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OpenOffice.Org in a Corporate Environment?
robpoe asks: "I've been working on a rollout plan for OpenOffice.org 2.0 for a medium sized network. This network runs a number of different MS Office versions, and we absolutely must retain the Microsoft Office 97/2000/2002 file formats (for interoperability with the public and other entities). Getting our versions of Office to 2003 is $65k+, so we're looking closely at OOo. The problem is, since OOo keeps track of changes per user, and we have users that move around (and no, Roaming Profiles are not an option for us), and you cannot expect a user to change those preferences on every computer they log in to. Let's hear some great deployment plans for keeping the default file type, and even general rollout plans. How are you doing it?"
"It seems that nobody has done this (or documented it) that I've found. Let's see if we can get a good thing going by documenting a good, easy to manage rollout plan. Oh, and the default for saving files has to remain in Office 97/2k/xp format.
What are you using to deploy OOo automatically on your network. Assume that we have capability of login script (batch files / registry changes), but no SMS/ZenWorks/etc.
What are you using to deploy OOo automatically on your network. Assume that we have capability of login script (batch files / registry changes), but no SMS/ZenWorks/etc.
Elementary, Watson.
Once a user logs on, a logon script mounts his own personal "network drive" from a central file server.
Just configure OpenOffice so that OpenOffice will read (and write) the OO configuration from that personal "network drive".
Yes, a user could still mess up his configuration, but that would only affect himself, not others.
Dedicated Linux servers (root access) $45 p.M.
Make an OpenOffice.org BASIC macro that sets the configuration settings. Put the macro in an empty document, and make it autoopen that document on startup only once (also code the document so it closes automatically once it's done).
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Via group policy you can redirect the users' application data folder to a drive on a file server. Assuming Open Office saves the user configuration in the %user name%\Application Data folder, it should work.
Of course, if you don't already have enough space on your servers; you've got another fight on your hands.
Good luck!
I think I think, therefore I think I am.
We are a much smaller company - at only $8m a year in sales, but here's how we do it:
.xls or .doc for your files.
12-15 users all log into a central server running Fedora Core 3 using thin clients. We currently use the excellent LTSP (www.ltsp.org) packages to accomplish this. Through experience we have found that a Pentium 4 server with about 2 gigs of RAM can comfortably handle up to 15 users or so, more than that and the load gets a bit too heavy. The programs that eat up the most memory and CPU cycles are Firefox, Evolution, Open Office, and Adobe Acrobat. We do allow streaming radio with xmms, because it doesn't eat up too much bandwidth or memory, and our users like it. The desktop clients themselves are old Pentium II boxes with 64mb of ram, no hard drives, and no cd-roms.
All our sales reps use OpenOffice every day to type up their quotes, fax cover sheets, etc. My secretary uses OpenOffice Calc to do spreadsheet work for our government contracts. It's easy to set all your clients to default to MS file formats - go into the File > Save settings and set them to always use
You don't need to use thin clients, however, to use Open Office. We just went the thin client route because it was inexpensive and easy to do with existing hardware. We are planning to upgrade soon so that each user has their own desktop machine running local apps, but still mounting the home directories on the server.
I suppose if it can be done with 15 computers running linux, you could also do it with your Windows boxes. Just make sure they all have the same OO settings, and that they are all set to save in the proper file formats before your users even get a chance to work with it. OO works almost like MS Office - but be prepared for lots of complaining from users who will say "But Microsoft Office didn't work this way" . . .
Um, because he doesn't want to spend an extra $65k. At least, that may have only been clear to me.
If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
It they have an open license agreement with MS (as most do in a corporate case), they are required to upgrade in X number of years. They could still use the software but it would be illegal (in the eyes of the BSA, MS, and the EULA).
Last time I checked, the retail version of MSOffice 2002/2003 doesn't allow the use of transform files which set corporate preferences for the user during profile setup.
if you steal from one source, that is plagiarism, if you steal from many, well, that's just research.
Valid point. However, in a business environment there are other considerations, such as per-seat licenses. If his office is like mine, we were *required* to pay. In this case, doing nothing meant that you were no longer allowed to use MS Office, in which case stiff penalties applied if you were caught*.
*Employees could 'report' usage to MS anonomously.
If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
The MS Office compatibility in OpenOffice is not all it's cracked up to be - even things like bullets and headings change fonts and spacings during conversions.
And truth be told, MS Office compatibility in MS Office is not all it's cracked up to be. Opening MS Office 97/2000/2002 documents in a different version of MS Office can yield in wildly different results.
Opening an Office 2000 document in Office 2000 can also result in different results, as I noticed yet again with my resume. The bullets are NOT as I left them last week.
And here I am editing a document in Word 2003. I have a bulleted list, and I hit return. MS Word creates a new line with a bullet-- great! But it also automatically changed the font, itallics and spacing for the rest of the bulleted text in the list-- WRONG! This bug has existed since Office 1997--- I hate it!
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No. Lets say we mount the users' home drive as drive letter H. You can do this with windows policies or a login script. No touching workstations. Then we configure the base install of OO.org to look in H:\ooo-settings\ for all it's config data.
Boom! Unique settings for each user without roaming profiles
No, no, I think you misunderstood.
OOo is just fine on huge, complex documents. It's very stable, predictable and reliable.
OOo has a hard time with rendering large, complex MS Word documents, though. They get all screwed up.
MS Word, on the other hand, also has a hard time with large complex MS Word documents. The formatting is okay, but Word crashes constantly and tends to corrupt your files and lose all of your work.
Does that clear it up?
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Oh? That's news to me. Most businesses I know get their Microsoft Licenses via one of their license programs. Typically you buy the license and upgrade assurance, after 3 years you lose the upgrade assurance, but still have the right to use that version of office you originally purchased.
So the trick is this: when you edit a .DOC file with OOo, convert it to the OOo format (.sxw) as soon as you start. Make sure the format is OK. Keep the file in .sxw format inside the company.
When you need to interface with the outside world, publish the .DOC by saving in this format if needed. If you don't need outside people to actually edit the document, export it from OOo as a PDF, which is read-only, and publish the PDF instead of the DOC.
And remember to edit only the .sxw file.
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I use Openoffice 2.0 on my computer and be advised that I faced serious compatibility issues when editing certain Microsoft Word (Office XP) files in Openoffice writer.
These files were edited using the "Track changes" option in MS Office, that allows you to automatically mark changes that you have made to the file. Openoffice simply does not understand such a file and loads it without the accompanying change tracking information.
Admiteddly, I liked OpenOffice at first and thought that MS Office could finally be replaced. However, several experiences (problems with huge loading time, slowing down the PC, OpenDocument format not popular etc.), including the above mentioned one, have forced me back to MS Office, and my personal conclusion is that MS Office has a lot more features and is much better as a regular word processing app. I hate paying Microsoft, but in this case, they take the cake. I'll have to wait for Oo3.
PS : The only OO features that I noticed MS does not have, are the ability to render equations and make PDFs. However, MS Office + MathType + Adobe Acrobat Prof./any free PDF renderer can take care of that.
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It's a 130 user government entity (county level). We have 1.5 people administrating it.
/w the machine.
(one 40 hour per week and 1 20 hour per week).
The network is Novell/Email is Groupwise/Desktops are a mix of 98, 2K and XP.
Existing licenses were purchased
$65k for an office upgrade isn't in the cards, when we're having trouble getting $ budgeted for things we REALLY need, much less upgrading Office.
We're doing mostly real plain jane documents, so complexity is not really an issue.
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I created a Kixtart Net install script to rollout OpenOffice.org 2.0 - The requirements are simply a Domain Admin Account and the ability to access the Default Administrative Shares that Windows automatically creates.
You can Download it at
http://www.pcc-services.com/kixtart/scripts.html
For the default saving into Office filetypes - All of the user settings are saved in XML files and you can edit these files before you roll-out OpenOffice.org. To do this simply adjust the settings on a separate machine, find out what file was modified to see what you need to change in the default installation. For instance I created a menu item for my script to add a "From Gallery" option to the "Insert - Picture" Menu.