that for several personal projects), but as I said, there are some things a web interface can't do on its own. Using Access just as the gui may be the only viable option. That's too bad, it would be nice to have a pure open source solution just to show that it can be done - and done better than with a proprietary solution.

      OpenOffice does have forms and reports, but it's "not ready for prime time". The report generator in OpenOffice was alpha (or pre-alpha) when I evaluated it. It crashed the app every time I tried to create a report. It might be time to re-evaluate it.

      Left out an important requirement for my project. The client side MUST run on Windoze.

      --
      -- Will program for bandwidth
    23. Re:Great for us, not yet for wide deployment... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I've worked at places that tried the "Management Mandate" route (WordPerfect Suite, Lotus Suite), and guess what?

      Everyone just 'obtains' MS Office and uses it anyway. Wait a couple years, and IT gets sodomized with an audit.

      And these are packages that are feature-wise equivalent to MS Office. Your suggestion that this could work with an admittedly inferior package is wishful thinking. And your justification of How Things Were 20 years ago is pathetic.

      Furthermore, in most corporate cultures, IT gets bowled over by a veteran secretary. Good luck with resistance from the VP-Level over your selection of Office packages. All you need is one guy to sign the MS PO and your plans are sunk.

  26. Speed Complaints? and Beta vs. Release Candidate by Likes+Microsoft · · Score: 1

    Whenever OpenOffice.org gets discussed on here, I see plenty of people complaining about its speed. I guess people must be trying to run on the cheap with older, slower systems, because I've been very happy with version 1.0.3 on my middle-of-the-road 1.7 GHz laptop. And, yes, I have been a longtime user of MS Office, and I notice a slight load time difference. But if that's the complaint, then I think it's a minor thing.

    Now to my main question. A few years ago, I decided to stop running software designated as alpha or beta releases. How does a Release Candidate differ from a beta version? Is it stable enough for the average user (one who isn't particularly interested in testing new software) to download and use?

    --
    -- Who am I? How did I get here? My God, what have I done?!
  27. UNO by Surak · · Score: 2, Funny

    Two person UNO:

    Skip You. Reverse. Draw Two. Draw Four. Skip You. UNO! :-P

    1. Re:UNO by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But that would mean you only started with 6 cards when, IIRC, you should have 7...

    2. Re:UNO by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I cheated.

    3. Re:UNO by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You did offtopic! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHhhahahahahahhhhaaa!!!

      --$$$$$exyKrout

  28. That is the problem... by Prince_Ali · · Score: 4, Insightful
    OSS Community: Businesses should adopt open source software and get away from MS.

    Business Guy: I'd love to if you just has [feature] which MS has and makes my life a lot easier.

    OSS Community: Create it yourself, lamer.

    Business Guy: Hello, Microsoft, I would like to order a 1000 computer site license for MS Office. Thanks.

    1. Re:That is the problem... by Stinky+Glen20 · · Score: 3, Troll

      Why can't I moderate :( I agree with the parent poster 100%.

      There's a certain arrogance (moral and technical) in the Open Source communitity that means MS will be around for some time to come just yet.

      Yes, things like "My Documents" may be stupid to *you*, but my mum knows where to find everything.

      I just installed Mandrake 9.1 to play around with. Shutdown the PC? Sure, go to a Terminal session and type shutdown -now.

      Mum, stick with windows. I don't need the support calls :)

    2. Re:That is the problem... by cowbutt · · Score: 1
      Actually, it seems to go something like this:

      OSS Community: Businesses should adopt open source software and get away from MS.

      Business Guy: I'd love to if you just has [feature] which MS has and makes my life a lot easier.

      OSS Developer: OK, that'll cost you $xxx

      BG: OK, deal.

      OSSD: OK, *hacks* done!

      BG: Ooops, sorry, we don't want it anymore! No $$$ for you!

      OSSD: Aw, poop!

      --

    3. Re:That is the problem... by Stinky+Glen20 · · Score: 1

      What the???? How on earth was my "I agree with the parent poster" modded as a Troll???

      MS makes things for dumb users. Dumb users like things easy. Linux (and to a great extent) the culture surrounding Open Source is driven by the programmer, for the programmer.

      I *did* install Mandrake, deciding that it was time to have another look at Linux. I *did* have to struggle to find out how to shut the bugger down when I was done.

      Redundant, fair enough! Troll??? Someone is just too sensitive.

    4. Re:That is the problem... by ceejayoz · · Score: 1

      Welcome to my friends list!

      3

    5. Re:That is the problem... by mpe · · Score: 1

      Business Guy: I'd love to if you just has [feature] which MS has and makes my life a lot easier.
      OSS Developer: OK, that'll cost you $xxx
      BG: OK, deal.
      OSSD: OK, *hacks* done!
      BG: Ooops, sorry, we don't want it anymore! No $$$ for you!
      OSSD: Aw, poop!


      Alternativly OSSD might well say something along the lines of "I agreeed to do X, you agreed to pay Y. I've now done X, but you have refused to pay. Either pay up or explain to a judge why you shouldn't pay as you previously agreed".

    6. Re:That is the problem... by cowbutt · · Score: 1
      Well, that depends whether you have enough money to hire a lawyer at least as good as the one the Business Guy has.

      --

    7. Re:That is the problem... by iapetus · · Score: 1

      I suppose you could shut the computer down that way. Me, I log off and click on the shutdown button, but maybe that's just my wild and zany hi-tech ways.

      Best stick to the good old Microsoft logical user interface approach where you shut the computer down by pressing the start button.

      --
      ++ Say to Elrond "Hello.".
      Elrond says "No.". Elrond gives you some lunch.
    8. Re:That is the problem... by AsparagusChallenge · · Score: 1

      The problem with your argument is within the concept "OSS Community".

      This is not a collective where the words of one equal to the words of the community. "Businesses should adopt..." is usually one individual completly different to "Create it yourself...".

    9. Re:That is the problem... by Stinky+Glen20 · · Score: 1

      Bugger! I have been indoctrinated into the evil MS ways.

      *commits ritual suicide*

    10. Re:That is the problem... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh wow, I bet he's really excited!

    11. Re:That is the problem... by lpontiac · · Score: 2, Insightful
      OSS Community: Businesses should adopt open source software and get away from MS.
      Business Guy: I'd love to if you just has [feature] which MS has and makes my life a lot easier.
      OSS Community: Create it yourself, lamer.

      But if you turn it around things are no better.

      Microsoft: We produce stable enterprise quality solutions for business. Buy our stuff.

      Business Guy: I'd love to if you just had [feature] which [some other software that may or may not be open source] has and makes my life a lot easier.

      Microsoft: *something along the lines of utter silence*

      Unless you're a valued customer in a niche market, any software will probably not work exactly the way you want it to, and specific requests for features will fall on deaf ears.

      If, say, you wanted some feature in MS Excel, your best bet at getting it implemented would be putting resources (hours from an internal employee, or dollars for a contractor) into getting it scripted in VBScript. Ditto for OOo's spreadsheet - no better, no worse.

    12. Re:That is the problem... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Hello!


      You forgot the third character "Business Guy 2":


      BG2: [hires contract programmers to add feature X to OpenOffice for $200,000] Hello, Microsoft, I would like to cancel our $400,000,000 site license for MS Office.

  29. Linus is working on it ? by wolruf · · Score: 5, Interesting

    See http://newsforge.com/newsforge/03/07/07/1516238.sh tml:
    "For example, the latest patch that I worked on myself (as opposed to working on merging other people's stuff) was to get X11 and Mozilla to load faster by improving the read-ahead heuristics for page faulting in the executable images"
    I hope this could also improve OO startup perf.

    --
    wolruf@gmail.com
    1. Re:Linus is working on it ? by soullessbastard · · Score: 1

      I'm not sure if Linus worked on it, but the new "quick-launch" functionality of OOo is directly due to cheating.uh.cleverness. It actually runs through and does page-in reads of all of its shared libraries into memory instead of doing them incrementally via the linker/VM manager. So in a sense, that, combined with any optimal way to avoid page-faulting those images out, should make OOo faster.

  30. Customization by edwilli · · Score: 2

    At my office we use M$ Office and we do a lot of customization to it. I've never used Open Office but seeing as we get raped every year it might be nice to have an alternative.

    So, what kind of developmet does Open Office allow? And does it support database intergration and intergration with Exchange?

    1. Re:Customization by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There is some limited data reporting, like the Office "Data Query" Wizard. There is NO equivalent to MS-Access. IMHO, that makes OpenOffice very deficient.

    2. Re:Customization by UnderAttack · · Score: 1

      unlike others mentioned here, there is a nice replacement for Access: mysql (or postgresql for that matter). OpenOffice can pull data from ODBC data sources. Mysql and other databases support open source. Do a quick google query to find out the details.

      OpenOffice uses its own scripting language. Not sure how similar/different it is from Visual Basic. I do see Python mentioned as a new feature for the upcoming release.

      --
      ---- join dshield.org Distributed Intrusion Detec
    3. Re:Customization by Anonym0us+Cow+Herd · · Score: 3, Informative

      So, what kind of developmet does Open Office allow?

      Read all about it. api.openoffice.org udk.openoffice.org

      Go over to OOoForum.org , go into the Macros and API section and read what people are doing.

      Go over to OOoDocs.org , they also have a Macros and devlopment section.

      You can write StarBasic code directly into OOo documents. You can write programs in Java to drive a running OOo, even on a different computer. (For example, a Java program on, say, Windows, telling an OOo running on Linux what to do.) You can write components in C++ or Java or Python.

      The Python UNO bridge is new. I haven't tried it yet. I believe you can do anything with Python that you could do with Java or C++ in OOo. StarBasic is limited in that you cannot create new components, it lacks sophisticated data structures, and you can only embed it within documents. The other languages cannot be embedded within documents (yet). I'm hoping to someday be able to embed Java classes or Python within an OOo document, just like I can with StarBasic macros.

      Be sure to download the SDK. Read the documentation, especially the developer's guide. The first big learning curve is to understand UNO. This is pretty much a prerequisite for everything else. Once you do though, you're on your way.

      Oh yeah, on languages that can access OOo. If you're on Windows, you can use Windows Automation. This means you can access it from, say, Visual Basic. I have seen OpenOffice.org programmed from Visual FoxPro.

      --
      The price of freedom is eternal litigation.
    4. Re:Customization by gglaze · · Score: 1

      "unlike others mentioned here, there is a nice replacement for Access: mysql (or postgresql for that matter). OpenOffice can pull data from ODBC data sources. Mysql and other databases support open source."

      I think the point some people are trying to make here is not about simply using MS Access for accessing a database - obviously anyone building a real database app who knows what they are doing would never try to use access simply as a back-end database, because there are many much better options for that, both MS (SQLSvr, MSDE) and non-MS, ranging from free to cheap to expensive.

      The point people are talking about here is being able to migrate *applications* that their users have built with access. That's the trick with Access - as a scalable or high-performance db, it isn't that great. But it's key advantage is that it allows you to very easily build data-entry applications to maintain relatively simple databases, without any programming or programming language, or even being aware that you are building an app that is connecting to a database.

      we are talking about almost-mom-level simplicity in building custom data-entry apps here - and there is no other solution that provides that, that i am aware of. certainly mysql isn't targeted at that audience, and why would they want to be?

      unfortunately, many, many businesses have vast amounts of data maintained in collections of ad-hoc "databases" built simply using Access. this is very similar to the Excel "application" dilemma - in order for open-office to really be successful with many businesses, it is going to need not only a seamless strategy for document migration, but also the full office suite replacement - and that includes both excel "applications" and access "applications".

  31. One of the more worrying new features... by Pembers · · Score: 2, Interesting

    ...is the addition of a progress bar to the splash screen. (See this page, under "Other Enhancements", near the bottom.) This would normally be a sign that your code is getting a wee bit bloated.

    That said, I use OpenOffice.org 1.0.2 a lot at home, and am very pleased with it. It is slow to start, but is quite fast afterwards, and normally I have it running all the time. (This is on a 1.3GHz Athlon with 512Mb, running Mandrake 9.1.) I use mostly the wordprocessor, with a bit of the spreadsheet, and for my relatively simple needs, I've yet to find anything it can't do.

    I've never owned a copy of MS Office, so the improvements in compatability with it will pass me by. Occasionally, lusers send me Word documents, and OOo already does a good job of getting the gist across. Most of the time, they're not saying anything that couldn't be said just as effectively in plain text. If the formatting is too complicated for OOo to unmangle, well... the document probably wasn't worth reading anyway :-p

    1. Re:One of the more worrying new features... by soullessbastard · · Score: 1
      This would normally be a sign that your code is getting a wee bit bloated.

      Well, it's always been 'bloated', more in its startup time then anything else. When it starts up it needs to load like 100MB of shared libraries, as well as perform font caching on Linux systems, query the print system, etc. etc. etc. This code is really an example of how templates can be used for evil, not good, leading to the bloat.

      It was already donated to open source in its bloated state by Sun/StarDivision, but it's much less bloated now then it used to be in StarOffice 5.2. It used to have its own implementation of a web browser in 5.2, for chrissesake.

      That said, in 1.0 launch times can take upwards of minutes on some machines. So in essence, while the better solution in the long run may be to remove bloat, the progress bar is a welcome addition. I've had to do user support for a lot of newbies who are wondering if the software's really crashed after seeing the static splashscreen for 20 seconds, force quit the software, try launching again, waiting another 20, and so on like the the instructions on my shampoo. Seeing something happen or a progress bar that hasn't finished all the way wil at least let these users know that "yes, startup time is crap" instead of thinking "crap, it doesn't work and I need help".

      And as to removing bloat once it's in there, look to Mozilla for an example of how successful it can be on an old crufty code base. And OOo is over four times as large. It'll definitely take time. Meanwhile, use ooqstart or change your work habits a bit (towards bottom of thread) to make getting to that word processing document when you need it now a bit snappier.

  32. Re:Barf by perly-king-69 · · Score: 1

    I do.

    --

    --
    This sig is inoffensive.

  33. Re:Speed Complaints? and Beta vs. Release Candidat by djeaux · · Score: 1
    Whenever OpenOffice.org gets discussed on here, I see plenty of people complaining about its speed. I guess people must be trying to run on the cheap with older, slower systems...

    That makes sense actually. The PHB reads about "this OpenOffice thing" in a trade mag & tells IT to test it "on one of our old computers." So it gets tested on a 450 PII instead of on the P-4's that MS Office is routinely run on. And the IT director's report back to the PHB is, "It's slow."

    --
    "Obviously, I'm not an IBM computer any more than I'm an ashtray" (Bob Dylan)
  34. PDF support? by TheRaven64 · · Score: 1

    Reviews (previews?) of 1.1 keep claiming that it supports exporting to PDF. What exactly does this mean? Is it plain `print to ps then run through gs so you get something a bit like a PDF that will open in acroread', or is it proper support for PDF, complete with links and bookmarks?

    --
    I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    1. Re:PDF support? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      gs supports links and bookmarks. All you have to do is insert pdfmark's in the ps file. Right now this is a big pain in the ass so hopefully oo will make this easy.

    2. Re:PDF support? by Getzen · · Score: 1
      I'm not sure about support for links and bookmarks, but the export function is simple and works well. You get to choose what the intended presentation medium will be (monitor, print, press) so the output will be optimized, and which pages to export, then voila it's done. There is none of the "print to ps then gs" stuff you are talking about.

      In my experience, the resulting PDF file opens and presents perfectly in Acrobat Reader.

    3. Re:PDF support? by iapetus · · Score: 1

      Optimising for smaller files still produces output that's almost five times the size of the PDFs I generate by printing to PS and converting in Ghostview though.

      Still, a nice start.

      --
      ++ Say to Elrond "Hello.".
      Elrond says "No.". Elrond gives you some lunch.
    4. Re:PDF support? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And does it export to PDF on Win32? The last time I looked at this feature (pre 1.1), the export function was *nix only.

    5. Re:PDF support? by guacamolefoo · · Score: 1

      And does it export to PDF on Win32?

      Yes. It has for a while now in the beta versions.

      GF.

    6. Re:PDF support? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Out of curiosity, how exactly do you do this?

      In OOo 1.0.x (Mandrake 9.1) I have two "PDF Converter" printers set up (Press, Screen), that I think do that kind of thing behind the scenes. Are you referring to that process or some other manual process?

      I ask because I woulnd't mind expending some effort creating my PDFs a bit smaller.

      -A

    7. Re:PDF support? by iapetus · · Score: 1

      I do it manually under Windows: print to a standard PS printer driver (I believe I use an Apple Laserwriter colour printer driver, but wouldn't swear to it) then load into Ghostview and convert to PDF. Always seems to result in a pleasingly small file.

      Haven't tried it under Linux recently (I tend to use XML/HTML for my home documents rather than PDFs) but I'd imagine you can get a similar setup working.

      --
      ++ Say to Elrond "Hello.".
      Elrond says "No.". Elrond gives you some lunch.
  35. Performance by jabbadabbadoo · · Score: 1

    Nice, but performance is still terrible with large documents. And yes, I have a fast computer.

  36. fast spell checking by undertow3886 · · Score: 1

    One of the annoying things for me about OOo is that when a misspelled word is underlined automatically, when you right-click to see the suggestions it takes upwards of a minute for the context menu to come up.

    Is there a way to speed this up, or is it the kind of thing that would be fixed in the new version?

    --
    Sick of people knocking on Gentoo's greatness in completely unrelated .sigs? Me too!
  37. Re:Barf by WatchMaster · · Score: 1

    We have got to limit the Microsoft(tm) employees from posting on slashdot.

  38. legacy build by CanadaDave · · Score: 1

    I like how they call the old 1.0.3.1 a "legacy" build. What a turn-off. Why didn't they call it stable, and the new one unstable, in good ol' Debian style.

    1. Re:legacy build by Bernie · · Score: 0

      Ho ho! They, unlike Debian, want people to keep as current as possible. Not everyone shares Debian's philosophy, and note that there is no OOo in Debian stable (nor will there be till at least Easter..)

  39. OpenOffice Upgrades a pain in Windows XP by CoasterFamily · · Score: 2, Interesting

    OK, so I run Windows XP at home. I'm trying to get into OpenOffice but the upgrade "scheme" is a pain. I haven't found an easy way to just update to the latest version. I normally go through and delete the current version (installed for the network and each individual user) and then install the new version. I have to say that this is a royal pain. Maybe I'm missing something but I find OpenOffice a pain to install in XP. Especially for multiple users.

  40. Flash export? by tzanger · · Score: 1

    What is it exporting, presentations? I don't see a flash export feature the copy of RC1 I just installed...

    1. Re:Flash export? by iapetus · · Score: 1

      Presentations can certainly be exported as SWF - go to the Export... option from the File menu, and it's one of the first options in the file-type list.

      --
      ++ Say to Elrond "Hello.".
      Elrond says "No.". Elrond gives you some lunch.
  41. OK... by autechre · · Score: 1

    So it isn't a closed format, but OpenOffice is still really annoying when you don't want to use its format. MS Office doesn't badger you but once; after you've decided that you really want to save a file as RTF no matter what the scary dialog boxes say, it doesn't ask you again. Why should OpenOffice continally harass me about "Oh, the lost information!" if I'm just writing a simple text document?

    Similarly, I'd like to be able to set it to save in a format like .doc by default, as that's what is needed at our school paper (for some reason, Quark's RTF import loses italics, which is just not acceptable).

    --
    WMBC freeform/independent online radio.
    1. Re:OK... by afidel · · Score: 1

      That can be done, in fact I remember someone bitching about it being the default in some distro (redhat?, ximian?). Of course defaulting to saving in a format that isn't native to the app isn't the smartest thing in the world because you WILL have people wondering why the document the opened doesn't look quite the same as the document they just saved.

      --
      There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
    2. Re:OK... by greenrd · · Score: 1
      Have you filed a bug report?

  42. Re:Here is a mirror by borgdows · · Score: 2, Funny

    you bastard!!
    my boss was coming when I clicked on the link! :-/

    I will check twice before clicking a link in comments now :o)

  43. What the people want is... by Zog+The+Undeniable · · Score: 1
    MS Office, for free (as in beer), with no Office Assistant, task panes or silly chrome bits like choosing how your spelling errors should be highlighted.

    I use OOO at home, but the lack of an Outlook-compatible PIM is the killer for businesses. I suppose that means we need an open-source clone of Exchange too.

    --
    When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
    1. Re:What the people want is... by pointwood · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I guess you've been living partly under a rock then. Commercial alternatives to Exchange already exists and open source versions are under development and will soon be available. Take a look at http://kroupware.org/ and http://opengroupware.org/

    2. Re:What the people want is... by JLyle · · Score: 1
      I use OOO at home, but the lack of an Outlook-compatible PIM is the killer for businesses. I suppose that means we need an open-source clone of Exchange too.
      The OpenGroupware.org project may be of interest to you. It was only announced a few days ago and so I'm not up to speed on it, but it sounds like their goals are in line with what you described.
    3. Re:What the people want is... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      An Outlook-compatible Open Source PIM would be a killer would it? Man, someone should tell the guys at Ximian about this great idea of yours! They could maybe call it "Evolution"!?

  44. Re:Speed Complaints? and Beta vs. Release Candidat by iantri · · Score: 1

    Yes, it's slow on a PII 450. But it is a LOT worse than MS Office. MS Office is very usable on a machine of that class. I'm using a P2 350 and it runs Office 97 just fine.

    I can go and get a cup of coffee while OpenOffice loads on it. (Under RedHat 9.)

    Your point is still valid though, it will run slower than MS Office on a P4.

  45. Re:Here is a mirror by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You must be new here...

  46. Grammar checker by shic · · Score: 1

    I'm sad to say I'll to remain a Word advocate until OO supports grammar checking. While I agree that OO is usable, I really miss the squiggly green lines when I edit a paragraph (in a rush) and scramble it to nonsense. A gobbledegook indicatior vastly improves the quality of first draft documents and, to me is a must-have feature.

    Are there any plans for something similar in OO?

    1. Re:Grammar checker by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So, you admit that your grammar is even more lousy than word's?

    2. Re:Grammar checker by shic · · Score: 1

      "Word!" to grandmas everywhere!

      (Yes I suck when I speedy-drafts: like I blow at speed-chess 8-)

      A herd of monkeys would be able to produce the complete works of Shakespeare substantially more quickly if they were to use Word instead of their outdated typewriters!

    3. Re:Grammar checker by Ilan+Volow · · Score: 1

      And it would explain why the monkey version of Hamlet has talking paperclips unexpectedly popping up in scenes for no good reason.

      --
      Ergonomica Auctorita Illico!
    4. Re:Grammar checker by soullessbastard · · Score: 1
      This is actually a problem for all open source projects...

      There is no open source grammar checking library! At least none robust enough to provide any useful information.

      Grammar checking is notoriously difficult...hell, back in the day there used to be companies like Casady & Greene (sniff...I liked their stuff) that made standalone grammer checkers like Grammarian. Many other companies with standalones went under, but their source code is now relegated to the sands of time.

      The cloest thing I've seen to what may become a viable grammar checking library for open source is the Link grammar parser. It seems pretty good and has a online sample of what it can do, including some automated translation!

      You can use this project for free in non-commercial applications. Alas, this runs afoul of the SISSL license used for OpenOffice.org since it explicitly allows for commercial products to be derived from the OOo source code (like StarOffice). It's also incompatible with LGPL and GPL, too, since it would place an additional restriction on how LGPL/GPL software is used. AbiWord has some bindings for the link grammar parser in its code, but they're not activated due to licensing restrictions.

      About a year ago when I contacted the team, they said they were going to do a rereleas under an MIT style license or a GPL-compatible license, although thus far I've not heard anything since. Anyone know them and want to help set a few wheels in motion?

      The other alternative is to add in a bridge to communicate with a separate process from a GPL licensed project, where the separate project is never loaded into the same address space and is under a non-commercial non-GPL license only. I've wanted to do this for NeoOffice and have sketched out rough APIs, but I haven't had the time to sit down and actually code it.

    5. Re:Grammar checker by shic · · Score: 1

      And the inexplicable, unmistakable American style of the reprints?

  47. What's the point? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    OpenOffice FINALS are unstable. What's the point of posting about a RC?

  48. Re:Here is a mirror by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    yeah, most people "come" when that link is clicked

  49. OS X Open Office by Karl+Cocknozzle · · Score: 1

    OO.org is SO slashdotted right now, it isn't even funny... As such, I have no way of finding out the answer to my question:

    Does the OS X version make use of the groovy "Aqua" gui yet, or is it still kludged on top of X for OS X? That's the barrier to getting mass testing/deployment on the Macinotsh... There certainly is no love lost between Mac users and Redmond.

    I could easily see the "De facto" format for document distribution becoming the PDF... Originally, that would have been ineffecient (due to people using modems for internet connectivity,) but now, especially as bandwidth available to users goes up over time with increased availability of cable/dsl/dedicated T1... After a while it won't matter how HUGE long PDF files can bceome.

    Windows users can make PDFs for free, right now, thanks to this program. (Or you can pay $10 and not see pop-up ads when you launch the program.) I don't see why anybody wouldn't start doing it, as sort of a one man protest.

    --
    Who did what now?
    1. Re:OS X Open Office by fruey · · Score: 4, Insightful
      After a while it won't matter how HUGE long PDF files can bceome (sic).

      I was going to moderate on this article, then I saw that, and I was going to mod you down. Then I thought I'd reply, which seems to be the logical thing to do actually, because the rest of the context isn't so bad.

      Saying that it doesn't matter how big files get is wrong. Files should become MORE efficient, and filesizes should only increase if the QUALITY of the data increases (here it's mostly file metadata, and AV applications, that I'm thinking about).

      Now, saying that a perfectly good format like PDF does not need some kind of efficient compression is wrong. The reason there are variances between Adobe PDF and "free" PDF is that Adobe have a better default compression setup, maybe even a proprietary compression algorithm, and it produces for their reader, not just a generic reader. PDF should make files smaller and smaller, based on common criteria like : format for screen display, format for print, format for archive...

      Keep images out of PDFs, just put text, and you'll see it's pretty efficient, and a gain on Postscript. Stick some image in there, and don't think about embedding it as a JPEG or whatever (as you can do with AdobePDF) and downsampling it to 72dpi if it's not a print version, and away ye go. Maybe free versions can do this but I would bet it's not as intuitive.

      But please, don't start claiming that documents can just keep getting bloated and it won't matter. This will only serve to further screw the less-well-connected into expensive bandwidth hell.

      --
      Conversion Rate Optimisation French / English consultant
    2. Re:OS X Open Office by labratuk · · Score: 1

      Maybe free versions can do this but I would bet it's not as intuitive.

      What a great thing to base your judgements of software on.

      --
      Malike Bamiyi wanted my assistance.
    3. Re:OS X Open Office by Kjella · · Score: 1

      After a while it won't matter how HUGE long PDF files can bceome (sic).

      Keep images out of PDFs, just put text, and you'll see it's pretty efficient, and a gain on Postscript.

      Yeah, and even with lineart it does a pretty good job. My thesis:

      218 pages (A4)
      1 color picture (front page)
      2(?) grayscale pictures
      87 figures
      8 tables

      MS Word: 2418k
      Adobe PDF: 2377k

      Adobe PDF is definately my format of choice for anything that is finished. If I need to exchange editable formats, compromises has to be made (Why I used MS Office, personally I'd probably want to write it in TeX).

      I also did some work on an electronic archive last Christmas. Those contained a lot of drawings, maps and plans etc, and pretty high-res scans. They would primarily be sitting on a harddisk for printing, and it didn't really matter how large they were. The point was that they wanted everything in one format (not MS here, drawing program there, map there etc.) The solution was a PDF archive.

      Kjella

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    4. Re:OS X Open Office by johnnyb · · Score: 1

      We're actually working on a system using Linux that will make PDF printing available from any application without local software installation. Basically, you have a Linux box set up as a member of your Windows domain which has a "virtual" printer which just accepts print requests, generates a PDF, and then places the PDF with a timestamp in your home directory.

      All you have to do is follow the normal Windows printer setup procedure. You don't even need to load drivers - they come standard with Windows.

      If anyone's interested you can email me at johnnyb@eskimo.com.

    5. Re:OS X Open Office by BenjyD · · Score: 1

      Does the OS X version make use of the groovy "Aqua" gui yet, or is it still kludged on top of X for OS X?

      Personally, I think it would do Apple good to put a couple of their programmers to working on Openoffice in the same way they did with Safari/Konqueror. That way, OSX gets a good, free Aqua-integrated word-processor for the cost of a couple of programmers' salaries, and the community gets the bug-fixes and improvements back. Win-win.

    6. Re:OS X Open Office by vegetablespork · · Score: 1

      A more free (as in beer, and in freedom) way to make PDFs under Win32 is to create print to a file and create it with Ghostscript. That said, I'm not interested in helping PDF become an entrenched standard, since it's controlled by Adobe, who proved themselves to be DMCA-wielding jackbooted thugs in the Sklyarov case.

      --

      Call (206) 338-5780 COLLECT for information about a genuine BA, BS, MA, MS, MBA, or Ph.D.

    7. Re:OS X Open Office by ShavenYak · · Score: 1

      You realize, of course, that the Samba docs and example configuration files already show you basically how to do this?

      --

      Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!
    8. Re:OS X Open Office by johnnyb · · Score: 1

      Yes, but most people don't know that, and if they're running an all W2K office, they would rather have someone else run their Linux boxes.

  50. Re:#1 Problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    OpenOffice will never read standard MS-Office files. Neither will MS-Office, because there is no such thing as "standard MS-Office fles". Neither ANSI, ISO, W3C nor DIN.

    However, OpenOffice files are based on standard XML, but MS-Office cannot and will not read standard anything. So you would probably have more luck using NON-standard MS-Office files, than you would standard XNL OpenOffice files.

  51. 1.1 snapshots in red-carpet 'ooo-snapshot' channel by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    If you use RH9 or SuSE 8.2 you can already get a snapshot of the work in progress wrt. a Ximianized OO.o 1.1 from the 'ooo-snapshot' channel in Red Carpet. It's pretty functional.

  52. No need for CVS to use mail merge by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    You don't need CVS. Here's a different tutorial that may help:
    http://www.virtualsky.net/daves/2003-08.htm

    1. Re:No need for CVS to use mail merge by Alkarismi · · Score: 1

      Thanks for that.
      How scalable? - Will it work for several thousand names?
      Can it take the fields from a database rather than a spreadsheet?

    2. Re:No need for CVS to use mail merge by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's pretty scalable. If you have 9 labels and 20000 names and you print the output to separate OpenOffice files instead of the printer, it takes about 16 minutes. That's more than fast enough to ensure that your printer won't be idle.

  53. Truth from the Wife is PC Illiterate Dimension by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    My wife is illiterate in a pc world and because of my profession, uses me gratuitously for support. She is also a college student at 37 and must type many papers. Up until this summer she has only used MS Word for her work and has no knowledge of any other processing apps that are out there. I have a Win2k domain at home and I created an OO.org MSI install so that deployments are hands free, and simple. The results of the test? She did NOT realize that Word wasn't installed for two weeks. It's true that some of the menu items aren't there or are different but it didn't matter because she would call me any way. It turns out that there are features that she prefers now such as a much cleaner auto complete. I think we would all be making mistake by comparing OO.org to MS Office too directly. They are different apps with a different feature-set even though ostensibly they are both used for the same tasks. Sure there are bugs in OO.org, but ahem.... when was the last time you commented on a bug free MS Office? Besides that it would be worth three months of torture in hell to do away with that freakin paper clip!

    1. Re:Truth from the Wife is PC Illiterate Dimension by Zhe+Mappel · · Score: 1
      My wife is illiterate in a pc world

      If you want to say she's sensible, just say it.

  54. MS Document Filters? by FsG · · Score: 1
    ..better MS Office document filters..

    Ooh, does that mean I can filter MS Office documents out of my life forever?

    --
    I made a PHP/MySQL library that prevents SQL injection & makes coding easier!
  55. Just tried it... by Stinky+Glen20 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    My wife wanted me to install Word, but I sneakily installed Open Office instead.

    So far, she has been able to do whatever she needed in OO, and has not come across any limitations in terms of it's capabilities.

    My first impression of it was that it seems to be up to the task, but I didn't like how it started to prompt for Data sources when I first started it.

    Cool feature, maybe.. but let me find that stuff when I want it, not when I want to play with the tool and see what it does.

    Other than that small gripe, it's probably gonna go on any new boxes I build, unless a customer asks otherwise

  56. Re: on the other side... by pacman+on+prozac · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This company saves loads by adopting open source, so did my previous company. Sure we had to spend a little time and effort to investigate but we, the business were the ones who profited from it, and we profited over our rivals.

    What exactly do you expect to happen, perhaps something like this:

    Business Guy: I'd love to if you just has [feature] which MS has and makes my life a lot easier.

    OSS Community: oh yes, no problem, we just spent the last 6 months working in our free time to make this software, let me just take a few days off work to do that for you.

    You are missing the entire point of OSS. If enough people wanted that feature then it would already be there. If just that company wants that feature then they can hire a coder to add it. They don't have some mystical right to demand features/upgrades just beacuse the software is open. What if they want a feature that ms office doesnt have?

  57. Re: on the other side... by Prince_Ali · · Score: 1

    That's fine, but the OSS community should stop criticizing businesses for using MS products in that case. If they have to spend more to bring Open Office up to their requirements than to license MS Office there is only one logical choice.

  58. word count... by crazney · · Score: 1, Interesting

    however, there is still no usefull word count feature.. which makes OpenOffice a lot less useful than it should be.

    --
    stuff
    1. Re:word count... by labratuk · · Score: 2, Informative

      Have you ever tried going to File > Properties ?

      (it's something like that, i dont have it infront of me)

      You could even insert a wordcount field and hit F9 every now and then.

      --
      Malike Bamiyi wanted my assistance.
    2. Re:word count... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      File/Properties/Statistics. Certainly not the best implimentation but it's there.

    3. Re:word count... by mnemonic_ · · Score: 1

      I figured out how to access the word count in OpenOffice after spending about 15 seconds in the documentation.

    4. Re:word count... by crazney · · Score: 1

      This isn't really a true wordcount feature.. Sure it tells you the number of words in the document, but thats about all really - not enough.

      --
      stuff
    5. Re:word count... by crazney · · Score: 1

      Yes,

      and that word count feature is not sufficient for the majority of my work.

      David

      --
      stuff
  59. Come on guys, it's free! by bach37 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I can't believe all the negative comments. You guys are so harsh towards something that is FREE! That is one thing that MS Office can never come close to. For many small companies or schools, free is an obvious choice over M$, and it will do the job. I can't believe how so many people here are very picky about little things. If you don't like it, pay the M$ tax and quit complaining.

    -Scott

    1. Re:Come on guys, it's free! by jridley · · Score: 5, Insightful

      We're getting on its case because it's so good. It's ALMOST THERE as an MS Office killer. We all want to be able to deploy it in place of MS Office.

      If your attitude is "It's free so it's OK for it to suck" then do you not think there's any reason to make open source software that's as good or better than commercial stuff?

      It's fine that it's good enough for small companies and schools. But it'll be even better when, one day, it's good enough to displace MS Office in really large enterprises! It won't get there if everyone is just saying "It's good enough for gramma to write letters, let's stop working on it."

    2. Re:Come on guys, it's free! by bach37 · · Score: 1

      If your attitude is "It's free so it's OK for it to suck[?]"

      Not at all! I just think that people always compain the most about something when it's free. From Linux distros, to Wine, etc. Any open source project would be glad to accept their payment to better the app, I'm sure.

      But I see your point to all the picking and nabbing of the new OO release.
      -Scott

    3. Re:Come on guys, it's free! by lpret · · Score: 2, Insightful
      It's not complaining in the sense of "I'll never use it because of X," it's more of a "Here's what I've found when using it. It's great except for X. And you can't beat the price!"

      Perhaps nerds aren't used to expressing gratitude for near-perfect systems, as they tend to continue to work on a program until it is perfect in their eyes.

      --
      This is my digital signature. 10011011001
    4. Re:Come on guys, it's free! by eschwinge · · Score: 1

      Like anyone pays for MS Office that they use at home anyways. Everyone takes a copy from work or their buddy, etc.

    5. Re:Come on guys, it's free! by samhalliday · · Score: 1
      no, people complain because the developers listen! granted, some people are not very polite about it, and the developers of any GNU project will just ignore them.

      often, bug reports look like a load of winging... unless you have been on the receiving end of bug reports, you will never know that they are a GOOD thing! (its easy to read a bug report with a grumpy cynical voice in your head). you WANT to know exactly how something is breaking and when, so you can fix it quickly and make it better... unless of course, you are just in it for the money and don't give a shit about the quality.

    6. Re:Come on guys, it's free! by FedeTXF · · Score: 1

      It's true! That's why it's so important to switch to OO so it doesn't become the only tool people know.

  60. Re:Speed Complaints? and Beta vs. Release Candidat by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Release Candidate (should mean)/ means that if no showstopper bugs are uncovered, then _this_ version will be released.
    Different projects have different standards for the likelihood of this being the case. Some projects ship beta-quality software as RC, some do such extensive beta testing that rarely does an RC2 become necessary. YMMV

    alex

  61. In our office... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It works fairly well. We run a Solaris box for the desktops and X terminals for 30+ users. It seems to work ok most of the time.

    I only have one real grump. There is a common launch menu for apps (including OO). You must "install" it for each user, a PITA. When we did an upgrade to 1.0.1, it started putting the executable in a different place. It was at $HOME/OpenOffice.org/1.0/soffice. For new and upgraded users it is now at $HOME/OpenOffice.org/1.0.1/soffice.

    Now we need two buttons on the common menu, and users need to remember which one they use. Maybe we are dense and did something wrong, but this seems silly.

  62. Debian Unstable packages? by devilkin · · Score: 1

    Anyone know of a mirror that has these in .deb package format?

    Jan

    1. Re:Debian Unstable packages? by soullessbastard · · Score: 1
      I don't believe the Debian maintainers (Chris) have Debian packages ready yet. You'll still have to grab the full "tarball" style installer and try to run it on a Debian system. It's only been tested on Red Hat, I believe, internally. Best bet is to fire off a message at Chris or to lurk on the dev@porting.openoffice.org mailing list to find out more about where the Debian status is.

      I do know that due to OOo's dependencies on Java for building and compiling, not for running (it's C++ code, already. christ, look at the code you java complaining wankers), it may not move into the core Debian product until it can be built using Kaffe. I believe part of the difficulty (aside from the fact Java is, nor ever will be, free software) is that some of the Java-based build tools are using the 1.4 XML classes now as well as linking against the Java Accessibility Bridge. This makes it impossible to build on a pure free software system, even though it runs on pure free-software GNU/Linux systems.

  63. Splash ... Scream by zilde · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Is the splash screen (on Linux I've found it annoying) still there?

  64. Office operability not perfect by cerberusss · · Score: 1
    No filter is perfect, and neither is OO's Word filter. I don't know about you people, but I just do not want to waste my own/coworker's/client's time time with an imperfect filter.

    I tried OO, but people get irritated (at least) when I send them a fscked file. And since my company has a site-wide license for Office and I'm running RH Linux on an intel, for $55 I just bought Codeweaver's Crossover Office and be done with it.

    --
    8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
  65. Re: on the other side... by pacman+on+prozac · · Score: 1

    Personally I agree 100%, my belief has always been to use the best tool for the job.

    If they have to spend more to bring Open Office up to their requirements than to license MS Office there is only one logical choice.

    Again you're missing the point of using OSS. Yes they would have spent initially more money, but then all the upgrades/bugfixes/patches/securityfixes are free. They won't have to pay another 5k for office 200(current_year+1). They can be sure that they can integrate their data with ANY OTHER OPEN APPLICATION in the future. They won't be locked into proprietry vendor who then has them and all their data by the balls.

    If it was as simple as the initial expense, I would agree, but business software is more than the initial expense, you have to look at it in terms of its entire lifetime and what the costs will be over this lifetime.

  66. dictionary.com definition & jargon file by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    proprietary

    1. Of, relating to, or suggestive of a proprietor or to proprietors as a group: had proprietary rights; behaved with a proprietary air in his friend's house.
    2. Exclusively owned; private: a proprietary hospital.
    3. Owned by a private individual or corporation under a trademark or patent: a proprietary drug.

    proprietary

    adj. 1. In marketroid-speak, superior; implies a
    product imbued with exclusive magic by the unmatched brilliance of
    the company's own hardware or software designers. 2. In the
    language of hackers and users, inferior; implies a product not
    conforming to open-systems standards, and thus one that puts the
    customer at the mercy of a vendor able to gouge freely on service
    and upgrade charges after the initial sale has locked the customer
    in. Often in the phrase "proprietary crap". 3. Synonym for
    closed-source, e.g. software issued in binary without source and
    under a restructive license.

    Since the coining of the term open source, many hackers have
    made a conscious effort to distinguish between `proprietary' and
    `commercial' software. It is possible for software to be commercial
    (that is, intended to make a profit for the producers) without being
    proprietary. The reverse is also possible, for example in
    binary-only freeware.

  67. Installed last night by Zathrus · · Score: 3, Informative

    My wife emailed me her resume (in .doc format, which, like it or not, is the standard nowadays) so I could review it.

    OpenOffice.org 1.0.3 crashed upon trying to open it. This is a Word doc that was exported from OO.org 1.0.3... how sad is that? I installed 1.1RC1 and it was just fine though. So I'd guess the import is improved.

    Installing RC1 on her system was rather more difficult... since the installer kept bombing about a UNICOWS.DLL error. Yes, the solution was easy to find on the website, but why not have a more useful error message than that in the first place? If it's a FAQ, it should be reasonable to integrate the error message into the installer rather than confuse the user. Most people will get an error like that and say screw it and go back to Word/Works/whatever.

  68. Re:Speed Complaints? and Beta vs. Release Candidat by GooberToo · · Score: 1

    I'm running a P2 333 and it it runs just fine here. Anyone who says it's unusable is simply insane, though startups are painfully slow. And this is an older version of OO. Just wait till you try the newer version, which loads faster, AND you get a 2.6 kernel, load times should be significantly faster.

  69. And while they're tweaking... by praedor · · Score: 4, Insightful

    They are still ignoring a really big, important feature: BIBLIOGRAPHY. The built-in bibliography "manager" SUCKS large rocks through capillary tubes. It is NOT useful in any way, shape, or form.


    If you are a high school or college student, or a professional who actually gives proper attribution rather than flat-out plaigerizes, or write scientific papers (biology, for instance - physics and math people use latex/lyx, end of story) you MUST provide references in your papers Research papers for class, papers for submission to professional journals, publications for dissemination online...all require references and a properly formatted reference list.


    I am a biochemist. I recently gave an Impress presentation to my colleagues on my research. Afterwards, a few had questions on what I was using...they noted that I was using linux on my laptop. I told them about OO/StarOffice. They were interested but ultimately I had to disabuse them of the idea of using it to replace Office because OO/SO cannot do references properly. These people use Office with EndNote so they can create a properly formatted and REFERENCED document for publication. Without reference management (ala EndNote-like capability) OO/SO is useless to them. A non-starter. I myself never use OO/SO for writing. I use Lyx plus pybliographer because between the two, I can relatively easily create a proper document with properly formatted references with ease. Can OO/SO do this? Not. Even. Close.


    OO/SO is nifty for doing "powerpoint-like" presentations and the Calc function is minimally useful (for real work I have to use gnumeric because it has some nice, handy scientifically relevant functions and capabilities that Calc lacks). For writing a letter or some similarly low-power document, OO/SO is fine. For real writing, Lyx/latex...because it is the only thing in the linux world up to the task.


    For god's sake! SOMEONE in the wordprocessing world (Textmaker, Gobe, OO/SO, etc) add the ability to manage references! This includes a SIMPLE means of inserting a citation or citations into a doc AND auto-generate configurable reference pages to go with it - not all journals or departments, etc, use the same citation and reference page formatting. Quit with the crap like adding a progress bar during startup (what the fuh?!) and do something worthwhile and actually useful. Add a real functional improvement rather than just more window dressing.

    --
    In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
    1. Re:And while they're tweaking... by kalidasa · · Score: 1

      Word doesn't do this itself, though; it needs EndNote to do it. What we need is an OO EndNote replacement. Desperately.

    2. Re:And while they're tweaking... by Peter+La+Casse · · Score: 1
      They are still ignoring a really big, important feature: BIBLIOGRAPHY. The built-in bibliography "manager" SUCKS large rocks through capillary tubes. It is NOT useful in any way, shape, or form.

      If you are a high school or college student, or a professional who actually gives proper attribution rather than flat-out plaigerizes, or write scientific papers (biology, for instance - physics and math people use latex/lyx, end of story) you MUST provide references in your papers Research papers for class, papers for submission to professional journals, publications for dissemination online...all require references and a properly formatted reference list.

      Since when is a high school or college student unable to write their own properly formatted bibliography? When I wrote out my research papers by hand, or typed them out with a typewriter, or (when I finally got access to a computer as a 3rd year student in high school) used Microsoft Write, I was able to create a properly formatted reference list without a "bibliography manager."

      They were interested but ultimately I had to disabuse them of the idea of using it to replace Office because OO/SO cannot do references properly.

      I'm reliably informed that scientific research papers pre-date the use of computers for word processing.

    3. Re:And while they're tweaking... by praedor · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Are you as dense as you seem? Yes, there was a day when there were only typewriters and everything was done by hand. Before that, it was all done by hand, for real, with pen and paper. Do you really suggest that this is an answer? With windoze and office/endnote, you have a simple, fast means of collecting, organizing, and utilizing references for writing researched documents. Such is the whole point of computers, to make such tasks (and others) EASIER. What planet are you on?


      Write a thesis in a scientific area and do all the references by hand. Your friends will finish their thesis far ahead of you and be enjoying the fruit of their graduate labor while you stupidly wile away your time doing what was once done on a typwriter on a computer. I suggest you get rid of your computer and use the typewriter alone as you obviously do not understand the point of technology, computers, etc.


      I had a thesis that was 180 pages in length and had ~800 references. Do that by hand? This is 2003, not 1973. We have COM-PU-TERS now with WORD-PROCESSORS. They make life easier when properly used/designed. That is their point for existence. Fine, you write a joke research paper with 10 references? Do it by hand, no problem. Write a real paper, say, for publication in Nature or the Journal of Biological Chemistry, and your data will be out of date by the time you hand-write and format the whole thing. If you do serious and thorough research-based writing you will have many references that makes it untenable to do it all by hand unless you don't give a rat's ass how long it takes you to get your document out.


      It is NOT going to make people jump to linux and OO/SO if you tell them that they "dont really need Office/Endnote, that you can do it all just as well by hand, so just use linux!" Sounds REAL good. You'll need to stand back to avoid being trampled by the stampede of people just dying to give up convenience and accuracy for tedium and error-proneness. Get real.

      --
      In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
    4. Re:And while they're tweaking... by capt.Hij · · Score: 1

      For god's sake! SOMEONE in the wordprocessing world (Textmaker, Gobe, OO/SO, etc) add the ability to manage references!

      You should try using bibtex.

      For real writing, Lyx/latex...because it is the only thing in the linux world up to the task.

      It is one of the very few text processing systems that is up to the task in any environment! Given that you made sure to tell the world that you are a world famous bio-mechanist or whatever it was... You surely must be familiar with latex since nobody that smart would even *try* to do something as long as a thesis using word.

      If anybody wants to see an edumacated person pull all their hair out and completely wig out then watch someone trying to do their thesis in word. This is especially true if they are in a field in which they have to include a lot of observational data in their work. By the time they hit page 150 or so their computer has been reduced to the status of a very advanced and brightly lit brick. This is the best way to get people to switch to a real text processing system like \tex.

    5. Re:And while they're tweaking... by praedor · · Score: 1

      I never implied I was "a world famous bio-mechanist or whatever". I am simply a biochemist doing biochemistry. Nothing earth-shattering (yet, perhaps I luck onto something). I am a basic example of a person in my line of work and this includes: molecular biologists, biochemists, biologists, zoologists, etc. By and large, these people (in my direct experience) use Word and Endnote. No doubt there are a few savvy and masochistic individuals who use latex and bibtex in their raw form, writing with vi or emacs. I do know that some colleagues in the local Comp.Sci department use latex (perhaps via lyx) for writing their papers. This is also true of many in mathematics and physics...but not biology and its subspecialties.


      Latex is NOT the answer. It works fine for some but it is not fine for most. Going from Word or Wordperfect to Latex just isn't going to happen. It only happened for ME personally because I am a linux partisan and don't own, nor intend to buy, Office and Endnote. I needed to find a reasonably simple-to-use wordprocessor that would do references AND still permit me to provide my then-thesis advisor with a file copy of my papers and thesis in a form that was accessible to him using word (He used word and endnote on a mac). My references I used in all my papers/thesis also had to be provided to him in a form that was computer accessible to him (refer format or bibtex will work with endnote with the proper filters added).


      It was HARD for me to write my papers and thesis using Lyx because it is not intuitive and does not behave like normal wordprocessors. I managed to get by but I would much prefer a more word-like situation. OO/SO COULD be that answer if it had bibliography/reference handling capabilities beyond its current pathetic abortion of a version it has now (and has had for far too long). If Textmaker got to this holy grail first, I would buy textmaker with joy, or Hancom Office, or Gobe...or KOffice or Abiword. I don't enjoy lyx and I would NEVER get colleagues to go to lyx just for the sake of running linux as well. Why go through that pain if you are neutral wrt M$ but use Word and Endnote heavily and with ease? Dump that and switch to something like latex/lyx and bibtex? Get real. Ain't gonna happen. They are great for a relative few and it has served me in lieu of something easier/equivalent (functionally) but I would switch to something else in linux in a fraction of a heartbeat if given the chance.

      --
      In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
    6. Re:And while they're tweaking... by ckolar · · Score: 1
      I am in total agreement. The only thing that is keeping me from totally switching to Ooo is the fact that I have a large number of references to manage and I need to be able to be flexible with them. I am using Word/Endnote -- I know that is evil, but the fact that it interefaces over the net with the library system and can pull in the references sold me.

      FWIW I think that you should look at the Ooo bibliographic project that I ran across. It looks like it is all way in the future (2005), but at least it is being addressed.

      Cheers,
      --chris

    7. Re:And while they're tweaking... by moranar · · Score: 1

      Another poster just told you what to do: copy-paste this rant onto a "Feature request" form on http://openoffice.org.

      I want to add that I should go and point to them the lack of good graphing abilities. I studied Chemistry, and I missed the capabilities Excel had for tracing complex charts. Sure, OO,o can do lines, curves, etc. But what if I want a regression curve with experimental (not fixed) error percentages on each point? If it is possible, it is very unclear how.

      --
      "I think it would be a good idea!"
      Gandhi, about Internet Security
    8. Re:And while they're tweaking... by Peter+La+Casse · · Score: 1
      Are you as dense as you seem? Where, in my post, did I say anything about a 180 page thesis?

      Yes, there was a day when there were only typewriters and everything was done by hand. Before that, it was all done by hand, for real, with pen and paper. Do you really suggest that this is an answer?

      Don't be ridiculous.

    9. Re:And while they're tweaking... by nedrichards · · Score: 1

      You do know that the latest version of EndNote (7) has just announced support for OpenOffice.org and StarOffice don't you? Admitedly it isn't (yet) as good as their support for MS Office but it's getting there.

      --
      http://www.nedrichards.com
  70. Try Kexi by EarthTone · · Score: 2, Informative

    KDE's KOffice is developing a *complete* suite of applications to replace MS Office. In your case, please investigate Kexi (www.koffice.org/kexi/), a true Access replacement.

    Eron

    1. Re:Try Kexi by Alkarismi · · Score: 1

      That looks nice. Thanks for the tip, I'll add that to my list of projects to keep my eye on.

  71. Does it still crash? by ClosedSource · · Score: 1, Insightful

    I tried OpenOffice for the first time a few weeks ago and the first thing I tried to do was open a Word document and it crashed.

    It might be a decent program for creating new documents, but I wouldn't suggest using it to edit legacy MS Office documents.

  72. Filters have definitely improved, but fonts... by karlandtanya · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Opening an excel sheet from work using the released version of Oo.o, it would take ~30 minutes, and then the merged cells were not correctly parsed. I had to select the entire sheet and manually remove merged cells in order to see the contents at all.


    Opening the same sheet with Oo.o 1.1beta1 & 2, tood a few seconds (didn't time it), and the cells were parsed correctly.


    But, my adobe type1 fonts are now missing from the selection pulldown!

    --
    "Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, it doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
  73. Download links, features list by MagicFab · · Score: 3, Informative

    Windows Downloads:
    http://www.binarycode.org/openoffice/s table/1.1rc/ OOo_1.1rc_Win32Intel_install.zip
    http://www.ibibl io.org/pub/packages/openoffice/sta ble/1.1rc/OOo_1.1rc_Win32Intel_install.zip
    ftp:// ftp.ussg.iu.edu/pub/openoffice/stable/1.1rc/ OOo_1.1rc_Win32Intel_install.zip
    http://openoffic e.mirrors.pair.com/stable/1.1rc/OO o_1.1rc_Win32Intel_install.zip
    ftp://openofficeor g.secsup.org/pub/software/openof fice/stable/1.1rc/OOo_1.1rc_Win32Intel_install.zip
    ftp://mirrors.umbc.edu/pub/editors/openoffice/st ab le/1.1rc/OOo_1.1rc_Win32Intel_install.zip

    Linux Downloads:
    http://www.binarycode.org/openoffice/s table/1.1rc/ OOo_1.1rc_LinuxIntel_install.tar.gz
    http://www.ib iblio.org/pub/packages/openoffice/sta ble/1.1rc/OOo_1.1rc_LinuxIntel_install.tar.gz
    ftp ://ftp.ussg.iu.edu/pub/openoffice/stable/1.1rc/ OOo_1.1rc_LinuxIntel_install.tar.gz
    http://openof fice.mirrors.pair.com/stable/1.1rc/OO o_1.1rc_LinuxIntel_install.tar.gz
    ftp://openoffic eorg.secsup.org/pub/software/openof fice/stable/1.1rc/OOo_1.1rc_LinuxIntel_install.tar .gz
    ftp://mirrors.umbc.edu/pub/editors/openoffice /stab le/1.1rc/OOo_1.1rc_LinuxIntel_install.tar.gz

    MacOSX Downloads:
    http://porting.openoffice.org/mac/ooo- osx_download s.html#download

    New features in OpenOffice.org 1.1rc over OpenOffice.org beta2 release
    * a "talkback" style crash reporter to collect stacktrace and error information
    * new command line parameter -start to automatically start a presentation after the document is loaded
    * ability to update existing OpenOffice.org 1.0.x single user installations
    * support for drawing objects in headers and footers
    * an example XSLT filter for Office 2003 XML format
    * support for MS Excel 95 and older form controls
    * UNO python bridge - python is now a first class language for creating UNO components for OpenOffice.org
    * built in spell checking dictionaries for English (UK) and Italian
    * built in hyphenation support for Danish, English (UK), German and Russian
    * integrated Bitstream Vera fonts
    * improved spelling suggestions using n-gram scoring

    OpenOffice.org 1.1 RC Features
    2003-07-11
    Enhanced file format support

    * PDF (Portable Document Format) export
    * Support for mailing a document as PDF.
    * DocBook/XML import/export.
    * XHTML export.
    * Support for exporting as a flat XML file.
    * Support for Macromedia Flash (SWF) export.
    * Support for mobile device formats like AportisDoc (Palm), Pocket Word and Pocket Excel.
    * Example xslt based filter for Office 2003 XML documents

    Accessibility

    * Support for full keyboard navigation and control
    * Support for tracking system colour scheme and theme settings
    * Support for accessibility in the help system and documents
    * Initial support for Assistive Technologies via Java accessibility APIs

    Internationalization
    CTL, vertical and bidirectional writing

    * Support for vertical writing within text documents, text frames and graphic objects
    * Support for vertical writing in spreadsheet cells (the direction is individualy selectable)
    * Support for input, display and editing of scripts using Complex Text Layout (CTL)
    * Support for RTL layout and text in the OpenOffice.org GUI
    * Support for BiDi-writing in OpenOffice.org documents
    * Support for using either Arabic or Hindi numerals
    * The RTL vs. LTR default text direction is automaticly selected based on locale

    Other Internationalization enhancements

    * Support for various 8-bit Arabic and Hebrew text encodings / code pages.
    * Support for the KOI8_U encoding.
    * New CTL options tab in language options dialog.
    * Rescue mode support for BiDi/CTL with X11 fonts.
    * S

    --
    Notepad specialist & FAT administrator, group training available
  74. +5, Funny? by nusuth · · Score: 1
    Wine runs much better (read: faster) on 2.5.x kernels. Wine also runs MS Office on Linux and running MS Office on wine is faster than running OOo 1.0.x natively on 2.4 kernels.

    Catch you on the metamod +5 funny guys.

    --

    Gentlemen, you can't fight in here, this is the War Room!

  75. Write a contract! by csmacd · · Score: 1

    Contracts do not need to be the inch-thick, heavily boilerplated tommes that come to mind. A contract could be as simple as:

    OSSD agrees to develop [feature - be explicit] for BG and provide 90 days of support in exchange for [price/services].

    BG agrees to remit half of the fee, [spell it out here] at the beginning of the project and the remainder when OSSD delivers completed software, accepted by BG on the following criteria [list].

    BG agrees to pay all OSSD legal fees in the event of nonpayment or contract breach.

    [BG signature] [OSSD signature]

    In many US states, this will protect you - offer and consideration are spelled out, acceptance critera is listed, and BG has agreed to pay the legal fees if it comes to that! Of course, IANAL, and I would advise bouncing such a contract off of a lawyer to ensure validity in your area. The few minutes that a lawyer would take to do that would not cost anywhere near as much as nonpayment!

    --
    Don't pick up the pho*(@)$*@&@!@ NO CARRIER
  76. No, but StarOffice does by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    WordPerfect file compatibility is one of the "extras" that differentiate StarOffice 6.x from OpenOffice.

  77. Try LyX for technical writing by leinhos · · Score: 1

    LyX makes LaTeX almost useable. The latest development version (1.3.2) supports MacOS X, Windoze (via cygwin), and can use either an xforms gui or Qt. For technical writing, it really can't be beat.

    1. Re:Try LyX for technical writing by Yarn · · Score: 1

      I tried it, I didn't like it. However, that was when it used xforms (ugh), I've not tried its qt incarnation.

      I didn't like the lack of flexability compared to raw latex.

      --
      -Yarn - Rio Karma: Excellent
    2. Re:Try LyX for technical writing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I use LyX for writing a simple letter. It's my Word Processor^H^H^H^H^H er Document processor of choice. The larger the document the more powerful it is. I don't know why anyone would use a word processor at all. All MS Word has accomplished is destroyed the appearance of printed documents because most of the fools who use it know nothing about typesetting.

      "Hey crackhead, your hundred page document is in a sans-serif font. Do it again in something readable please."

      A monitor is not a piece of paper. WYSIWYG doesn't work.

    3. Re:Try LyX for technical writing by leinhos · · Score: 1

      The 1.3.2 version is quite a bit better than some of the older versions. I like the in-line equation editor, which give instant feedback on equation formatting. Other environments give instant feedback, as well as figure/table float previews. Most of the "flexibility" people like about LaTeX reduces to the same "fiddling" that a Document processor is supposed to reduce. If you need a different document format, you really should work on a new document class (.cls). LyX does (as of 1.3.2) allow one to adjust things like margins and paper size within a class, though. If I need special packages, I just include them in the preamble, and then insert the raw LaTeX code with a '\' (like ./clearpage when I start getting too many unprocessed floats!).

  78. Re:Speed Complaints? and Beta vs. Release Candidat by iantri · · Score: 1

    Yes, I didn't mention it in the post but it is fairly usable once it is started. I'm hoping a 2.6 kernel will improve things.. .. and don't get me started on Mozilla. I can't use it at all on my P133. It literally lags while I type addresses.

  79. You don't understand the word "proprietary" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Unzip an OO data file (say, an SXW word-processing document). There's a file in there called "content.xml". Open it up in a text editor. There's your content. So where's the "proprietary" again?

    Oh, and if you don't like the lightbulb, turn it off. Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org > General > Help Agent > Unclick the "Activate" button.

    Use your brain, *then* complain.

  80. Installer inside a zipfile? by skryche · · Score: 1

    Does anyone else think putting an installer inside of a zipfile is just silly? It's like installing it twice!

  81. Speed by fm6 · · Score: 1
    Speed wise, it's a little sluggish starting up on the salvaged P233/64mb laptops we use, but once it's started (15-30 seconds), there's no noticeable speed difference.
    Makes sense. These are not CPU-bound applications, so most of the delay is getting the binaries from disk to RAM. MS Office isn't actually any better, but they have a little autorun program that loads all the dynamic libraries at boot time.
  82. Give 1.1 a try even if you hated 1.0 by skryche · · Score: 1
    I'd just like to say that I installed 1.0 when it came out and absolutely could not stand it. So clunky and slow and weird. And that fucking "Thorndale".

    The 1.1 beta I installed a few weeks ago has made me a convert.

  83. Yes, there is by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Look a little harder. When in the word processor, go to File > Properties and click on the "Statistics" tab. Voila!

  84. Re: on the other side... by lpret · · Score: 1
    Then don't bitch when it doesn't get adopted. People want their hands held when using software, especially when they're moving to a new system. If you don't act like a proper business (give the customer what they want/need) then of course you won't get adopted.

    What we need is an OSS-using consulting firm who will actually be nice to the customer and help them out. *THEN* we will see some adoption.

    --
    This is my digital signature. 10011011001
  85. Needed features by t482 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    1) Grammar checker in OpenOffice - for all the Non native English speakers

    2) A Mail and calendar application that is integrated. Yes Mozilla is partially integrated - but the Mozilla Calendar doesn't work properly.
    Currently it is crippled and needs some work. It should support ITIP, read emailed Outlook events, and ftp for calendar entries (not just webdav).

    2) Integrated GNUe small business accounting software to be released (and work). Eventually all small businesses want to use the addressbook from their accounting software.

    4) OpenOffice needs to be more accessible to programmers. It is difficult for developers to get started and contribute to this project as it is so large and complex.

    5) OpenOffice to start quicker in linux like the Ximian Hack but faster.

    6) A Lotus Approach/MS Access/FileMaker Pro replacement

    7) Prettier icons. Compare kwrite to oo write. The icons are much prettier - and that stuff sells.

    1. Re:Needed features by k2r · · Score: 1

      > Grammar checker in OpenOffice - for all the Non
      > native English speakers

      A grammar Checker for languages with a more complex grammar than English (eg: German) is just a ridiculous piece of crap.

      I do not know anybody who uses the built-in grammar checker of MS-Word for German.

      It might be different for English, but on the other hand, English grammar seems complex enough, too.

      k2r

    2. Re:Needed features by BenjyD · · Score: 1

      The MS grammar checker is awful enough for the English version. Reading documents 'corrected' using the MS grammar checker is pretty funny.

      Personally, I think grammar checkers as an idea are a complete waste of time as it is too complex a task for a computer to do well at the moment.

  86. You're not making sense... by Dr.+Evil · · Score: 1

    Setting up a network printer is a one-time task, setting up networking and file sharing are one-time tasks. Those tasks were performed under DOS or using special utilities, it was honestly no harder than doing it under Linux, and at least under Windows, the print driver could speak the language of the printer.

    Cutting and pasting are regularly performed tasks. Printing is a regularly performed task. Consistent editing keys and keystrokes (home, end, shift to select, select without wiping out clipboard contents, double-click to highlight a word, ctrl-arrow to advance or retreat a word etc..)

    And all this stuff about Linux having a marvellous and thoroughly advanced clipboard is baloney. Every time a limitation pops up, there are 20 people screaming why the limitation is there, and why it is better than Windows.

    The real reason to get rid of Win3.1 and Win9x is because the OS under that API is rotten to the core. MS is getting better at the OS with 2k and XP, but there are still rough edges.

    In 1995, Linux showed a lot of promise on the Desktop. Win3.1 didn't have a good underlying OS, and neither did Win95.

    But now, as it was in 1995, the best Desktop for a Linux environment is a Windows machine. Linux's strengths are so network transparent that a good terminal emulator on Windows was all you needed to have a solid GUI and still be able to use Linux on your network.

    I can run OpenOffice, Mozilla, and the whole Cygnus Gnu environment on Windows. Why should I bother with a Linux Desktop?

  87. Oh, well its free! No need to criticise then.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    Look, criticism is constructive. If you wander around talking about how great something is all the time because it is free, but it crashes at the drop of a hat and is missing almost every feature anyone could find useful, then you just sound daft and you're not doing anyone any favours. If on the other hand you point out the failings of the product, then the people who are in a position to do something about it are made aware of the problems, and can fix them.

    Your argument would mean that something like this
    #include <stdlib.h>
    void main(void){
    printf("Hello wurld!!!11/n");
    return( 32522 );
    }
    Shouldn't be scorned as a shameful attempt at "Hello World!"[1] because I say it is in the Public Domain.

    [1]: I can't even be bothered to count the errors in that. Double digits, at least.
  88. LyX by axxackall · · Score: 1
    Wrong address! I mean OOo has never been designed for professional text authoring. All OOo is doing is just mimicking MS Office, which was designed for Joe Six Pack. If you remember, Word perfect was designed for professional writers.

    If you really want reveal codes then you should use TeX. I specially recommend you to use LyX - excelent WYSIWIG environment for editing in TeX (actually LaTeX) code.

    --

    Less is more !
  89. Particle Physics by CustomDesigned · · Score: 1
    ... it is set to autoreplace the word lepton with leprechaun which is proving most annoying as I write my paper on particle physics.

    Particle physicists don't have much ground to complain about cutesy names. "Leprechaun" seems like a good name for a charmed lepton to me.

  90. Replacement vs. Alternative by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The problem is that the alternatives to exchange/outlook are not actual replacements. Unless those projects run on Windows too, they'll never be replacements.

  91. Just downloaded and tested OO1.1 RC1 by McNihil · · Score: 1, Informative

    It is way way faster than the previous version at startup. THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!!

  92. Re: on the other side... by Carrot007 · · Score: 1

    > They won't have to pay another 5k for office 200(current_year+1).

    Wh osays they do? For instance here we are still using office 97 on nt 4, and this is is a very large company (multiple sites many 1000's of people per site)

    --
    +----------------- | What is the question!
  93. No Elisp yet? by axxackall · · Score: 1
    UNO python bridge - python is now a first class language for creating UNO components for OpenOffice.org

    Python? No Elisp support? Then it's not good for real (X)Emacs users yet!

    Just kidding. Seriosuly, I'd love to script macros using Python in OOo. Python is a real and powerfull OOP (strong typing) language, and it's a scripting one at the same time (dynamic typing + lazy evaluation) - it's exactly what I need for macros. I hope Python scripting will come soon after Python componentes in OOo.

    --

    Less is more !
  94. Bad statistics but still by xant · · Score: 1

    Does it really matter what his statistics are? Is there any doubt in your mind that OOo is slower than MS Office? You've run OOo before, I assume?

    It's slow. It hogs memory. MSOffice is really quite well-optimized, launches quickly, and if it does use a lot of memory, it's not as much as OOo.

    Sorry, but nitpicky benchmarks don't matter... on almost every system I've ever run it, OOo fails the user responsiveness test while MSO is acceptably fast. Not a piece of software I'd actually want to use, but acceptably fast.

    --
    It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
    1. Re:Bad statistics but still by d_i_r_t_y · · Score: 1

      i just recently submitted my PhD thesis, written entirely on OO run in both windows and linux as was convenient. this means that i was using it for long periods at a time over a 6 month period.

      IMHO, OO is quality software and does many things better (read: reliably/predictably) than MS office, besides the fact that it's free and open source. on windows, speed is not an issue once loaded (it does load slow), and memory usage is comparable to office 2K. i don't believe that OO speed could be an issue unless you're using an old computer (like pre-pentium3 era) or don't have enough RAM.

      OO also has some nifty out-of-the-box features, like being able to print directly to a PDF (and have everything look exactly as it was on your screen). also the unified 'styles' concept (character styles, paragraph styles, frame styles, page styles) is particularly good and easy to learn and use.

      all-in-all, a very capable and polished office application suitable for general use IMHO. some specialist word processing people might find some necessary features, but it was certainly more than adequate to produce a 220 page PhD thesis, complete with embedded everything.

    2. Re:Bad statistics but still by 4of12 · · Score: 1

      launches quickly, and if it does use a lot of memory

      How much of the speed of MS Office is gained by Windows having preloaded some of the needed DLLs?

      I recall a similar speed comparison argument about IE vs Mozilla on Windows where this was a factor in the observed startup time.

      And OpenOffice does start up slow. I'm thinking that somewhere in /etc/rc.d/init.d there should be launched an OpenOfficeServices Daemon to sit around like a memory hog but make user launches seem snappier.

      --
      "Provided by the management for your protection."
    3. Re:Bad statistics but still by xant · · Score: 1

      I'm thinking that somewhere in /etc/rc.d/init.d there should be launched an OpenOfficeServices Daemon to sit around like a memory hog but make user launches seem snappier.

      Hey, I'd be fine with that if it existed. I used mozilla's quick launcher on Win and loved it. (Now I use firebird, which is so damn fast it doesn't need the quick launcher, but I digress.)

      --
      It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
  95. Office by sulli · · Score: 1

    No doubt. I'm still on Office 97 at work and 98 at home, no problems whatsoever (except that 98 Mac is slow in Classic mode, but the OpenOffice solution - X11 - sounds like a massive pain). If someone inb the office bought a license for Office XP, I sure haven't bothered to take advantage of it.

    --

    sulli
    RTFJ.
  96. Switch by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I've already switched to Abiword on Windows but now I need a good spreadsheet. Where can I download Gnumeric for Windows? I can't find the download link. BTW, Oo.org is too slow for me.

  97. Re: on the other side... by smithmc · · Score: 1

    OSS Community: Create it yourself, lamer.

    vs:

    OSS Community: oh yes, no problem, we just spent the last 6 months working in our free time to make this software, let me just take a few days off work to do that for you.

    Well, how about this instead:

    OSS Community: Well, no, we don't have that feature at the moment, but if you've got a programmer with some free time, you can implement it yourself, along with any other feature that you'd like which we (or maybe even MS!) don't have.

    --
    Downmodding is the refuge of the weak. Don't downmod, make a better argument!
  98. I second that by bytesmythe · · Score: 2, Interesting
    I hate to be a "me too" poster, but the above poster is absolutely correct.

    I tried version 1.0 and almost immediately switched to koffice (on linux). (At work, I tinkered with OO and AbiWord, but for the most part I have to stick with department standards, so I still have MS Word there.)

    I recently installed the 1.1 beta, and it was dramatically better. Documents that choked 1.0 opened perfectly in 1.1. It even does a great job at handling PowerPoint presentations. (The main glitch I've noticed is it doesn't get the "path" correct when connecting two boxes with a connector line, but I imagine most simple presentations just have words and pictures.)

    I love the Flash export for presentations and the PDF export for documents. No more having to print to a PS file and convert it, or install some PDF writer print driver. I also like the ODBC data interface, although I haven't yet figured out how to create a new datastore to add things to.

    Aside from a few "cosmetic" issues (faster loading, more improved filters, etc.), the main thing they need to make OO a total MSOffice killer is an Access replacement, and possibly a Visio replacement. It would be nice if they could get enough developers to tackle the same kinds of projects as the KOffice team.

    As the parent post says: even if you didn't like 1.0, give 1.1 a try. It is a vast improvement.

    --
    bytesmythe
    Hypocrisy is the resin that holds the plywood of society together.
    -- Scott Meyer
  99. Try TeXmacs by Shapeless+Blob+(-1) · · Score: 0

    It really kicks ass. It is not related to emacs and its something like WYSIYUG TeX editor. Lightweight and prettier than MS word. IMHO, texmacs is the future in word processing.

  100. Perhaps Munich Should Switch Back by Ilan+Volow · · Score: 1

    They don't have some mystical right to demand features/upgrades just beacuse the software is open.

    If end users don't have a right to usable software that allows them to get stuff done efficiently, effectively, and with a minimum of fuss, then perhaps OSS really doesn't have a right to be on any public sector machine that sits outside a server closet.

    If OSS will not earn the right to be in the public sector, then we should demand that all the lobbying done by OSS people to immediately stop.

    --
    Ergonomica Auctorita Illico!
    1. Re:Perhaps Munich Should Switch Back by pacman+on+prozac · · Score: 1

      I didn't say they couldn't have any of those things, simply that they cannot demand them. Just like I cannot buy microsoft office then call them up and demand that they make it load OpenOffice format files.

      What they can do is ask for them.

      Most OSS projects would implement the idea if it was realistic and useful.

      If OSS will not earn the right to be in the public sector, then we should demand that all the lobbying done by OSS people to immediately stop.

      It earns the right to be used by being the best not by being forced on everyone by constant adverts . Are you suggesting that because OSS does not spend $3billion on advertising every month it should not be allowed to exist?

      Would you rather have your tax money spent, and your government/countries data managed by a system chosen by how much money was spent on advertising it or by it being the best/most secure/most reliable?

    2. Re:Perhaps Munich Should Switch Back by Zathrus · · Score: 1

      Just like I cannot buy microsoft office then call them up and demand that they make it load OpenOffice format files.

      Uh... but you can.

      If you're a sufficiently large company, and you need a particular feature in a product before you'll buy it, the developer will add it. Usually at no additional cost to you.

      I'm a developer, and I see shit like that all the time. We've done several one-of projects because we wanted to please a customer... even though there's absolutely no chance that revenues from that particular project will ever make up the money spent on developing it. It's hoped that the good will created and future revenue from other products will make up for it.

      The same is most certainly true for any developer that wants to stay in business. Including Microsoft.

  101. What about DocBook? by mnmn · · Score: 1


    I wish the native format of OO was DocBook XML. There are so many possibilities. And even the current implementation isnt too stable and complete.

    --
    "Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
  102. Aqua version is NeoOffice...No OS X 1.1 by soullessbastard · · Score: 2, Informative
    A few notes:
    1. OpenOffice.org 1.1 RCs are not available for OS X. We just got it compiling a few days ago. And it'll require much more work then simply compiling it, such as testing, integration with the asian fonts and input methods, etc.

      Want it faster? Well, there's only so much two guys can do. We just finished our first full Gold Master release just two weeks ago and man, we need a vacation!

    2. Our OpenOffice.org Mac version is X11 based. It looks identical to using the Win32 version. It's functional, not pretty.

      Its installer will help a Mac X11 neophyte through the process of setting up an X11 environment. It's also got the Start OpenOffice.org project to allow you to launch it like a normal Mac application and do document associations (e.g. double clicking an OOo doc opens it up!).

    3. The Aquanative porting work is being undertaken in the NeoOffice project, not within OpenOffice.org. NeoOffice is a free software GPL version of OpenOffice.org.

      Two native versions are in the works, NeoOffice (Cocoa) and NeoOffice/J (Java2D...only for UI, it's still 99% C++! It's the shoddy C++ that's slow, not Java!).

      Because of political issues of submitting patches and difficulty modifying code owned by the gsl project, it's difficult to do this work within OpenOffice.org. We're also trying to take the project in directions that Sun doesn't want to take StarOffice, and OpenOffice.org really is just the StarOffice development team with its own motivations needed to keep their jobs...and helping a bunch of free software dudes isn't one of them. As sucn, there may unfortunately never be an official OpenOffice.org Aqua port with a true Mac UI.

    4. We're moving NeoOffice up to 1.1, but have to get OOo compiling first. Not enough people are helping out to allow us to focus on the fun stuff, so we've got to do the grunt work as well.
    5. We're working as hard as we can (c'mon, we're not paid!), and you should keep your pantyhose on. OpenOffice.org 1.1 Developer Preview for MacOS X shall be coming soon (e.g. we've had time to stop committing patches and make a really rough really untested binary). And also coming down the pike is another binary of NeoOffice/J with full Japanese support, both for input as well as localization!

  103. Like I said, Windows is Not an OS... by Dr.+Evil · · Score: 1

    It's an API with a GUI. It just happens to be packaged with an OS, but as shown when migrating from Win9x to Win2k and even Lindows, the underlying OS can be changed without much trouble.

    The problem with printing under Linux is that there is no API to do it. Rendering something on screen does not mean that you can print it. Windows 3.1 had this figured out. In Linux you have to re-write everything so that it can be rendered in X and rendered again in Postscript (semantics about creating your own abstraction layers to generate the Postscript and X stuff aside).

    Here's a spiffy article about it I just pulled out of Google. http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=6729

    Middle-click copy and paste is to me, a pain in the ass. Select-to-copy is pretty bad as it wipes out your clipboard with the slip of your mouse. And accidentally clicking the middle button over a terminal window shouldn't give you a sinking feeling. It's kind of spiffy to be able to copy and paste with the mouse like that, but first, I can do all of that without the mouse in Windows, and second, I can't do any of that without the mouse in Linux.... and if I really wanted to, I could dig up some Logitech driver which would let me customize my middle button for copy and paste... but again, it wouldn't be any fun.

    Can you select a region of a graphic in the Gimp and paste it into Open Office yet? How about Abiword? It might work for Gnumeric, and hey, who knows, maybe the next time I check out Linux on the Desktop, somebody will have figured out how to get different applications with different forms of data to speak to one another using common intermediate formats/methods like CGM or OLE (which both suck, but existed in Win3.1 and are far better than what Linux has).

    As for sound, with ESD, if I hit the 'Stop' button on XMMS, I get a noticable lag waiting for the audio to stop. Disabling ESD corrects this. The best way to get sound working well under Linux is to find a card which will do the mixing in the driver. I never had that problem in Win3.1 either.

    And I didn't say that Windows was great, just that the Linux desktop is in many important ways inferior to Windows 3.1

    If you want to shoot down Win3.1, you can talk about the stability, GDI limitations and real-mode drivers.

  104. 37 yo and only knows MS Office. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    C'mon man, people used other stuff ten years ago.
    She didn't just pick up computers last year.
    People act like computers and the internet
    were invented with Windows 95 and Netscape.
    For high school kids, I'll buy it. For everybody
    else, c:\

  105. MS PhotoDraw . . . by Anonymous+Shepard · · Score: 1

    ...does this as well. It always tries to make you save stuff in its own .mix format, which hardly any other program can read or import.

    --
    I have a life. I really do. I've just chosen to ignore it.
    1. Re:MS PhotoDraw . . . by bagofbeans · · Score: 1

      Paint Shop Pro defaults to its native PSP format too, and the pref to change it is not too obviously named ('Remember last format used', I think)

  106. Try LyX for technical writing-Insert this. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "I didn't like the lack of flexability compared to raw latex."

    You are aware that Lyx allows you to enter raw Latex code, don't you? Best of both worlds.

  107. What about Price? by neonprimetime · · Score: 1

    Hmmmm....

    $400+ for MS Office which runs at a reasonable speed, or $0 for OpenOffice which runs slightly slower...hmmm i can't decide...oh yeah, and the potential for OpenOffice to get faster & better (smarter programmers and larger developing community) is much much higher than its counterpart MS Office.

    i still can't decide...let's check how much cash is in my wallet......shoot only $5, guess you know what I'll choose.

    1. Re:What about Price? by jhunsake · · Score: 1

      MS Office doesn't cost $400+ for everyone. Large businesses and University's get sweet deals. Also, as a student, I can go to the bookstore and get any version of Office or Windows for $5-$10 each. Considering this is where many people get their first experiences, it's not good enough that OO compete only on price.

    2. Re:What about Price? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      smarter programmers

      LOL!!

      Sure thing fatty. If you didn't piss your money away on food and drinks maybe you could afford real software.

  108. Check his past posts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    YHBT
    YHL
    HAND

  109. open office by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The ability to export to flash sounds great.
    All we need now is a Access Database replacement with a non-techie end user style front end.

  110. UNO = Universal Network Objects by soullessbastard · · Score: 1
    For those who don't know the acronym (no, it's not from the game) UNO stands for Universal Network Objects. It is essentially a home-brew component bridge, in a similar vein to Microsoft's COM or CORBA. It specifies a layer abstraction that allows components written in one language, say C++, to call code and receive valeus from components written in another language, say Java.

    The importance of a Python bridge for UNO is that now individual parts of OpenOffice.org can be implemented in Python. While this is not likely (though it couldn't make OOo any slower...), the reverse direction is the most beneficial. Any Python program can now interact with a specific component of OOo, such as the Word filters, on a code level. In essence, you can now use Python to script OOo and also use parts of OOo in your own Python apps. This is good news for Python programmers.

    You can read up more about UNO here.

  111. Bzzzt, wrong. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    If you're a sufficiently large company, and you need a particular feature in a product before you'll buy it, the developer will add it. Usually at no additional cost to you.


    Let's see some proof of this, no personal anecdotes, please. One example that proves you wrong would be those thousands of people who have requested Microsoft translate their software into Welsh, but Microsoft refused. According to your dimwitted theory, Microsoft would do it for free, but Microsoft hasn't. Luckily, with all open source software, they can do it themselves. Munich clearly made the right choice.

  112. Meh. by oGMo · · Score: 1
    I had a thesis that was 180 pages in length and had ~800 references. Do that by hand? This is 2003, not 1973. We have COM-PU-TERS now with WORD-PROCESSORS. They make life easier when properly used/designed. That is their point for existence. Fine, you write a joke research paper with 10 references?

    Meh. If you were really writing research papers, and were as computer-literate as you imply, you'd be using LaTeX and BibTeX: the real tools for the job.

    Word processors are for writing letters to your grandma, not typing research papers.

    --

    Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage

    1. Re:Meh. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You know, I've tried & tried to use "word processors" for decades. Problem is that I never spend the time to learn how to use them properly since i'm programming when not documenting. When push comes to shove and I need a professional document, I fall back to *roff.

      Yes, I am a dinosaur.

  113. Straighten out tangled wires by overunderunderdone · · Score: 1

    Have you greased your Modem lately? Most of the latency you experience is because of rust.

    While rust can cause problems, what few people realize is that tangled wires are the biggest problem. This is because the data is being transmitted via binary 1's and 0's. While the nice curved 0's flow nicely even through tangled wires, the 1's can get easily get jammed when going through tightly curved tangled wiring. These jam's can causing "net congestion". This is why computers don't use coiled wires like on your telephone handset.

    1. Re:Straighten out tangled wires by cmdr_beeftaco · · Score: 1
      This is why computers don't use coiled wires like on your telephone handset.

      I've always wondered about that, thanks. Seems like we could solve this whole "net congestion" problem by converting the 1's to 8's to improve flow. If I am not mistaken this is the main feature of IPv6. Mark my word though, the conversion from 1's to 8's will make the Y2K problem seem trival.

  114. TeXmacs by drewness · · Score: 1

    I'm not a heavy enough user to have a totally valid opinion, but I think TeXmacs is a much less painful way to write LaTeX documents than LyX. Plus it saves to a .tex file, not a .lyx file.

    1. Re:TeXmacs by leinhos · · Score: 1

      I've used TeXmacs too, and it is under active development. You can import/export LaTeX code with LyX (reLyX works fairly well on LaTeX import) if you need .tex output. It's relatively simple to add new document classes to LyX, although I don't have any experience with this in TeXmacs. I stayed with LyX because I like the "Document processor" model where formatting is secondary to content. LyX does not allow things like two spaces in a row, or more than one linefeed (that's what the document class is for).

      I do like TeXmacs' interface to things like Octave, which renders things quite nicely.

  115. I have to concur. by Dthoma · · Score: 1

    For another thing, Gnumeric doesn't like viewing CSV data. Why? It's a simple, plaintext format that even gnuplot handles. I'd love to use Gnumeric instead of playing around with OO Calc or something else, but this fact combined with its barely customisable plotting means that I just use LaTeX and gnuplot w/ pslatex to produce charts and graphs for essays and statistics projects.

    --

    Note to M1-ers: a curt but otherwise insightful message is not "Flamebait" or "Troll".

  116. Release vs Release Candidate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm a bit pedantic, but reading comments seems to make this precision necessary : the title is misleading! RC means Release Candidate. It is not the final OpenOffice 1.1; it may be, but it also may not be.

    RANT
    If open office was just 1% as bloated as its microsoft counterpart, it would be higly unlikely that RC1 == final release.
    /RANT

  117. Merging Labels? Hello??? by javabandit · · Score: 1

    I have the 1.1 beta, and they STILL have not fixed the bug where you cannot merge more than one page of labels at a time. I still have to go back to Microsoft Office for that. If that was fixed, I'd be free of MS Office once and for all.

  118. Step up or sit down by WankersRevenge · · Score: 1

    Have you contacted the project about their lack of a useful bibliographer? I mean, ranting on slashdot might get you a few pats on the back and some understanding, but do yourself (and us) a favor and rant to the folks who build the thing. God knows, they probably NEED your guidance in creating the most effective tool, and if you know what works (in terms of your research and experience) then you are a valuable resource. These guys are coders. You're a field guy. Your experience is extremely important to the project. So do the right thing and step up.

  119. Not proprietary... by haeger · · Score: 1

    Secondly its annoying that it naggs you if you save in .doc format and tries to make you use its own proprietary format.


    The OO.o file format is standard XML zipped. You can look at the files if You unzip it. There is nothing proprietary about it.

    The "nag" about saving in .doc is just a friendly reminder that You are in fact saving in a real proprietary format that noone but Microsoft has the specs to and that they can't guarantee that it'll look the same if You save in that format.

    But I agree with You that there should be some checkbox to turn that warning off.

    .haeger

    --
    You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. -- Harlan Ellison
  120. Who Cares? by GuidoDEV · · Score: 1

    Who cares about OpenOffice or any other "Word Processor" when you have LYX? I know, I know, all the pointy heads use Office, blah blah blah...but nevertheless... :-)

  121. Query by BorgCopyeditor · · Score: 1

    Um ... why is the Mac OS X version stuck at 1.0.3? There's not even been a 1.1 beta.

    --
    Shop as usual. And avoid panic buying.
  122. Glow by pNutz · · Score: 1

    It's strange that almost no one has mentioned Glow [openoffice.org]. As it is, Openoffice can't compete in a the small-medium office environment because of its lack of an integrated PIM/groupware client. Glow is what will make OO a real competitor to MSOffice, not faster startup times or an Access replacement.


    ...though they could use a new dictionary and thesaurus (both of theirs are easily the worst out there).

    --
    Death and danger are my various breads and various butters.
  123. Thank you for Docbook!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I know this isn't the place to do it, but I just want to yell at the top of my voice (here's hoping slashdot allows me)

    THANK YOU FOR DOCBOOK SUPPORT!!!!!!!!!#%#!@#%!@ :D

    ahh man now that feels better.

  124. MS Office file compatibility has to improve!!! by KoalaBear33 · · Score: 1

    OOg is great but here are the problems I see:

    1. This is probably the most serious problem at this point it time: compatibility with MS Office file format. Hate to say it but it isn't very good. I can't even create a resume in OOg (to be saved as .DOC). It screws up all the time. Conversely, importing MS Word files into OOg isn't that great either. The main issues so far seem to be bullets, layout, margins, and fonts.

    2. Screen refresh/redraw problems. Something is wrong with the graphic engine. At times you'll end up with redraw problems, half a dialog box still on the screen (after you close it), and so on. Not a big deal but it's good to get it fixed.

    3. Performance. OOg is very slow compared to MS Office. I'm talking about load times and file opening/saving. It seems to be ok once it loads but until it is slow while loading.

    hmm...I think that's about it. The primary concern is the file compatibility issue. Other than that, OOg is a pretty good alternative. Haven't tried the new version but if it has PDF output, it will great to those sending documents to external people (who don't use OOg--recall the file compatibility problems with .doc files).

    Someone said that OOg is one the key software that is responsible for the popularity of GNU/Linux. I agree. Without it, it would be very difficult go 100% Linux (which I'm pretty much doing right now).

    KoalaBear33

    --
    ......The worst thing in my life happened when the stock market started mattering more than the economy
  125. Hmmmmm.... by Gleng · · Score: 1

    Thanks :)

    Actually, I've noticed a significant drop in the startup time of OOo since I swiched to ReiserFS for my / partition the other day. I don't know if the two things are related, but it's worth a thought.

    --
    "Proudly Posting Without Reading The Article"
  126. What makes AbiWord useless by aulendil · · Score: 1

    Is a 64-page proposal with snaked-columns and pictures and graphs, a paragraph???

    On one hand, you've just showed that AbiWord isn't limited to writing small paragraphs.

    On the other hand the fact that AbiWord doesn't do footnotes makes it useless for much scientific work. If you for some reason or another has to use Oxford notation for references you can't use AbiWord.