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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?"

20 of 620 comments (clear)

  1. I save in ODF by denisbergeron · · Score: 1, Funny

    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 !
  2. Re:Count at least ONE who doesnt. by calebt3 · · Score: 1, Funny

    It's "Digg"

  3. Re:Count at least ONE who doesnt. by Daniel+Phillips · · Score: 1, Funny

    I save in .doc only if I got the document in .doc, and then not always. Any new document I save in .odf. I normally send .odf documents by email, and when somebody tells me "I can't open it" I send them this link.

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    Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
  4. Re:Count at least ONE who doesnt. by Skevin · · Score: 5, Funny

    I use .odf when I'm feeling vindictive. Sometimes, a company will send me an email, whose entire body is otherwise stored in a .doc file, when it could have otherwise fit in just the regular body. I re-save the document as an .odf, make my changes or answer their questions, and then send it back to them.

    S.

    --
    "Twice half-assed makes an ass whole." --Solomon K. Chang
  5. Re:Count Two by yarbelk · · Score: 5, Funny

    Good thing I'm a physicist, the format for journals is LaTeX.

    --
    Once more into the breach dear friends, once more.
  6. Re:Count at least ONE who doesnt. by SgtChaireBourne · · Score: 2, Funny

    I do'em one better. I grab the beginning of the binary file and use dd to fill the rest with 'data' from /dev/random or /dev/urandom, then I send the modified attachment back complain that it won't open to please send another format, usually PDF.

    --
    Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
  7. Re:Count Two by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Good thing I'm a proctologist, the format for tests is a brown probe.

  8. That's great news! by jfbilodeau · · Score: 2, Funny

    "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.
  9. Re:Count at least ONE who doesnt. by jimicus · · Score: 5, Funny

    From personal experience, most people pay so little attention to email you send them that it wouldn't matter too much if you were able to send an email that magically turned their computer into a dancing ferret wearing top hat and tails, they wouldn't open it anyway.

    Not unless the subject line was britney_spears_naked, anyway.

  10. Re:Count Two by xSauronx · · Score: 4, Funny

    Good thing Im unemployed and don't have to deal with silly things like "communicating with humans"

    --
    By and large, language is a tool for concealing the truth. -- George Carlin
  11. Re:Count at least ONE who doesnt. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny
  12. Re:Don't give in! by MightyYar · · Score: 3, Funny

    I'm so glad that you told me that - it always drove me nuts. I think a TIFF pasted into word will be my next resume format for the recruiters!

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    W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
  13. Re:Count Two by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Thanks for the head's-up. Now we'll block those attachments too...

  14. Re:Count Two by Matt+Perry · · Score: 2, Funny

    Good thing I'm a physicist, the format for journals is LaTeX.
    What is it with you physicists with your whips and chains and LaTeX?
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  15. Re:Count Two by cp.tar · · Score: 2, Funny

    Good thing I'm a proctologist, the format for tests is a brown probe.

    And if the Goatse guy comes to see you, you actually don't have to do anything.

    ...

    Goatse guy coming to see you... with his business end... yes, I knew there was a reason I didn't go to study medicine.

    --
    Ignore this signature. By order.
  16. Re:Count at least ONE who doesnt. by ignavus · · Score: 3, Funny

    "DOC if I need hell to freeze over."

    So what you are saying is, saving files in .DOC format helps fight global warming?

    A new advertising angle for Microsoft's marketroids.

    --
    I am anarch of all I survey.
  17. Re:I beliefe .rtf got its start elsewhere. by DaedalusHKX · · Score: 2, Funny

    I'll defer to the wisdom of wikipedia. Its infallibility crushes any vague memory I might have.

    Cheers. Good show bud.

    --
    " What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
  18. Re:Count Two by DaedalusHKX · · Score: 2, Funny

    The beauty of things is that I seek to mostly simplify my life. Compiling kernels and patching my own scripts is the extent of complexity I desire. (I like building my own software from source or with a text editor and a compiler when I so desire and have the time), however I have not one damn thing that requires more than a couple of simple formulas, not even my book keeping. That's the irony.

    For others who want to do the MS thing, I fully enforce it. Then I let them screw it up, so they pay MORE. It suits me fine, when they're ready to stop the pain, I help them, if they don't I am only too happy to receive their hard earned cash for the advanced features.

    Make no mistake about it, the customer is ALWAYS right. If they want to pay ten times more to make their lives difficult, I am ALL for it. If I can sell them Quickbooks, Quicken, ten different versions of antivirus, and 3 different versions of a buggy OS... and show up to patch it once every 3 months as per contract, damn straight I will. Their money is worth a lot more to me than giving myself a headache to "save" them. I save myself and those willing, everyone else can keep paying, and I'll be glad to be the payee!

    --
    " What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
  19. Re:Missing the point by Trogre · · Score: 2, Funny

    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.

    I find the nail-growing load/save times intensely frustrating, to say nothing of the glacial start-up time.

    Compared to MS Office, which goes like a road-runner in comparison. Of course, that would be a road-runner that slams into brick walls from time to time and doesn't know how to pick itself up again. But I've carried that analogy too far.

    (Note: I use OpenOffice.org 99% of the time and save in ODF, except when I know the recipient doesn't have OOo and can't be bothered coaching them through the import process)

    --
    "Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
  20. Re:Count Two by dotancohen · · Score: 2, Funny

    You are too pessimistic. I had a period where I was only sending odfs, with an explanation, and I found that people were very receptive. I should probably go back to that policy.

    Here's an idea. The wife has her circle of friends that send each other docs and ppts all day. I should convert them to odf and send them along with an explanation. Might help get the word out (pun intended).

    --
    It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.