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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
It is software companies like this that force us to save in MS formats!
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.
I also do PDF quite bit, it also makes you look a bit more professional, as PDFs have a nice snobby image.
.txt. The best supported open format in the history of computing. Plain Text forever!
However, my main format, especially when collaborating is
My little Linux and tech blog
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.
.
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.
What makes this even worse is the abominable equation editors that are used with word. At school here they've made it even worse by installing MathType for equations in word, which is even worse to use and not even compatible with the built in equation editor so I can't edit the equations at home even using MS Office.
I don't use OpenOffice because it is free, I use it because it is better.
pretty sure you're full of it, man. IF you already had office paid for, why would you want openoffice? I think openoffice is excellent, but when I gave up on Office 2007, I installed Office 2003.
.doc 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.
Microsoft 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 Microsoft by copying them is silly because they will always be a step ahead.
Translation:
I'm a dick that likes to slow down the business process and make others install redundant software (if they are even allowed to) that both costs time and money, but I don't care because it makes me feel important.
-Mark
Dovie'andi se tovya sagain.
It seems to me that your library should install open office on those computers, as well. It goes against the spirit of anti-trust legislation to have public utilities (such as a university library) forcing people into a specific company's product in order to get full print capability. That is typically going to be the case, as well, because since .doc is a closed format, not everything transfers over correctly.
.odfs to the print server.
Now, on the other side of the coin may be the fact that Microsoft has provided the library with computers for free, under the contract that no openoffice gets installed on them. Fine, and well -- then set up one computer which the library has purchased free and clear, that sends the
If the contract specifies no open-office anywhere, at all, then I'd say that the users should be informed of that fact, and be given the opportunity to sign up on a list of complainants, for the purpose of a university-wide lawsuit against Microsoft.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
I'm a dick because I save in .doc assuming that everyone is like me, slowing down business processes for other folks.
or how about this one:
I'm a dick because I make it practice to write software that doesn't enable clients to interact with all others, but rather limit them to the "ecosystem" that my company has engineered. I like to make claims that by using my "ecosystem" of software, their business processes are sped up. Rather, the truth is that I've not sped up anything, I've only slowed down business processes for those not using my software, and I get to call those people dicks because they aren't part of the bandwagon.
--josh
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
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