Slashdot Mirror
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
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.
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
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
'.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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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"
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.
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
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
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
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
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.