OpenOffice 2.0 vs. Microsoft Office

Jane Walker writes "Slashdot's own Robin 'Roblimo' Miller compares OpenOffice 2.0 and Microsoft Office in a recent interview with TechTarget and, when asked to identify one of the main obstacles facing widespread adoption, calls for the OSS community to deliver personable, usable training for new OpenOffice and open source software users."

Comments

Mr.Clip for OOo?

[ScorpFromHell]

A CBT [Computer Based Training] module for OOo should go a long way to increase awareness about typing letters in it. Most proprietary s/w vendors have a link called "demo" which does not lead to a demo version of the s/w but to a video which shows how the thing can be used. Most people on /. may not require it, but my dad sure would like it. Also, even in a corporate world people use MS Office because its already installed on their workstations and can ask the person sitting next to them how to "bold" a word. It is usually just one person who creates a template for printing a letter and the admin/HR person just has to fill in the values for the fields to get a printout of the letter. So if one addresses training for these key people, (including the CXOs) I guess adoption would be more widespread.

Yes, but...

[MoogMan]

Another thing that ties people to Microsoft Office is Outlook. I have used it and do not find it impressive. I use Thunderbird for my e-mail, and it beats Outlook in stability and ease of use by many miles.

This isn't possible in a corporate environment that uses Microsoft Exchange. The Evolution ximian-connector/exchange plugin is a good start, but there are some features that it doesn't support (the 'categories' field/column in your inbox, for example).

It's a shame, because I have to agree - Outlook is really REALLY bad. The version I'm using in work can't even block images!

Excel as a platform

[IL-CSIXTY4]

In the corporate world, Excel is more of a platform than a simple spreadsheet these days. I have seen a multi-million dollar company essentially run off of three Excel spreadsheets with a ton of macros. The input data would come from some reports we generated off the database for them, and the finance people would enter them into the spreadsheets and let the macros morph the data into the views the senior management wanted to see.

I rather liked this arrangement because it empowered the users in finance by giving them a tool they could modify on their own, and it let us focus on building reports that made sense to finance without distilling it down to bullet points for senior management. It also meant we weren't in the direct line of fire when management didn't like the numbers they saw.

Re:Macro editing

[Trelane]

Wow. Yeah, that's kinda stupid.

It's interesting to note that the python script is much simpler: # HelloWorld python script for the scripting framework def HelloWorldPython( ): """Prints the string 'Hello World(in Python)' into the current document""" #get the doc from the scripting context which is made available to all scripts model = XSCRIPTCONTEXT.getDocument() #get the XText interface text = model.Text #create an XTextCursor cursor = text.createTextCursor() #and insert the string text.insertString( cursor, "Hello World (in Python)", 0 ) return None

The JavaScript is about the same as the BASIC one, tho: // Hello World in JavaScript importClass(Packages.com.sun.star.uno.UnoRuntime); importClass(Packages.com.sun.star.text.XTextDocume nt); importClass(Packages.com.sun.star.text.XText); importClass(Packages.com.sun.star.text.XTextRange) ; //get the document from the scripting context oDoc = XSCRIPTCONTEXT.getDocument(); //get the XTextDocument interface xTextDoc = UnoRuntime.queryInterface(XTextDocument,oDoc); //get the XText interface xText = xTextDoc.getText(); //get an (empty) XTextRange interface at the end of the text xTextRange = xText.getEnd(); //set the text in the XTextRange xTextRange.setString( "Hello World (in JavaScript)" );

Of course, if you prefer, there are also Java and BeanShell demo scripts too. All are under share/Scripts.

I can see why they did it, but you shouldn't have to deal with the importing framework stuff--it should already be there. For example, with JavaScript, you should't have to importClass--it should already be an available object. These aren't standalone scripts---they're run by OpenOffice, for pete's sake.

Really, the only positive thing I can say is that at least you can choose the language that's most comfortable to you. Does MSOffice allow you different programming languages natively? How about as a plugin or something?

Here's to hoping they make the scripting suck less!