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Do OpenOffice Users Save In Microsoft Format?
superglaze writes "Looking through an article on the smartphone office suite Quickoffice, I noted a claim by a company executive that OpenOffice users usually save their documents in a Microsoft format, e.g. .doc. Hence the company has no plans to support .odf. I guess I can see the rationale for this — it helps if you're sending a document to an MS-using company — but what's this community's general experience of saving in .odf vs. .doc format?"
Been saving in ODT, PDF and TXT for ages... add HTML to that.
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
Unless I know I'm going to have to open a document at school in one of the labs where they forced everyone to Office 2007, I don't bother changing the file format OO.o saves as. Whether that's odf or some other format I don't really know. But for me, as long as I can open it I don't bother to look and see how it was saved unless I know I need it a certain way, in which case I can just save as.
Interchangeability is important. The .doc and other formats replaced WordPerfect and .rtf standards as de facto interchange formats. That's what happens when you use software that monopolized a market.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
Honestly I always save in ODF on my MAC and then just convert to whatever I need to when I need to send a file to someone else. I get people asking for PDF or Word so it's easiest if I save as ODF and convert from there rather than saving as WORD and losing some of my formatting to convert to something else.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
If the receiver don't know how to handle this, I send them in PDF, and if they want a editable format, I point them on OpenOffice.org web site and call them to install it. If they incist for .doc document, I tell them that this format have too much security problem and I can't send them in this format, and since I'm working in Computer Security Management, they believe me :-).
Ceci n'est pas une Signature !
I save my items internally in ODF format, but if I have to send something to another person without OO.o, I need to save it in .doc format. Honestly, if someone could convince the world that ODF is an acceptable format, I'd love to save the step.
I don't save in either with Writer. I save in PDF. That way ANYONE can open my document, no matter who they are
"You cannot find out which view is the right one by science in the ordinary sense." - C.S. Lewis on Intelligent Design
Since .doc etc are undocumented closed pieces of crap, one risks losing anything from formatting to everything when using them. So, use ODF until the need arises to send the file as attachment or such (and in that scenario PDF is a better choice).
'Once scientists, even the dim-witted social scientists, get muzzled, the Western Civilization is finished.' - oldhack
If it's for personal use .odf ... if I'm sending it to someone via email/web it's .pdf ... only if I'm receiving, editing, then replying do I leave a document in the .doc format (ie - I never generate .doc ... I do pass them back if that's how they come to me.) As for these "statistics" which tell us we all use .doc I'd say it's just the usual FUD ;)
Sure we wang, can.
For all my personal use I use the .ODF, but if I am sending those documents to other people I will use the format they request, either .doc, .rtf, .txt etc.
Sadly to note, I rarely come across other people who request the .odf format.
I'm not a company exec but I used to use Open Office for writing progress reports to send to my research mentor. When I used it I had to save everything as .doc files because Open Office can read Doc files but Word (which my mentor, and seemingly everyone else in the world, as much as I'd like that to change) can't read open document files, at least not word 2003. I ended up giving up on Open Office because when I tried to convert files with equations (needed for the progress reports) into .doc format, the equations did not transfer, and I couldn't find a way to fix it.
I use .doc (MS) and .rtf (if you need to ask...) for all of my stuff, as those are the most widly supported.
So far, OO only seems to have problem with font size of superscripted items, and page margin sizes.
34486853790
Connection too slow for X forwarding? Try "ssh -CX user@host"
I save my own stuff in odf. I save to .doc if I need to send someone in my department (computer science... yes, even here) something they need to edit, and otherwise I send people a pdf.
"Question with boldness even the existence of a god." - Thomas Jefferson
When I installed it for someone who was too cheap to pay the ridiculous $175 fot Office 2003, I got a call real quick when they brought a "powerpoint" project to school that was saved in non-microsoft format and it ruined their whole presentation. They weren't very happy. If more people supported it, it wouldn't be a problem. If Microsoft would quit being jerks about it and supported opening open formats that Open Office uses, that would be ever better!
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
It is software companies like this that force us to save in MS formats!
back in college, everyone in the editorial team uses ms`s products, so I have to save my write-ups in .doc but the thing which I should mention her is that the same write-up is saved by me in .odf too coz the odf file goes to the website admin of the college who then publishes the write-up online, all text files being in odf format.
PS: the spell check of firefox doesnt recognise doc as a spell mistake whereas it recognises odf as a spell mistake. this I just noticed.
I use the native Open Office formats. If I have to send something to someone else, I usually dump a PDF. I've not saved a file in a .doc or .xls format for quite some time now. I'll save to a .doc file if and only if the receiver has an explicit requirement for that.
The contest for ages has been to rescue liberty from the grasp of executive power. -- Daniel Webster
I have and use OpenOffice, but frequently wind up writing stuff that I'm going to want to send to a friend or allow him to grab off my share or whatnot. Rather than dick around with the whole format thing, its easier to just use .doc. Saves time and hassle.
Finished documents are sent in PDF format. Internal documents are strictly ODF.
.doc when I absolutely need some MS vict^H^H^H^Huser to contribute to the document.
I only send a
And, even then, only when I can't make him/her install OpenOffice.
http://www.dieblinkenlights.com
I send the Document in .pdf when i do something like that. And otherwise I ofcourse use the native openoffice format - why should I Im-/Export into other File Formats?
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The better question - where does such a Company get its knowledge from? A MS Partnering Consulting Firm?
Good laugh for my evening
And why should a simple user without much knowledge have the insight to even use some export functions instead of saving in a native format of the application he uses? The whole article seems to be a joke
I certainly don't save in MS formats except as a way to send said documents to the MS impaired. I've even taken to a habit of sending both to the MS impaired folks just because it's fun to explain to them that the little od? file that is usually 1/10 the size of the MS format contains all the same information and formatting.
I stick to OOo's default format no matter what.
.doc and call the shots, I return it as an ODF and tell them to get openoffice.org. I've made numerous switchers that way, all but one of whom thanked me for it.
If I'm in the position of being able to return a
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
I think people save in .doc because most places use that. Now if I am not giving the file to someone else they may still tend to save it as .doc just because you never know how and when you will use that file. Also, the open office format can only be opened by OO. The .doc format can be opened by OO, google's office thing, and anything by MS. Just like you may not always want to save an image file as a uncommon standard but rather opt to save it as common standard (even if it is not an elected standard).
I smoked pot once. But I DID NOT inhale. Will you hire me?
I use it but I save in DOC format. Here's the problem: None of the computers I go to have support for ODF. A document that you can't open is absolutely useless. We live in a Microsoft dominated world and since most businesses use DOC format, that is what we, the users of free office software are stuck using until more support for ODF comes to more computers. With Ubuntu on the rise, this may become more and more common, but as of now, we are pretty much stuck using doc format if we want to open these docs on any but our own.
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'.doc' is a whole shitload of different formats, some very differentm some only a little different. However, it is because of the differences that sales for new versions of MS Office are driven. If the old programs could read the new formats, then we wouldn't have that problem. Why else do you think that MS Offfice 2007 munges your old files?
If MS published the specs for the old binary formats, we wouldn't ahve that problem either. Or if MS Office supported an open format like OpenDocument we wouldn't have that problem.
The way off the treadmill is openformats even for MS Office.
Unfortunately, if you are writing a document which is going to be distributed outside of your organisation, you have to.
As much as it would be great if more organisations were using open office, when there's an 99% monopoly, your shooting yourself in the foot if you don't.
Argue till your blue in the face against me here, but you know it's true.
A slashdotting - you get the stick first and then the carrot !
Eveything I need to send document files to uses Word or PDF. Most places I send pr's or ad copy to use the old standby formats. No ODF at the local newspaper yet.
Bury me in mashed potatoes.
No way... I've been using Open Office since the start (used Star Office before) and have good reasons not to trust the office compatibility (haven't tried the last version of Open Office, and it might have gotten better, but it'll be a while before I trust it with my information or with my commercial information exchanges).
.docs sent to me, and save in propietary formats for storage, and PDF to send over email to other people. When I needed to do colaborative editing of documents (which is not often) I managed to do it with copies of Microsoft Office installed elsewhere or the new Google Docs. If it came to that, I'd install MS Word (which is not *that* expensive by itself) and be done with it.
I use the free Word 97 Viewer (available in MS's site) to view
A friend of mine who also had to use Open Office when he worked with me once figured out that most compatibility problems we had in terms of document layout were due to Open Office assuming different defaults than MS Word for certain things... so, if you explicitly set certain properties you wouldn't normally bother with, your document would look the same when opened in MS Word. However, it's not worth neither the effort nor the risk to do this.
As a Slashdot discussion grows longer, the probability of an analogy involving cars approaches one.
If I am sending the document to someone who has explicitly requested the document be the document in Office format, only then will I save in that format (and even then, I still have it saved in openoffice format also, since that will always be my working copy). For all other cases where I am sending, I export to PDF.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
All documents at home and at work are saved in .odt. If we need to send something to a customer we send a pdf.
Interchangeability is important. The .doc and other formats replaced WordPerfect and .rtf standards as de facto interchange formats.
.odf, and when I need to distribute documents, I export the docs to PDF. They're clean and easy to read, and the export is very accurate. PDF is also basically universally supported.
I save in
The MS formats are so particular that the given version of office that people are using will maul my document. OO exports to PDF well, I dont need to check on it.
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I almost always save in .odt, and if I need to share a document with someone who doesn't have OpenOffice.org (pretty much everyone), I send them a .pdf. Only on rare occasions, when I need to edit a document on a computer without OpenOffice.org or on the even rarer occasions that I actually want someone else to edit a document do I save in .doc format. I should note, however, that I also use Word somewhat frequently; when someone sends me a .doc, I'm not interested in dealing with conversion issues, and Word also launches faster on XP. As for spreadsheets, I generally use Excel (sorry, Calc just isn't up to snuff yet).
G
Internally we used to default all OO.o installs to save as MSFT formats. we changed that recently.
We changed all internal to OO.o formats and all documents that exit the company must be sent as pdf. we did this for 3 reasons. compatability, security, and simplicity.
compatable. even a solaris machine can display a pdf. simplicity. PDF is actually the most universal document format no matter what Microsoft says.
Security. We had a problem with a salesperson that sent a contract to a client. the client sent it back and accepted it. The salesperson used the file sent back by the customer as the legal document and did not check it for changes. we got SCREWED because the asshole client changed several things silently in their favor.
If we sent them a PDF, they cant play that game as all contracts have to be sent to legal for acceptance as the oridional document format. this solved this problem.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Sounds to me like they don't want to anger the beast. Why else would they want to support a format that hasn't yet been officially accepted as a ISO standard and comes with 5000+ pages of incomplete documentation?
.odf and I don't give a sh*t if somebody can't figure out how to open them.
For the record: I save as
As a side note (and not particularly relevant, I guess), I use OpenOffice extensively at home, and love it. But I don't use it at work because it and Word don't play nicely together with the community documents that our team maintains. I'm not sure which of the programs is actually to blame, but given that OO.o is the odd man out at work, I have to use Word to update the docs so they don't get mangled. D'oh :(
I work at a tech desk at a university library and see a significant number of people who use open office, mainly Mac users. All of the people who have come to the desk with open office issues save in .odf. Their problem is that they want to print at the library, which requires the use of one of our information commons computers and therefore Word. So I have to show them how to save their documents as .doc files in order to load them in Word. None of them knew how to save as a .doc file and only one of them was even aware that open office saved as .odf.
I always default to native formats, and export to MS if necessary.
There used to (and may still) be a bug in the OOo spreadsheet, Calc, when it exported to .xls. If I had a cell that calculated a value from another tab that was itself a calculated value that referred to another cell (on any tab, even the current one), that would not export cleanly. When the xls file launched in Excel, it would show "!ERR" or something. If you clicked on the cell, then its equation and hit enter, it would evaluate correctly. It was as if this certain situation was unable to export an initial value for whatever reason. My solution was very inconvenient. I ended up exporting to PDF to get through a meeting, then opening it in Excel and re-executing every affected cell in order to sanitize it for management to be able to dink with the inputs. If I had defaulted to saving in .xls, I would not have been able to take the fast export to PDF to get through that meeting.
My users at least are lazy. They'll just save it in whatever format the software defaults to. They don't know or care about different document formats, they just know they "do this to open a document", "do that to save it", etc. Windows explorer defaults to hiding document extensions, so why should they even bother learning? Default it to save to MS office format and you'll save headaches since it will "just work" when they email it to someone.
Real programmers use "copy con program.exe"
All my clients use Word.
Save all my own files in ODF format. Anything I'm sending to someone else goes as PDF or DOC. I suspect pretty much everyone else will do the same. There's that network effect for you.
Of course the executive will only see DOC files, and well, because he's retarded mentally like so many of his ilk, assume that everyone uses DOC for everything.
Deleted
ODT for my own rw copy, PDF attachments, homework, etc.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
In order
1. PDF
2. Openoffice ODF
3. MS Office
I do save a lot of files in PDF, from news sources etc.
Save in OpenOffice formats, usually export to PDF, sometimes export to .DOC.
I have a fully licensed copy of Word 97, but haven't bought a Microsoft Office product since then.
Like many of the other people responding, I save in different formats, depending on the situation. Often it's ODF for myself and MS Office for a final copy sent to someone else. PDF and HTML certainly have their place as well.
I think ODF is the better archival format because the binary formats of MS Office are not even 100% compatible across different versions of MS Office today. They are convoluted and difficult to support. Microsoft is sure to phase out support eventually. Once you get into the newer xml based format for MS Office, the difference is not so great but I think you're still better off with an open standard in the long run.
I use OOo at home and save everything in ODF format (as does my wife). If we need to send something to someone, PDF is usually the winner.
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Personally If I write a document in openoffice I will save it in the default format if its for my use. If I however need to send it to someone I will save it as a PDF. If they need to edit the file and they are on windows I will send it in windows document format. Generally Word 95 to be easy.
Saving to .doc appeared faster. In other words, the save operation concluded in less time as compared to .odt. I am yet to find out why.
I always save if OpenDocument format. When it comes time to send a copy to someone else, I send a PDF, unless they need to be able to edit it. If they do, then I save a copy in MS Office format and send that, unless I think they're likely to have OOo -- or might be interested in installing it.
Regardless, my working copy is always in OpenDocument format. The only time I use MS Office formats as working formats is if I'm collaborating on a document with people who don't have OOo, and then I actually use MS Office to do it.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
I think the whole purpose for files is the ability for yourself and others to open them. Since very few non-opensouce fanboys use Open Office it doesn't make sense to save them in any other format but doc, txt, or other general formats. I really don't care what format prevails, just as long as there is only one common format.
"During My Service In The United States Congress, I Took The Initiative In Creating The Internet." -Al Gore
I save as DOC and XLS formats because I don't want to have to convert the files when I share them. Since I'm using only the common features, I don't lose anything in the "foreign" format. Often I want to just email someone quick a spreadsheet, and I don't want to take 10x as long to open the OO.o doc in OO.o, Save As, clean up, and then maintain two different formats of the same doc as I revise it in collaboration with the people with whom I'm sharing it.
If those OO.o files were really proper objects, rather than just data, they could expose an "Attach As..." function that calls OO.o code when an email (or other) process sends them a message to attach to an outgoing email (or whatever). Such "OO" (Object Oriented) functionality could make all these file formats just a transient state, with objects stored in whatever native state they want, and interacting with any app compatible with their roster of interchange formats.
--
make install -not war
Please mod parent up. The GP needs to stop smelling his own farts.
As for me, when I was in college, I always saved as ODF unless I knew the document was going to leave my hard drive. If a professor asked for something submitted through e-mail, or if I was collaborating with a peer, I'd convert it. Now that I'm in the working world, I do most work on my work supplied laptop running XP, and most of what I do is very collaborative anyway. At home, for personal use, it's ODF all the way. My fiance, who is now a linux and OO.o user, always saves as ODF, unless the circumstances demand an alternate format.
"It's not whether you win or lose, it's how drunk you get." -- H. J. Simpson
Most of my work is shared with many people, so whenever possible, I try to save any documents done with OOo to DOC. ODT is not bad at all; it's just that most people would not be able to see it, and would not want to go through the hassle of Google Docs.
I can easily see more corporate/professional types saving their docs in this format too, either by force or by obligation. I'm sure that when Microsoft supports ODT (which is a 95% bet on never), then more people will recognize and embrace it.
When I give documents to a user who uses MS Word, I create a .doc copy of my document. Why should I keep my documents in .doc just because the other may only be able to read and write .doc? That'd be ridiculous.
cb
I always save in open document format in OOO. I only convert to MS Office format or PDF if I have to send a doc to a non-OOO user.
Let's see, OpenOffice on every computer I have (NeoOffice on my MacBook Pro) and I save in ODF. Only when somebody HAS to have the document in MS format do I ever do a save as. And that file goes out and off my HD just as fast as I can send it. If it comes back in, it gets converted to an ODF format, worked on, then saved as ODF. A few folks actually are thankful I can send them in ODF or PDF rather than any MS Office format. Saving to an MS Office format by default in an ODF capable office suite is stupid and kills the whole point of going with an alternative to the proprietary MS Office formats. Talk about setting the ODF adoption back.
My documents are going towards ODT. .DOC the indices and contents get messed up. Custom masks get messed up.
When I save to ODT, the documents are stable.
When I save to
However, I do use OOo to fix corrupted word documents. I open them, save them as ODT, then resave them as word and then word does not crash on them any more.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
I personally don't save in .doc or .xls format unless I absolutely need to send it to someone who probably doesn't have OO.o. Otherwise, I find that the OpenDocument files are a lot smaller than the Microsoft Office ones. I also use ODF because it correctly transfers files between OpenOffice.org and KOffice, of which I use both.
I saw somewhere that someone had made a plugin for SVN that correctly handled ODF, which I thought was a great idea, and something that can't be done with the other formats.
I never save in MSOffice formats and I almost never distribute docs in that format. OpenOffice is free; if someone wants to collaborate with me on editing files, it's far cheaper for that person to obtain OpenOffice than it would be for me to obtain MSOffice (which I couldn't run anyway since I have no Windoze boxes.)
I save all my stuff in ODF und use PDF if I have to give a document to anyone else.
I suppose I would use doc if the recipient needed to edit the document but I usually avoid it.
Personally I find that argument asine. To make the basic car analogy it's like still using horse-and-buggy in 2007 since when the motor car became available not everyone bought one on the first day, so obviously noone needs it.
-- Put crudely, the world is an extremely large problem instance. (Russel/Norvig Artificial Intelligence)
Same as some other commenters -- I save in ODF for myself (actually still have a couple SXWs from older OO versions), and if I need to send it to someone else I use PDF. On the rare occasion I'd need to send it to someone else to edit (and I know they don't use OO), I'd use RTF if possible, though occasionally DOC is unavoidable.
At work we all have MS Office anyway, so it's all DOCs here.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
I *used* to save docs to RTF for long term storage, and native format for normal use, but now am using ODF because since its standardization I have at least as good a chance of being able to read them in a 10 years as RTF.
Doesn't it always?
If it's a personal document not meant to be sent anywhere, I save in OOo's standard formats.
If it's a document I expect to share, and expect others to edit, I save in MSFT Office formats.
If it's a document I expect to share, and don't want others to edit, I save in PDF.
Use the right tool for each job.
I try to use ODF internally. Of course when sharing/sending a document to someone else the "appropriate" format has to be determined. If everyone loaded OpenOffice.org, then it wouldn't be an issue. Most people collaborate using MS' formats due to the monopolistic behavior, not because it's better.
Top 10 reasons not to use office
If a Windows user wants to edit my .odt files they can just load OO: no big ask!
Engineering is the art of compromise.
I always save in ODF if it is my own document. If I receive something in MS Word, immediately convert it to ODF if I may want to edit it, otherwise to PDF. The only time I save anything in MS Word format is if I have to provide it for someone else.
Generally, I save in ODF, but if I need to send a document, I either use Word format or PDF; doc format if it's going to someone who needs to edit it, PDF for those who just need to view it. But for archival purposes, the primary reason for even using OpenOffice is because it's ODF, so I at least have some hope of reading the file in ten years.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Depends a bit what it is I'm writing. In general thou:
Essays go as ODF
Academic stuff go as LyX
When I need to send it to somebody else I export a PDF. Has worked fairly well so far. The day somebody wants a spreadsheet I will play with gnumeric and see what it manages. So far that situation has not been an issue however.
I use NeoOffice on Macintosh, which of course is derived from OpenOffice.
.doc, .xls and .ppt files with NeoOffice by default.
I always set it to save all relevant documents in Microsoft Windows 2003 format, and I set the Macintosh Finder to open
This is because the documents I receive as email attachments, and the documents I email to others for collaboration, need to be in Microsoft format.
Practically speaking, I can't think of any situation in which I would prefer OpenOffice native format to Microsoft Windows 2003.
If you open a .doc file and edit it, the default in openoffice is to save it as .doc, so no big surprise a lot of things get saved as .doc. I tried to change this and could not find a way to do it.
Yep. I do it this way, because Adobe makes readers for every OS. If someone wants to edit, I direct them to OpenOffice, which also works for multiple OSes. --josh
I of course save it as a .doc file if I want other to be able to edit it... .pdf :)
if not...I export to
"Just Smile and Nod." --Huck
If I'm creating OpenOffice documents for my use and I'm not collaborating with users of MS Office I save in the default ODF format as it works great for me. If I'm sending someone a document to read over, I always use PDF because it just works and works well cross-platform.
.doc format
Years ago, I used Microsoft Works, and over the course of computer and software changes, many of those files became nearly unreadable. (Admittedly, a hard drive failure at one point had something to do with it.)
I switched to OpenOffice on my personal computer specifically so I could use a non-proprietary format, and I went so far as converting all my Word files to ODF. I don't often need to share files, but if I do, I'll use PDF.
I cheer for an open format, and hope to see OpenOffice continue to improve.
Always .odt/.odf If the customer requires M$ formats, I charge an additional document handling fee... If M$ can make $$$ with Office, I can too! I adopted the idea from the Real Estate industry.
I always save in DOC/XLS/PPT format even though I use exclusively the OpenOffice suite. It allows the sharing of files with anyone.
OpenOffice can read .odf and .doc.
.doc.
.doc such that both camps can read the document.
Word can only read
One saves in
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
This is my first post on /. after browsing for several years.
I figured I would write on this topic to hopefully save someone from the near career-ending experience I encountered 2 weeks back.
I was using OOF 2.3 Impress to create a presentation for one of our Vice Presidents to give to a potential customer. I was developing this presentation with a Director watching over my shoulder. "What kind of program is this?", the Director asked. I told him, "Its the free equivalent of MS Office, and it will create a PowerPoint file that will work fine on anyone's MS machine". After 2 hours of work, I saved the document as .ppt assuming that this is still the format most high level executives still use in corporate America. Then I emailed the presentation to the Director for him to have a copy. He double clicked on the document in my email and MS PowerPoint came up with a message, "Unable to open the xxxyy.ppt document".
I re-opened the .ppt I had just sent him in my OOF and it loaded fine. Nonetheless, I ended up installing MS Office and recreating the document in PowerPoint. This was painful not only because of the double work, but because after running OOF exclusively for nearly 4 years, I realized that OpenOffice "isn't quite there yet". I still have no idea why that file would not open in PowerPoint, but why it loaded in OOF.
1. If I'm composing something simple that may eventually have to be shared, I save to ODT to avoid the prompting.
.doc or .rtf. I don't automatically assume that people have (or want) PDF readers on their machine, but I do assume they have at least a .rtf-capable program, and if it's complex, they're probably going to have MS Office in some flavor (I have old versions, so I don't have to worry about backward-incompatibility).
2. If I'm composing something complex or composing something that has to be opened anywhere else anytime soon, I save in
Usually I share files by email, and when I do, I send it as 3 separate formats/attachments (You know which 3--and .doc is attached last).
At work: Yes
At home: No
Next question?
About 1995 I converted all of my .doc files to .txt and got rid of Word. I have never used .doc since. I used Bruderbond software for a while and began using Star Office when it first became available in Linux distributions. Since Open Office came out with ODF support I have used ODF.
The idea that .doc is a necessity is a myth.
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Steve Stites
Have you explained to your teachers the advantages of using OpenOffice? (better, smaller, cheaper ($0) for students, etc. etc. etc)
OS Software is like love: The best way to make it grow is to give it away.
I only save in Microsoft format when I'm giving the file to a softie. When it's for my own use, I'm sharing with a friend who uses Linux, or I'm sending it to a friend/relative who has a machine that I maintain (meaning they have OpenOffice.org) I leave it in the native format.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
I save in ODF, unless the document needs to be seen by M$ users, then I create a DOC copy.
--- SER
I will usually use the doc format when sending formatted text files, but never use PPT files for sending slide presentations. The incompatibilities between PPT and PPTX(Office 2k7), and the possibility for loss in formatting between ODP and PPT have caused me to only use ODP when presenting (I use my own laptop) or export the presentation to PDF when sending.
while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
One at a time:
.doc written in one default language, then opened in a different default language. ODF? Not so much. .doc is the format of business. Microsoft has a stranglehold, but it's on a dinosaur. .doc, but then establish it is on it's way to extinction. ODF isn't on its way to extinction. I'll use that.
(A sluggish one
What's sluggish? I read this claim over and over again. In my experience, the only thing vaguely resembling sluggish is the nominally slower load. Please, provide more details.
that cloned the one I already have, at that)
That you paid a ridiculous amount of money for or stole. Most small businesses I deal with are very pragmatic and operate legitimately. Therefore they thank me when they can spend less.
I would email his boss and ask for the correct file format.
There's lots of small businesses who started their own successful businesses because they cut out that kind of political inaction. Or, maybe you should consider for a moment that I'm the boss.
It's common sense.
Maybe to you. But many small businesses LOVE the fact that I show them how to do the same job they used to do for less money.
you probably won't be in that position for very long.
Nope. Sorry. Turning away business because I maximize my customer's time/money.
It's like sending your files in Spanish.
Don't get me started on the bugs in a
Wwwait... What just happened there? On the one hand you tell me use
it should be online so you can easily collaborate
So, a closed format that's more expensive to use and prevents collaboration is better because it's somehow on the web? ODF is cheaper and easier to communicate with.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
If the document is meant to be read only, I save as PDF. If the document is meant for editing, DOC, because my office uses Microsoft.
BTW, it's also for this reason that I don't use OOo, because of the hideous round-trip capabilities of OOo -> Word -> OOo -> Word -> OOo...
--Rob
Towards the Singularity.
I Never, Ever, Ever save or send anything as .doc. I send only .pdf and only rarely send .odf only when I don't care if the recipient edits it.
only because that's how everyone keeps asking for my resume. (Just for grins, I sent a .odt to someone a few days ago. They sent me back "could you please send your resume in MS Word format, I can't open this".)
Though PDF might not be a bad idea...
Assume I was drunk when I posted this.
Depending on who fixes a problem first and as a result how widely spread the solution becomes, de facto standards occur in the technological community.
.doc standard is now universal. Or Adobe's PDF. Or .ico files on websites.
Consider PKware's ZIP product. Or Microsoft Word, whose
Word is the world's word processor. OpenOffice succeeds at all because people think it's a free Word clone.
technical writing / development
I do the SANE thing:
#3 is usually one of the MS formats. But that might change.
Soemthing I don't understand is why QuickOffice, which should be very concerned about bandwidth and storage issues, would choose to use MS formats with all their bloat? Seems like they are making themselves vulnerable to competitors with superior technology.
I save many of my text documents in .doc format. The reason? It "just works" ... OpenOffice is truly amazing when it comes to importing and exporting text documents to MS Word's format. It gets references, fonts, formatting just right even with repeated import/export cycles. It even makes a heroic effort to translate or at least not permanently mangle OLE objects and Visual Basic scripts.
.doc format. For my own personal documents I use ODF. I am a strong supporter of ODF, and I'll celebrate the day when we kiss .doc goodbye permanently. But for now, OpenOffice's import/export is *so good* and convenient, may as well use it :-)
So, for any document that I'm going to have to share with others... I use
It's a different story with presentations. OpenOffice does quite well with PowerPoint format, but loses some advanced animations and sometimes fudges drawings a bit. So I keep everything in ODF format, and only export to PPT if absolutely necessary.
My bicyles
And if it is for public reading, in .pdf. Only when I need to share documents with someone who only has Word who also needs to edit the document, will I save it as .doc. I really prefer not to though, because there may be minor differences in how a converted documented is rendered by Word. I do mention to them that should they have trouble opening the document, that they can download OpenOffice for free.
Visit http://ringbreak.dnd.utwente.nl/~mrjb/growingbettersoftware to download your free copy of the book
This is kinda ridiculous. Who would do such a thing unless they absolutely NEED to because the people they have to share the files with are MS Office users?! Seriously. Ever since I installed OOo, I've been using nothing but its own formats... Even converting any old .doc files I have. If I had to give it to someone who doesn't have OOo... Hell, I'd probably print it as a PDF or something if it came down to a choice between that and saving out a .doc file. If I was in a position to do so, I'd recommend OOo to them.
:)
Speaking of recommending free alternatives... (Read: Only slightly offtopic) If anyone here does any screenwriting or anything else you would write a script for, even a webcomic or something, I can't recommend celtx enough. For the longest time I was faced with probably having to buy Final Draft, which is really damn expensive for what it does... And then I found celtx, and it does a _LOT_ more...for FREE. (It also handles pre-production organization and stuff, as well as having a collaborative online community.) And it's available for Windows, MacOS, AND Linux. Ain't that a hell of a thing?
Friend: "The NIC is misconfigured..." Me: "No prob, I'll just telnet in and fix it." *Silence*
When saving my own documents for personal use, I always use the native OOo format. This is mainly because my experience with OOo's MS import-export feature has not been all that great (ie. bugs seems to pop up often). However, none of the people that I correspond with use OpenOffice, so I end up saving a copy of documents that I'm sending to people in MS format.
Yes, we default to OO saving in MS formats, being a small office we need compatibility. We're also getting away from Quattro Pro & Word Perfect. But OO won't open a Quattro Pro wb3 file !!! ARGHH. So I had to put MS Office 2000 on a new computer today to convert/open their old spreadsheets.
So.. if it wasn't for that, I wouldn't have had to install MS Office at all!
Slightly offtopic opinion: I think that word processor files are way overused. I've even seen people write up a short memo in word and attach it to an email, instead of just writing an email! Ninety-nine times out of a hundred. documents shared as word processor files would be better shared other ways.
My company is currently transitioning from MSOffice to OpenOffice. That is, every new computer provided by the IT department has OO installed, and not MSO. I applaud their efforts, and save all of my working copies in .odf format. If someone needs to look at one of my docs, or I'm ready to release a doc, I use the built-in (best feature ever) pdf exporter. Wanna collaborate on a document? Tell IT to install OO for you.
Unfortunately, they have not installed OO on all the computers in the office. Even worse, some people complained that they "had to learn all the new shortcuts," and demanded to have MSO re-installed, then they personally uninstalled OO.
We apparently have to keep MSO around for some of our legacy Excel files that make extensive use of pivot tables, but I've never used one of those, so I'm quite happy with OpenOffice and their file format.
It may look like I'm doing nothing, but I'm actively waiting for my problems to go away.
--Scott Adams
I avoid using DOC format, and I've often had to remind people that I should not need to spend $$$ just to get Microsoft Office so I can follow business 'standards.'
Goodbye Slashdot. You've changed.
I have both OOO and Word 2003 mainly for compatibility. I pretty much save everything in plain old txt or html. At least I thought I was compatible with anything until I got a .docx file emailed to our whole charity organization that I belong to and Word 2003 couldn't open it, 2003 isn't THAT old. So, I searched around a bit and found the free MS docx converters for Word 2003, as well as a dozen sites offering to convert docx to doc for a price. Doc was bad enough, but at least it has become a standard. Why the heck did they need to come up with another dumb format that isn't even compatible with their previous version without a special download that you have to go hunting for?
.doc format because most people don't have Word 2007 yet. She replied back that she was sorry and that she only had Word 2007. I was going to go into how to save to other formats, but I decided it wasn't worth the effort.
So, after all of that I replied to the person who sent it to me and told her she should at least save in
Nevermore.
When I open documents, they usually are doc files, but I have never save a document with open office in any format other than it's own default. I may export to html, pdf, ps or something like that so other can read it, but I've never gone to doc or any other document format. Frankly, I don't trust that compatibility enough.
I use odf whenever I'm sure that I will be the only user of the document. If someone else wants it, i convert it to pdf before sending it. I use .doc only if someone else might need to make any changes and doesn't have open office.
I store in OpenDocument, since as a open standard, I know I'll always have access to my data. As an active member of my college's student Government, need to make sure those who hold my position in the future can see all my documents. I'm the Information Technology representative... I deal with any student concerns relating to technology. I've got copies of proposals from when we were setting up the campus wide wireless network. I have notes I typed up from multiple meetings between high level Comcast exeutives and high level members of my college's administration relating to the excessive downtime the campus was receiving. I have a year and a half of bi-weekly reports from meeting detailing smaller projects I undertook. Since I am only the second IT Rep on campus, I also have been documenting policies and procedures for addressing common issue. All of this information absolutely must be available to my successors... I can't risk microsoft dropping .doc support in a future version of office. So everthing gets stored in Open Document. If a colleague needs to see it, I save a .doc version or send a pdf.
I never do unless I'm forced to because I need to send the document to someone that uses Word or something similar. I always save in native OpenOffice format.
Save in both formats depending on the document's future use. I find myself more and more saving .doc as .odt as it's easier to make PDFs in OOo.
For my own purposes: .odf .pdf .doc .odf and OpenOffice URL.
To send important documents to the government:
For people who insist on it (job recruiters, etc):
For friends and family:
---don't make me break out my red pen.
The ODF is the master copy.
And really should be -- if these people know anything about the issue, they'd know that this is a cop-out. Had they done it the other way -- only ODF support, and shrugged and told MS Office people to use the ODF plugin -- they'd have lost business.
I also have (or used to have) scripts to export an ODF document as several formats. Yes, there's PDF -- but also, if they asked for Office, I'd attach three different versions (OpenOffice supports Office 97+, Office 95, and Office 6.0), as well as RTF, maybe even TXT. And of course the ODF.
Waste of bandwidth, in an email attachment? Maybe, but considering the whole thing is still going to be less than 100k, not a big deal.
I don't have to do this anymore, actually. At work, we use Google Documents, and most of what you'd expect isn't even there, it's on a Wiki. Beyond that, well, a traditional word processor is getting more and more irrelevant these days.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
I generally use a rule of thumb that says: .doc, otherwise openoffice.
1. If I am publishing pdf or html
2. If I am collaborating, is the collaborator a windows users - then
All my own stuff is in .odf format. I read it on Windows, Ubuntu, and OS X machines without loss of fidelity. On the extremely rare occasion I need to send something out, I generally send both .odf and .pdf files and give them a link to openoffice.org if they complain.
Since the stuff I email to others is high quality and worth their time to read, they end up downloading openoffice.org. A few still use it for their own stuff later on (more so when they buy a new system).
Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
Saving to multiple formats at the same time. Good idea.
Just watch: someone is going to send the USPTO some 400-page patent application for this. We need to mark this as prior art. <Google metatag="prior art">
404555974007725459910684486621289147856453481154 in hex is "You sank my Battleship?"
[GPG key in journal]
I would think generating 30MB of verbose XML and then zipping it up takes longer than to write a 4MB binary blob to an OLE stream. Which is why I think ODF and OOXML are both stupid solutions searching for a problem.
Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
I save all of my files in ODF/ODT, and if I need to submit them to just about anyone else I have to convert them to an MS-Office (.doc, .xls, etc...) format. I do the same with audio files, image files, etc, using open file formats instead of their closed/proprietary/patent-encumbered brethren.
The problem is that people's computers aren't coming pre-installed with software that can read our "primary" Open File Formats. Heck -- even when I send my Macintosh-toting friends Ogg Vorbis files, they don't have any idea how to open them, so eventually I get enough complaints and just re-encode in mp3 format (and feel bad about trying and failing at spreading the Good Word).
Perhaps the best thing that us geeks could do to support open file formats is to develop a little "Unknown File Format" system utility for all of the current flavors of Windows and OSX. The utility would sit in the background and would pop up a little note whenever the user tried to open a file of an unrecognized type, telling the user that the file was, say, an XCF image file created by The GIMP, and offering to download an appropriate program to either view or edit the file.
If we had such a tool, we could feel much better about sending out open file formats like Ogg Vorbis, knowing that even clueless users would only be a click away from opening our files.
coding is life
"IF you abuse your position to have people install redundant software, you probably won't be in that position for very long."
Good! Does that mean that MS is on the way out?
Goodbye Slashdot. You've changed.
Ive been using Writely for ages to do this exact thing.
You might know then by another name now: Google Documents.
You can add people to edit your document as well as an easy way to look over the changes made to different versions of the document.
There are others who do the same thing and are much more effective for colloborative than email.
get out of the dark ages....
I haven't started using OpenOffice yet myself (no need for an office suite at home), but I installed it on my mom's laptop a year ago when she asked if I could put Microsoft Office on it >.> She didn't like it because it was too different, but then she got a job at a small private school that uses OpenOffice. I seem to recall that they emailed her some .ODF documents and I pointed out how cool it was that she already had the software to open them :p
Arguing about vi versus Emacs is like arguing whether it's better to make fire by rubbing sticks or banging rocks.
I save in .doc when it is important to me that they can edit it... (70% @work stuff) .pdf when it is important for me that they can read it... .odt when I want them to sweat and ask for mercy... and when they do, they get a link to www.openoffice.org
I save in
and I save in
I do however live in a country which have a weird law requiring all government bodies to be able to read odf and ooxml from 01.01.2008.
--
Yes, I'm an arrogant bastard (just as arrogant as mr. Gates and mr. Ballmer)... and I'm proud of it.
But that's only because MSFT has a monopoly on document formats.
Change that and we'll change our behavior.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
I guess the bigger issue is; Which
Have gnu, will travel.
I'm using OOo and I haven't M$ Office. Why would I use a format that makes data loses on conversion?
Users that have M$ Office do have Acrobat Reader. They should download OOo because ODF is a standard.
...but that's just because I set it as the default when I installed OO on her laptop. I never actually mentioned to her that I installed OpenOffice rather than Word on her computer, and she has yet to notice.
* * *
It is a dada story -- it has no moral.
I use SXC or ODS files, depending on what version of OOo I'm running. I only use it for my timesheet, checkbook, and gas mileage.
Unfortunately, when using ODS files, it can't seem to remember that I don't want my spreadsheet opened maximized on the Macintosh. I always have to unmaximize it, then manually resize it to something reasonable. The SXC file for my timesheet on Linux (Ooo 1.0.2) somehow manages to remember the window size.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Upon switching over to Open Office all .docs where converted to .odt and it was the office standard... for about six months or so.
I work in a small office of less then 10 employees, of those 10 only 4 work with word processing. The problem encountered was in sharing the .odt files to other firms, most people had no idea what to do with them or how to open them, PDF was not an option for most of the time these files where to be edited or used in other documents and apparently no one knows how to copy text out of a PDF but me.
So then you get into the whole "save as" and ship that out, which was too complicated for these 4 people as well, I started finding two copies of files on the server one as .doc one as .odt, then the next person to edit may edit one but send out the doc.
It was a mess. After trying to make the case for .odt and even with the odt plugin for Word I could not keep the .odt. So now everything is back to .doc.
I belive that this is due to one thing, peoples unwillingness to learn/try something new.
I send documents all over the world and I use Open Office formats exclusively for saving my masters.
However, if I intend it to be read only I send a PDF. If it is for collaborative editing I send an OOo file with a link in the email to download Open Office. If they complain (happens very seldom anymore) then I send them a different format as they request. Usuall a M$ format.
I save in .doc and .xls so I can use both. My work runs all MS, and I have MS and Ubuntu at home.
The policy we've established here is that every document should be saved in whatever format is the least common denominator that will support the data being conveyed. For plain text, it's got to be plain text. For rich text, HTML. For tabular data that is typically edited in a spreadsheet, we go with CSV if there are not any formulas. charts, graphs, etc.
Only when we are using the higher level functions of an office suite do we save files in an office suite format.
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
I see frequent issues with formatting between machines based on available fonts and font metrics. This is particularly troublesome with people that collect and use obscure fonts and when moving documents between operating systems. For example, most word documents take a few extra lines per page when I load them on my Linux computer in OOo, even though I do have the MS fonts installed. My general rule of thumb: Use ODF when - ALWAYS save a local copy in the native format, in this case, ODF. - When sharing with someone that can read ODF and they must modify the content. - When sharing with someone that can read ODF and formatting is not critical. Use PDF when - Only when sharing with others. - When others only need read capability. - When formatting is critical, even if it is only as a reference to correct instance specific formatting issues. Use .DOC when
- Recipient not willing or able to read any other format.
- Recipient must edit the document, but they do not support ODF.
The most common format that I send to others is PDF, .DOC, and ODF.
The most common format for my own internal use is ODF.
Everything I do in OpenOffice gets saved in OpenDocument format, unless I need to copy it to my Palm Tungsten T3, in which case I'm forced to convert it to an MS format. There's nothing for Palm OS 5 that'll allow me to edit ODF documents and spreadsheets. Once something like that is created, I'll be free of .doc and .xls files.
We have a good example of what will happen with ODF.
Remember line endings? The whole shebang about cr, lf or crlf?
If you deal with the average joe, you have to use crlf because "Joe" can't find a piece of software that handles other line endings properly. Even your average software engineer can't take a moment to search the tubes for something that opens them properly. It happens all the time to me.
ID: the nose did not occur naturally, how would we wear glasses otherwise? (apologies to Voltaire)
I always save as ODT, I re-save as DOC if I need to share a file with somebody using Word. If only Word would read ODT...
Right now on my Mac I have Mac Office and NeoOffice (derived from Open Office). By default, I use MS Office (with great regret). However, every so often I get stuff that doesn't work in Mac Office, or I get frustrated by some aspect of Mac Office, and that's when I open NeoOffice. If I'm preparing a document with any requirement for anyone else to use, I follow what is actually DoD/govt policy and save in the native MS format, usually associated with Office 97/2k/XP.
.PPT presentations.
What I hope is that the Government moves to a standards-based format, and that would leave them with ODF as the current choice. But that's not policy yet.
Recently I've had significant problems with documents that come from the latest flavor of Windows Office, either not opening, crashing the app (Microsoft Word.app) or in the case of PowerPoint, images that don't render (they display as black blobs.) Since the background illustration for the program's title slide is one of those, that has made things hard. In almost all cases, though, documents that don't work on MS Office for the Mac work just fine in NeoOffice, the one exception being printing
dave
(p.s. I just got a govt spec, ".doc" that when I opened it generated a Visual Basic error. Now last time I checked, VB was not authorized for use in govt documents, precisely because of the interoperability problems. But unfortunately, these standards are hard to enforce...)
There are very few documents I keep in MS Office formats, and every one of those is traded frequently with Office users. For most documents, even my resume, I keep as ODF, and when it comes to distributing it I send it out in PDF format if I can and only after a lot of wheedling first will consider sending them a .doc copy. Given that OOo support for Office formats is basic, and that I've lost work trying to save documents in Office formats from OOo, I tend to stick to ODF if I can.
Christopher S. 'coldacid' Charabaruk -- coldacid.net
someone with more money then smarts. :-) And I send them the ODT as well just to introduce it.
Si vis pacem, para bellum! For evil to succeed good men need only do nothing!
I always save my documents in ODF but when i need to share them most of the time i end up sending a .DOC, mostly because tons of people uses Microsoft Office. Also, when i send my resume most of the time they ask for "MS Word" format. Anyway, when you don't know who is going to read the stuff and just end up saving it as PDF and even like that i have seen mails from people like "sorry, i can't open the file send it in MS Word format please". I will say, .DOC for me is more like an "export" format, ODF is the way to go if you only use OpenOffice, i guess it's the same with .DOC for MS Office users.
My main reason for exporting in whatever (mainly pdf), is to enforce the removal of change/collaboration type changes. I have known to many embarrassing situations because people have left the changes embedded in documents. By exporting to pdf I avoid this situation. Also, I like having the concept of a release version on all products, whether they are software or documentation or even plain old correspondence. Just my 2 cents.
Seriously. I'm sick of feeling like my documents are hostage to a proprietary format that no one understands. I lost too much data from the 80s and early 90s to that.
.DOC for export, but internally I'm a bit of a pig about .ODF.
.DOC exclusively there.
.ODF than Word is to load .DOC.
I'm fine with converting to
Of course, my company is an MS shop so I use
And in my experience, OpenOffice is quicker to load
I always save in ODF... why would I save in Microsoft doc unless I have to for someone else's sake?
noobcake or noobmuffin? It is the same price...
This is a valid complaint. For people who want their computers to "just work", why does the software not allow customized changes to keyboard commands? If OpenOffice wants to replace MS Office, why can't we change OpenOffice to use the keystrokes that we're used to?
Honestly, are we still living in the 1980's or something? WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS allowed remapping of keystrokes before Windows 3.1 came out, for crying out loud. The entire KDE software suite, since v3.1 or before, would let you set not one but up to TWO possible keystrokes for doing various commands (which is the reason I stick with KDE and won't touch GNOME, no matter how "earthy human touchy feely warm fuzzy" it is).
Sometimes I think that, in our desire to "make things better for the user", we forgot to listen to what the user has been saying.
</rant>
404555974007725459910684486621289147856453481154 in hex is "You sank my Battleship?"
[GPG key in journal]
I haven't MS Office at home either, and I really prefer an open format like ODF. Which means anything I create for myself tends to be ODF. .rtf out of Wordpad, which is good enough for basic formatting (with much clearer and smaller encoding than MS Word's output). But certainly not .doc ;-)
Or sometimes
C - the footgun of programming languages
Do you use Open Office or NeoOffice? Though I haven't used it much I have NeoOffice installed.
FalconShould there be a Law?
At work, we save everything as .docx, because we use Microsoft Office 2007 internally. At home I use OpenOffice.org, so stuff gets saved as .odt. Basically, I use the defaults, because it's easiest, and it's relatively easy to convert between the formats anyway. If I need to send a document to someone, I send it in whatever format I expect the recipient will prefer; if I do not expect the recipient to want to edit it (invoices, for example) I send as .pdf.
BTW, between Office 2007 and OO.o, I prefer Office 2007. OO.o seems to have gotten more buggy with the latest release. Writer will regularly get stuck in italics mode and refuse to let me switch back to regular font. Doing anything with images in Calc is a royal pain, it does not save sizes correctly and sometimes loses images. Office 2007 has very few annoying bugs (who actually got bit by the Excel 2007 multiplication thing in practice? I didn't...) and it's much faster than OO.o. Plus I love the ribbons.
Quality, performance, value; you get only two, and you don't always get to pick.
I save in the default open office file format. About the only document I share is my resume, which I send as a PDF. When a head-hunter I trust needs to be able to edit it typically to remove my personal information), he/she gets it as a generic text file. I do not send out .doc files.
-- Will program for bandwidth
What we need is a small portable efficient ODF viewer that can be used as a stand-alone app, as well as a browser plugin, just to render and view + print ODF files. That way people won't have to have large applications just to print these files.
.odf or .doc format as much as they would PDF format, actually.
Also, it seems to me though that (when sharing) OpenOffice users might not save in
Twinstiq, game news
Personally, I save everything in ODF. If I know or have good reason to suspect that I am sending a document to somebody who can read that format (or want to make a political point), I'll send it as is. If not, I convert before sending. A bit annoying, but I do this because I want all of my documents to be in one standard format that will be supported next time that I upgrade my productivity suite and ODF tends to be significantly smaller file size than M$ formats. To be honest, if the MSOffice formats improved in both a) size and b) openness/documentation I would have to consider using them instead, and I don't even have Windows.
-Tim Louden
Why? There is plenty of prior art on this. Other software (notably, the Gimp and probably photoshop) have this feature built into them. It's called 'Save a copy'. It saves the document in an alternate format while leaving the original document untouched. The Gimp even gives you a preview of the export document. The same feature is also often implemented as Export.
something clever
I use iWork. I save my documents in Pages' own format, which is .pages of course.
.doc, .odf or some other crap I ask them to send me a real document file, i.e. PDF.
If I have to send my document to someone, I simply "print to PDF" (which is built-in Mac OS X).
If someone sends me a
I prefer to tar and gzip my .tex files, and include a .ps file if they want to print it. The recipients thank me when I give up and send them odf.
MS Office is a clone of its progenitors as StarOffice/OpenOffice is of MS Office. There were lotsa products out for DOS and Mac before MS Office's components. For a lot of documents, pure TEXT is sufficient for sending, which can be opened by pretty much ANY text editor/word processor. Now THAT, my friend, is truly giving people choice.
And, forcing ODF on people is just as bad as forcing DOC on someone.
Bearded Dragon
It's funny that I get Resumes via email in some bizarre formats, some of which I am unable to open with any program I have installed. Resumes show up as Word Perfect documents (would be more understandable if I worked for a Law Firm), they show up in MS Works writer format, and a few formats I have yet to identify. Invariably though the resume will state the applicants proficiency with Microsoft Office.....
.odt format. .pdf for sending out documents.
.rtf files.
.doc format files to resume submissions when they specifically request that format.
We also receive documents from from other companies in Office 2003, or 2007 formats that just won't open with stock office 2000..
MS demonstrates their amazing backwards compatibility with their own office suite yet again !!
Personally I use OpenOffice and save in
If someone will need to edit a document, I will send it in rich text format, because EVERY word processor I have ever used (except maybe the original appleworks) seems to be able to open and edit
I reserve sending out
far...out
I guess what I'm asking is, what is it on *nixes that has so long kept most apps non-"portable"? Why isn't nearly everything "portable" by default?
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
There are people that I'd send an .odf to because I know they'd know how to deal. There are other people who insist on using Microsoft products, so I save in .doc when necessary. If it's for personal use, .odf all the time.
I simply chisel it in stone.
True, OO can open some Office formats, but does it open and can save MSO formats other than .doc? Such as the spreadsheet or Powerpoint, both older versions as well as newer ones? I don't know if it can.
Personally I don't use MSO, I've got Office 97 for Windows, I used some years ago but now I've got NeoOffice on my Mac. I don't have much use for it right now, so what editing I do I use TextEdit for.
FalconShould there be a Law?
When I need to send someone a doc file I've created in OOo, I always check it in the free Word viewer first. There are often some little formating differences that can be fixed by replacing indents with tabs (or vise versa). Like you say, probably an issue with different default settings. Also, when people ask for doc, I save in Word97 format which seems to be the lowest common denominator amongst Word users.
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
I set it up as the default for me, and on any new install I'll do it as well. 1) Because I live in an MSOffice world and 2) I don't want to field support calls when people send the files on. That would be different if MS imported Oo documents (I don't know if it does) - then I would just leave it be.
www.wildpad.com
I've used NeoOffice for nearly a year and was anxiously awaiting iWork '08. Very disappointed that it won't play nice with my ODF files. But while the OpenOffice deravitives are purposefully trying to blend with MSOffice, Pages and Numbers run faster, look sleeker, and work better for what I need to do.
I often use OpenOffice Math when writing, and it doesn't render correctly in word when I save as .doc, so I always save as .odt and send PDFs to the unenlightened when I need to share with them.
Hey! I just found a much better way to do something. But, nobody seems to be doing things that way right now, so I better just forget it.
.doc. I still use .doc for sending resumes, I just don't have the patients to explian to a recruiter (who's last job was selling cusome jewlery at the the flea market) that ms-word will read .rtf or whatever.
That makes a lot of sense, doesn't it?
There may be some good reasons for
But, to say that "nobody seems to be using it, so forget it" is PHB level stupid. Did it ever occure to the grossly overpaid exec that there could be other criteria? For example, a fully documented open format, that will be sure to work 10 or 20 years from now?
I am either collaborating with someone and we are both using .odf, or I am sending them a document to read in which case they get a .pdf.
http://nwbagpipes.com/
I actually save my stuff in the OpenOffice native formats. I've actually been known to send OpenOffice files to people and tell them where they can get OpenOffice. There have been a few instances in which the recipient has absolutely insisted on the M$ format but, then they pitched a bitch about how long the download took and how much bigger the file was. ("Are you sure you didn't embed some sort of hidden stuff to make this file this much bigger?")
My office has been taken over by iPod people.
I remember, back in the day, when ClarisWorks was the way to go. Disks full of .cwk files. Now it's 2007, and even Apple doesn't support software that will open older versions of AppleWorks CWF files. I have some AppleWorks5 .cwf files that will need me to take the Beige G3 out of mothballs if I ever want to read them again. Guess I'd better get cracking before I lose that ability forever.
.doc an "old file format" in an attempt to get people to switch to .docx ...
.doc and .docx using NeoOffice. It's not as though I'm short of CD-ROMs for storage, and I want to ensure I'll be able to open some of the files in years to come.
It's worse with Word (et al), especially now that Microsoft is calling
That's why I now save important documents in as many file formats as possible. Text, HTML, RTF, ODF formats, soon in whatever the hell iWork 08 will save stuff as (my $100 iPhone rebate paid for that and an in-car charger, should be arriving any day now), even exporting to
Of course, the CD-Rs will probably start to lose data. That's a whole new topic.
Shiny. Let's be bad guys...
I use OpenOffice on all the machines I can install it on. I only use .doc when giving files to people who use Microsoft Word or to people I don't know have OpenOffice. For my own use I always save in .odt, it takes up way less space.
Our professor requires us to submit programming assignments in .doc.
Even the java source codes. This is totally illogicel.
I save as .odf by default, then if I have to I will convert to .doc. I send every document out as a .odf, then when it's requested I resend as .doc. Eventually, the irritation will get high enough for them to let me install OOo.
Peace
Jon Postel, R.I.P. You are missed.
I do most of my documents in LyX or just plaintext for quick notes and the like. For LyX I tend to export to PDF and Post Script. The only time I use OO.o is at work (Funny thing about that too, the work computer with Excel crashed, they had to do a reinstall, and were too cheap to buy another copy of Excel, so I installed Open Office and no one has been able to tell the difference much. I use it merely to generate a few reports). If I needed a less structured document (read: very very flashy/pretty) I'd use scribus. LyX, for my general purposes is just worlds better than either .odf or .doc.
That was about two years ago, when my university class required submitting works to turnitin. Since the prof also asked for "electronic copy" of these documents, I submitted ODFs. Wow did they get annoyed, they asked for "real" Word files, instead of saving them in some format nobody's heard of.
I was tempted to misleadingly add text (size 1pt font in header, white colour, etc etc) from Wikipedia, totally unrelated to the topic at hand, just to mess with their filters. In retrospect, I should have done exactly that.
Doing the Right Thing should not be preempted by making a buck.
It was enough to be good until Claris was out of the picture. After that it was Microsoft or MainSoft... oh wait... that's redundancy :)
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
Having a wonky file format is fine if you don't collaborate (and then PDFs work fine). But if you're sharing work, editing, etc, you have to use a common file format, and last time I checked, .DOC was a hell of lot more common than .ODF. This isn't a political position, it's just the reality of the community of people you need to inter-operate with. Remember Betamax?
.DOC, .XLS etc. Until Word opens an ODF, I don't see this changing.
So when I set up my grad student husband's new lappy, first thing I did to Open Office was change all the defaults to
The StupidPhone and their QuickOffice obviously does not understand the purpose of *.ODF formats. I will (OOuser) "as a courtesy" upon request export/save and email/share a copy in a MS-format, but I save and share/email in *.odf formats.
... I won't buy the stock.
The folks at StupidPhone obviously do not understand "what is a black-hole archive" where a few years later due to discontinued applications or version changes critical legal, court, medical, engineering/science papers/presentations in proprietary file-formats become unaccessible/unreadable to the folks that created and/or need access to the content for very important reasons.
I noted, the claim by a company executive that OpenOffice users usually save their documents in a Microsoft formats is gleefully silly. Hence the company has no plans to support business and government reality in the future. If StupidPhone is publicly traded
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
And if memory serves, it was AOL. Not Microsoft.
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
You misunderstand. I'm referring to the act of saving to multiple formats at the same time. I am familiar with GIMP's "Save a copy" feature. You can tell GIMP: "Okay, I want to save as usual now," and it will save in (say) XCF format. You can also tell GIMP, "Now Save-A-Copy under a different format (say JPG) without affecting the default format", and it will save as JPG, exporting if necessary. But there is *not* a command that says, "Save to XCF and JPG" which will cause GIMP to save it as XCF and immediately also save a copy as JPG.
In fact, I envision a Save dialogue that will let you select what format under which to save, and that format selection will have checkboxes where you can select more than one (rather than the current practice of choosing only one of several formats), and the program will save as many copies of the files as you have checkboxes, one file for each format you select. Then every time you press Ctrl-S to save, it will automatically re-save in those formats that you have selected. (The titlebar in the GUI window might even say, "MyDocument.doc/odt/rft" or something similar.)
It's a cool idea. One hundred people will think of it independently. Ten people will actually write software that implements it. One person will patent it, and try to screw the rest of us. When that day comes, *please* someone point them to this Slashdot thread.
404555974007725459910684486621289147856453481154 in hex is "You sank my Battleship?"
[GPG key in journal]
To quote one client that sent a .odf back to me: "We only deal with the imperialist Word format, thanks."
I personally use .odt for all files that I save, however, as a college student I am sometimes required by a *shudder* 2007 office using teacher who only accepts doc and docx. So, I have a copy of EVERYTHING in .odt, and only required copies of .doc. Its horrible that we don't have an open standard that ALL OFFICE SUITE products willingly and gracefully use *cough* microbitches *cough*
Support the source, Open Source! An entire site developed with OSS
I usually save in ODF. If I know for sure that the recipient doesn't have OO, I send it as rtf or something.
I hadn't known there were so many idiots in the world until I started using the Internet -Stanislaw Lem
forget pdf, rtf, odf.... how bout wtf? Compact, portable, universally understood and exceedingly effective in getting your point across.
I save my documents as .doc/word files. The people I exchange documents with (professors, classmates, potential employers) all use Word. Most of them care about the Microsoft vs ODF issue about as much as they care that Alderaan was blown up by the Empire.
Karma only matters to me now and zen.
What I meant to say is this...
..."
"Clam flags 100 to 200 emails A DAY on my domain mailserv as various
And most of those attachments are some form of Microsoft Office related trojans (very rarely is it a rogue javascript or some phishing / pharming trick).
The irony is that even in windows, the few exploits written for Open Office or others suites, are merely "screw with the app" exploits since the app doesn't hook so absolutely on the underlying OS (and also doesn't depend so badly upon certain "features" being present in a system). In the end, the extra bloat in ODT/ODF files may also be due to the fact that MS has shortcuts available that other formats must encapsulate. Not an impossibility. On the other hand, having less integrated applications also provides one major benefit... it keeps attacks from being so easy to carry out. Its like the current centralization of powers seen elsewhere. A totally integrated system allows for ease of control at all levels. Sadly it also allows for ridiculously easy hijacking of such a system by any agent, insider or outsider with any kind of interest in actually taking over.
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
I've used OOo for over three years. For the first year I set the default save format to the M$ file types. About two years ago I refreshed by 'puter collection first with the kids box, then a new 'book, then a new main desktop machine.
.DOC format. It really depends on the complexity of the document, and what I'm doing with it.
Shortly after the Notebook was acquired I found myself changing the file save type to ODF, even though I initially set the default to the M$ formats. I believe there were two diverse drivers of my behavior change. First the Notebook did not and never had any M$ Office products on it. (The only copy of Office I have is Office 98, which I purchased with my last Dell desktop) Second in passing files back and forth to work and others I found that PDF was simply more convenient and secure (I don't mean secure in the cryptographic sense, but secure in the "what I thought I sent is what you'll actually see" sense).
In the end over a few months period all of the machines had their OOo default save formats changed back to the ODF types. The only issues which arise now are with items my son takes back and forth to school, and the occational document I carry between work and home.
In most cases for either of the troublesome items I either transport the file plain text and perform final formatting and graphic insertion at the point of completion, or I'll save in the
For my son their is at least so far little impact from the document formatting. The bigger headache for him (and I) is the school has disabled the USB ports on the 'puters the kids use. (and I refuse to buy an external floppy to support some backward thinking primary school IT types)
To me it only makes sense to save in ODF.
Never ascribe to malice or conspiracy that which can be adequately explained by ignorance or stupidity.
when I HAVE to.
ODT for home, DOC for school.
The main problem in exchanging document with os x / linux / windows people is the fonts. I often get document from lawyers who works on windows, I open it with my openoffice on ubuntu but some fonts (not in the msttcorefonts package) are missing and I get a kind of different document.
Biais.org : Python, art and chicken pie.
$eriou$ly. Fuck tho$e people that u$e M$ $oftware. They are $oo retarded for u$ing that $hit.
/. is the place to ask that question only if you want a very specific, very compartmentalized, very out-of-touch with most of the business world, answer. This forum is where all the MS haters and open-source guys live, so what kind of answer do you think you'll get here?
.doc. The guys here chanting "ZOMG OOo is teh winz, babiez! I convert everyonez i SHOWZ IT TOOOZ!" are full of it.
The cost of MS Office is a pittance to mid-large companies in the US. It's got solid penetration to the smaller businesses too. So, if you want to be able to reliably communicate with the vast majority of companies out there, you go with
I only use the .doc format if I am sending out resume's, other than that odf is fine, in fact I feel a little guilty each time I save a .doc, like I'm being unfaithful to my pc or something :P
MS Office is the company standard. But, me and my team use OpenOffice for all official (i.e. released to the company at large) documents. Here the work-philosophy is simple: Work in .odt, export as .pdf
One too many company secrets leaked to everyone due to Word and Excel being very, err... generous with information.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Normally I hand it to Win Users in PDF but frequently I am force to save in doc format to overcome win users shortcomings.
I'm sorry, I'm to tired to be witty at the moment so this message will have to do.
This is sort of the same thing as people who don't want to make electric car refueling stations, becuase there are already so many gas stations. However, eventually humanity will run out of gas and then people will be forced to build new refueling stations (of what ever kind they may be). It's all a matter of social inertia.
Personally, I save odf and doc, depending on what I am doing; my own docs are odf, my resume is doc.
People send me word documents, and more and more I get .docx documents. I send out documents in odf if others are supposed to read and maybe edit. If they can't read it I send them a pdf, and if the complain about not beein able to edit I maybe send them a .doc file.
.docx files their office 2003 can't open, and they come to me for help...
.odt file for them :-D
It may be being difficult, but I see it as education. People need to be aware of standards. These days people seems to get the point when getting
I'll convert it to a
#find
I recently interviewed for a position with a prominent company that prides itself on being non-evil. _All_ documents mailed back and forth are in odt and txt. There's no trace of Word anywhere. I find that quite cool. I for one save all my stuff in odt, and if I need to send it to someone, then export to Word/PDF.
....I save in M$ .doc format is when I have to send the document to some nitwit who uses Microsoft Office.
More than 60,000 Windows programs won't run on Linux.
...we save everything as .odf so that we have an original to modify. Whatever gets sent we send as .pdf as well as .odf. We also include a small note explaining why two formats are necessary. (OT: that's the first time in my life that the word "neseccary" didn't get a red underline in my spell checker. woot!).
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
Whats the suprise? The reason I use Lotus Symphony is to work with people who insist on using Microsoft Word. So, yes, when I save edits to the files, I save them in .DOC format.
.DOC files, begs the question of WHY they are using OpenOffice or Symphony to access the file -- if they are doing it in response to someone else (boss, colleague, etc) saving the file in .DOC format, then it seems natural that they will save it back in that same format.
.DOC format as a preference, I prefer to use plain ascii text when feasible. I don't bother load up Symphony or OpenOffice for plain text, they take several times longer to load up than Textpad does.
To me, saying that most ppl who use Symphony or OpenOffice save their documents in
But I don't use
I and a another colleague here use Open Office we do need save files in the Microsoft format because the people we correspond with use Microsoft Office on their Microsoft Windows system. However the formatting from Open Office to Microsoft Office is not perfect so we need to tweak our documents so it will show up properly.
Wow! It really works!
As a quality assurance tech, I can vouch for this, at least at my company. Any specs or schematics I've ever seen whether they were created in CAD or not are in PDF format. It's cool because you can just skip to what you want to see, and not have to scroll down.
It takes a big man to cry. It takes a bigger man to laugh at that man. ~ Jack Handy
When I am creating a document that's a) intended for someone who has reason / need to edit it (rather than only read it) and b) is stuck on Microsoft Word like that stupid crush you can't get out of your mind, no matter how destructive.
.odt default, because it's the default, and I have no reason to do choose something else.
But mostly I use the
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Used to save StarOffice/OpenOffice.org as .sxw, then when ODF became default started saving as .odt, they're really very similar.
I probably wouldn't be nearly as supportive of ODF if it wasn't so damn useful. Just unzip and run whatever you want to parse the content, zip it back up and you're done.. trivial script processing of documents doesn't require me to deal with Word macros and other crap that doesn't do what I want.. I don't have to open a WYSIWYG editor to do trivial edits or script processing, I just pipe the content of a formatted document much the same as I always have with text files. sed, awk, perl, grep, all still very useful and relevant with the new and old formats of OpenOffice.org, can't say I've seen any third party utility that could do the same for a Word .doc, except for OpenOffice.org.
At work, where I'm more interested in successful communication, I save in .doc because it is the industry standard. When you email your document to someone, that's the format they expect, and (perhaps unfortunately) most companies use Microsoft Word. In just about any case I can imagine, if you emailed a .odf to someone in business their reaction would be more like .wtf
.doc files are "some old format by that Macro Soft or whatever they were called" and long since consigned to the intellectual property trash can.
At home, where I'm more interested in being able to open my notes etc in 30 years' time (amongst the usual other reasons), I favour the open standard, where even in the worst case and odf dies a death and nobody has written an importer for the last 25 years, at least if the spec is still available somewhere I educate myself hard enough I can eventually open it, whilst ancient
I save in OO native, if I'm sending documents to other people I send them in doc (unless I know they use OO)
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Funny. When I do that it pops up a dialog saying ODF is better, unless I explicitly tell it not to remind me.
Last time I went to a class like that I told the teacher I'd print it for her since it was against my religion and found it very offensive to my beliefs that she would demand I pay the "vile darkness" for products.
:)
She called me crazy, I took it up with the billing department and demanded a refund of my tuition and filed a complaint. A week later I was turning in written papers to a different professor.
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
pretty sure you're full of it, man. IF you already had wordperfect paid for, why would you want office? I think office is excellent, but when I gave up on wordperfect 6.0, I installed wordperfect 5.1.
.wpd is the format of business.
If some moron told me to install an entire office program (A sluggish one that cloned the one I already have, at that), I would email his boss and ask for the correct file format. It's common sense. IF you abuse your position to have people install redundant software, you probably won't be in that position for very long. It's like sending your files in Spanish.
WordPerfect Corporation has a stranglehold, but it's on a dinosaur. Software like this should not be locally installed, it should be online so you can easily collaborate. Beating WordPerfect Corporation by copying them is silly because they will always be a step ahead.
Haven't used anything but OO in years, but always have to save in doc because everything I do has to go electronically to someone sooner or later. And so many people panic when faced with anything except .doc that it's just easier to save everything that way. I'd drop the stupid format in a minute, if I could. Messes up my headers & pagination.
.doc: if his company had competition that was less arrogant, they'd get my business, even if I do save in .doc.
As for the gent who won't support anything but
I save in RTF. ODF isn't widely supported enough yet. Sure I am essentially guaranteed of being able to open it forever, but that doesn't help if I can't open it in Word at school. RTF is basically universal.
Now and then, I get an unsolicited email from someone, usually a job recruiter, in Word format. Sometimes it's an attachment, and sometimes, it's the whole damn email. I sometimes tell them that it's rude to send emails in a format that is not an open standard, especially if I'm totally interested in what they have to say. This one time, some recruiter women kept sending me short emails in Word format, where the whole email was in Word format. I asked her not to do that, but she kept doing it. I think she must had Word tied to Outlook with the wrong box checked, and she didn't know enough to fix the problem. It was incredibly frustrating for me, because I was using a Linux box, and I had to exlicitly download and load each email into OOo just to read it.
I'm a student. I save in odf. If I need to share, I export it to pdf, unless I am threatened that I may be getting a lower grade for a class - then I send in both a .doc and the .pdf, and then delete the doc from my computer and save the pdf for my records... To be honest, if the university wants me to save in doc, they should buy me the software to do so.
I use OOo exclusively. I save all of my Writer documents in .odt format. When I need to send it to someone, I export as PDF and send them that.
.doc if the person I'm sending to needs to edit the document, but that's pretty rare.
Occasionally I'll save as
Don't underestimate the power of The Source
I use txt for most stuff. If I need to get fancy, I use rtf. It has got everything: colors, centered, fonts, bold, italics, and even strikeout. What more could I possibly need in an office format?
For web publishing, I use html or txt.
Write your own Choose Your Own Adventure. http://www.freegameengines.org/gamebook-engine/
I sent some recruiters a PDF and they just about had a heart attack. Told me they couldn't buy Adobe to read it. I tried to explain it was free and there were other readers as well. Then I found out they didn't even have MS office and were using wordpad to read those .doc resumes.
You might think wordpad is a stupid way to do it, but realize that wordpad is so stripped down that macro viruses/trojans don't work with it. I don't think the recruiters realized that advantage though.
I eventually converted it to HTML and they were happy enough with that. I was using troff for my resume (yea, I'm weird) and spitting it out as txt, html, and pdf.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Way to over-react. You're exactly why many people hate college students. You have no real strife in your life so you manufacture it over bullshit.
I've had a number of people using both PowerPoint and OpenOffice.org Impress presentations that bring OpenOffice.org Portable with them as a backup. One found OpenOffice.org wasn't installed and was fine. Another found that their PowerPoint presentation, for some reason, wouldn't open on the copy of PowerPoint on the desktop hooked up to the A/V system. Luckily, OpenOffice.org Portable could open it just fine.
Portable versions of Firefox, GIMP, LibreOffice, etc
actually, it takes people like him to make a difference in the world. Either you get what you want personally, or you get what you want globally. He didn't force the school to use ODF but he did get a different professor. I like his style ;)
Support the source, Open Source! An entire site developed with OSS
Everything in ~/work is .doc or .xls .odt or .ods
Everything in ~/personal is
Family has and uses OOo. Work has an MSDN subscription and uses MS products (yay for free VMWare Server). My company Blackberry 8830 doesn't support any OOo formats, but it supports XLS, DOC, PDF.
I do not save in .doc ever. In fact, I tell people to either get a plugin for .odt or use open office. If they refuse, I send a PDF.
Yes I could save in .doc, but I don't like the closed up minds at Microsoft, so I rather not use it. For me, this works. People around me are adapting, and all my reports are in .odt, and I never get any problems from it.
I like my .odt files.
Maybe he should've just dropped the class rather than treating it like a religious issue. Besides he probably knew how the professor wanted the papers turned in before the class even met for the first time, or at least on the first day when he got a syllabus.
Due to bug 69993 I switched to saving a personal spreadsheet as .xls. That way I get no write errors (but then there is another bug related to the preferences). I would prefer .ods for several reasons but it just does not work when you keep the program running. It used to work, I have no problems with StarOffice 7 and .sxc at work, so no reason to upgrade there. So let's hope Koffice 2.0 will do a better job on supporting the ODF formats and include the features we need.
we are a linux heavy company. our SGI prism runs suse our workstations run on gentoo openoffice is the only office suite but when i need to communicate with another business i use .doc, because one does not piss off clients and suppliers by giving them what they consider electronic garbage.
i might wish that it were otherwise...................
Because colleagues complained about the incredible amout of time it takes when opening a large spreadsheet, I just recently did a performance comparision of different OpenOffice and NeoOffice versions on both OSX and Linux. .xls it takes 50% less time to open !!
The first thing I found out is that the newest Version of NeoOffice (at that time 2.2.1p1) is nearly twice as fast when opening a large and complex spreadsheet. The second thing: when the same spreadsheet is saved/opened as
I've spent years promoting Open/NeoOffice and always urged our employees to use open formats for their documents. - But how can you justify that when opening the same file takes twice the time despite it being in the native format of the application ??
To error is human, to forgive, beyond the scope of the OS.
They get flustered by pdfs, probably because they can't edit them, so odt would be a complete non-starter.
.doc: IBM use Lotus Word and Sun adopted StarOffice a couple of years ago, but the reality is that even they have to send .doc formatted files to the outside world or no-one can read them.
In the last few years I have worked for companies whose official defaults were not MS
Hell no! i send all my stuff in OOo format, payback time suckers. After all these years (and even now) we get the crappy file formats for SIMPLE things that do not have to be any weird closed format you can only read using program X. In fact, i'm still to nice, ODF is a real open standard, so there is _NO_ excuse for not reading it.
If they cry long & hard enough, i'll send it in pdf ofcourse.
The student was fully correct to 1) try to negotiate with the teach and 2) when that failed, switch to a more competent one. If the teacher is *requiring* a format that can be used by only one application on only one platform (both of which are expensive to acquire, operate and maintain) then they have too much ignorance or too much of an axe to grind to be allowed to continue teaching. To add to the damage, that application munges older files in older formats
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
I always save my files in OpenOffice in the Open Document Format, unless I am sending the file to another person who has MS Office and therefore can't open Open Documents. Why would you save a file in a format that is 4 times as big as another one?
Work that is for my own use I save in OpenOffice's native format, such as .odf. Documents I make for wide general distribution, such as notices or announcements, I usually export to .pdf and send in that format. The only time I save something I authored to a Microsoft format is when I need to share a document of some kind with coworkers or other collaborators who use a Microsoft Office product. I frequently encourage others to try OpenOffice, particularly in preference to using a pirated copy of Windows Office.
OpenOffice: $0
Office 2007, right now on Amazon: $389
That might not be an issue to you, but trust me, it is for some people. Way to pass judgment when you don't know shit about shit. You're exactly why many people hate douchebags.
Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
And the fact that Apple just cut support for Cocoa bindings for Java just cinched that I won't be using Xcode for anything.
XCode at least creates universal code, that can be used on both PPC and Intel based Macs. As for Java, other than applets for the web I don't plan on using it. Now I don't know Objective C But I guess programming in it is rather easy if you know C/C++. I'm also thinking of trying out the new Free Pascal and would like to try programming in Smalltalk. Eclipse may be easy to use with these other languages, but as I state in my first sentence above XCode can create universal code and I bet PPC Macs will be around for a few more years.
FalconShould there be a Law?
In fact I wager I would've been in far greater debt, wasted more time, and been in worse shape (financially and physically) if I had stayed in college. I got what I wanted and moved on.
Bottom line, if it works for you, great. It, frankly wasn't worth it for me. That's it.
I'd rather be hiking, fishing, or hunting, rather than be stuck sycophantic to a priest or a professor. Simple as that, really. I drew my line in the sand, and unlike the vast majority of people, I didn't draw a new one, I responded when the line was breached. I owe it to a few very strong people I've had the pleasure to grow up around, even if I dare say I didn't meet some until I was into my 20's.
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
Student and teacher edition is $125 and even cheaper at the many colleges that have agreements with Microsoft (I bought it from my college for $7). And btw the teacher would've accepted .doc, which can I believe can be made with OO.o along with a bunch of other applications.
I had been using OpenOffice for a while, happy I did not have to pirate Office anymore for my simple budget spreadsheet. Even after using OpenOffice I sill saved in XLS. Finally one day I said, I will never need to use Excel again for this, why am I still using XLS. I remember it was a big moment for me. For once I finally felt ODS was a better format then XLS. Like most posters I save in OpenDocument formats at home, the wife and parents use OpenOffice too. But usually I PDF something or RTF if I am going to send it ti someone. Using OpenOffice makes me think about the format, I hate getting XLS and DOC files like the person who sent them thinks I can open them. Maybe I should sent them an image in EPS, see if they can handle that! Maybe compressed in a TAR.GZ.. Ha take THAT!
I also use Linux and OpenOffice. Mac OS X was the least objectionable alternative to having a PC lappie running Windows XP, which is a requirement of the University I'm attending. Macs are considered an acceptable alternative, with the caveat that you are largely on your own with regard to support. A PC lappie running Debian Sarge, (I started there in 2005) on the other hand, is not an acceptable alternative to their IT department, and represents a threat. "Isn't Linux that hacker OS? Are you a hacker or something?" (Actual quote from an IT drone there!) Sigh...
Oh yeah, Office is also a must. Office:Mac v.X and Office:Mac v.2004 are acceptable to the IT department and to professors. OpenOffice, on the other hand, is not.
So basically my dilemma was between purity or finishing my baccalaureate. I chose finishing my baccalaureate. Most University IT departments are like this, by the way. They are very F/OSS unfriendly and very Windows-centric. Microsoft has bought a lot of headspace in American academia.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
theultimatesteal.com has is for $60, but you may need a .edu email address for it.
I really hate Dan Patrick.
.. complaining about me (which in the case presented by the original poster, would be your boss or somebody with a position to take decisions) taking decisions I am entitled to, you would be out of the building looking for new employment faster than a chair thrown by Ballmer.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Software is a tool to accomplish an objective.
If your objective is to be compatible with MS products then get the real thing and stop wasting your time.
If your objective is to improve your productivity in a framework where you are allowed only open formats to be used, then learn to use the correct tool and get around its quirks.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
How many times do you have to start a program during the day?
To be talking about startup times (woah there, it was one minute instead of 30 seconds! The sucks!) is completely puerile.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
And if they are too stupid to insist in word, I send the text with .doc extension ...
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Most people will think you are lousy at formatting.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Translation for you:
"I am the boss, I think open formats are important, and will push this policy because I believe it's beneficial for my organization".
Is that clear or do you need it in Swahili?
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
... are not always the most popular or diplomatic.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
*sigh* More FUD
2007 Office, Student and Home
The price you quoted is the Ultimate edition; or do you think you need that one to get Word?
Oh I'm sorry, that's for the Small Business Full version. Ultimate is more.
Except that if you go to price grabber, you can get Ultimate for the 339.
FUD? Do you even know what that means?
Have it your way. $339, $124, or $0.00. I'm not at all sure what your argument is, but I don't think you're helping it.
Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
Yes, I do know what FUD means. Blatent lying about a point to scare people from a product. Such has a high cost.
My argument is that its not nearly as expensive as the OP was claiming just to use Word. What I didn't mention is that college students can get even cheaper versions through their schools typically. I believe someone else pointed out they can get office 2007 for $7 through their college.
I'd rather pay $124, get something that will work properly, is compatabile with what most others use, and I can actually get support for. Just because something is free doesn't mean its worthwhile. OOo isn't worthwhile. Yes, I actually have used it. If people think MS Office is bad, OOo is simply awful.
Yes, I do know what FUD means. Blatent lying about a point to scare people from a product. Such has a high cost.
...is compatabile with what most others use...
...and I can actually get support for.
Although it must be nice to live in a world where the numbers we've discussed don't qualify as "high cost," a lot of people would disagree with you.
My argument is that its not nearly as expensive as the OP was claiming just to use Word.
I concede that I pulled $3xx from the Super-Duper Mega Ultra Office Edition, but it just happened to be the first thing a search turned up. OTOH, I wasn't including the cost of Windows in that, which, if we're talking about the cost of "using Word," should be in there.
I'd rather pay $124, get something that will work properly...
I don't know what you're talking about here, but I've never seen the "works properly" version of Office. I can't get the damn thing to get out of my way and let me work. It's all in what you're used to, I guess.
Oh, like Office '97? Nope. '95? Uh, no. It's not even compatible with earlier versions of their own product! OOo, on the other hand, is compatible with damn near whatever format you can think to throw at it.
Oh, that's right. Because so many people get Office support from Microsoft. When was the last time you called them?
Just because something is free doesn't mean its worthwhile.
And just because you got suckered into paying through the nose for a half-assed version of what should by 2007 be commodity software, don't take your bitterness out on the rest of us.
Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
Although it must be nice to live in a world where the numbers we've discussed don't qualify as "high cost," a lot of people would disagree with you.
Ya, I can see how $7 is a lot to a college student, and $100 is a lot to anyone with a full time job. Oh wait its not.
I concede that I pulled $3xx from the Super-Duper Mega Ultra Office Edition, but it just happened to be the first thing a search turned up. OTOH, I wasn't including the cost of Windows in that, which, if we're talking about the cost of "using Word," should be in there.
The cost of Windows is typically included in the cost of the computer. If buying the computer already covers Windows, so you don't need to include it again. Of course colleges ALSO offer discounted versions of Windows as well, so again, not a huge expense for college students, and it could even be included in student loans.
I don't know what you're talking about here, but I've never seen the "works properly" version of Office. I can't get the damn thing to get out of my way and let me work. It's all in what you're used to, I guess
You know, lets you get things formatted the way you want. The one that doesn't crash on a constant basis. OOo doesn't include an email progam, so I'll pick on Kmail, that steaming pile that would for no reason corrupt mailbox indexes making it seem as though all your mail disappeared. But i guess its no problem to just delete the index from time to time, because that should be part of normal use anyway.
Oh, like Office '97? Nope. '95? Uh, no. It's not even compatible with earlier versions of their own product! OOo, on the other hand, is compatible with damn near whatever format you can think to throw at it.
Funny how nobody I've met has had these problems, and I haven't either. OOo opens pretty much its own format, and certainly doesn't open Word files in anywhere close to properly.
Oh, that's right. Because so many people get Office support from Microsoft. When was the last time you called them?
Well I haven't had to call them about Office, because I haven't had any issues with it. I did call them for support with MS Money though, twice, and they did resolve both issues. Compared to the idiot FOSS people who either don't read your message and respond with RTFM!! (which, by the way, where IS the manual.. oh it doesn't exist half the time) or remain silent, because I guess nobody can explain what's going wrong.
And just because you got suckered into paying through the nose for a half-assed version of what should by 2007 be commodity software, don't take your bitterness out on the rest of us.
Bitter? Sure. Not because I feel cheated, I wouldn't pay for something I didn't find value in. The bitter part comes from the FOSS failing me. I ran my own Linux server for 10 years, Linux on the desktop for three. It was ok in college, when I wanted to tinker anyway, but when I just want it to work, and to be able to make changes quickly and easily, it failed. RPM hell, poor documentation and only text file configurations, people saying I'm an idiot for not buying some five year old dot matrix printer, because why should I expect anything to work on Linux I guess, wierd problems and crashes to which there were NO answers.. ya, after trying Linux for quite a while, I gladly went back to MS.
Huh.. amazing how zealots become quiet when I explain I did run all linux for a time, and why it failed..
You do realize that he can save in a doc or xls format without paying the $389, right? He was simply too lazy to save the file in another format. He doesn't deserve that professors time.
I don't save in MS Office format: - ODF is usually smaller and it's native to OO.org; - I don't use MS Office; - I send documents in PDF format. Who needs MS Office?
Terribly sorry I didn't reply to you for a whole day. This is stupid. It all ended up with some rant about Red Hat, for god's sake, when the word "Linux" hadn't even been used in the entire debate by either of us. And then you called me a zealot. If you can't stay on point, I don't fucking care.
Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
For myself, and for colleagues who have NeoOffice or OpenOffice.org installed (that's nearly everyone in our Centre):
* always, ODF.
When choices become limited to DOC or PDF (typically, in a web/instutitional context):
* PDF
When there's no other option (rarely):
* DOC
The most recent Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac OS can't handle Microsoft's most recent formats without converting to RTF. There may be numerous excuses and technical reasons for these delays but ultimately, it's unacceptable. What are Microsoft doing with their millions/billions? Haven't they had over twenty years to get things right with MS Office?