[discuss] OO Writer
kwalsh2004
I am writing to every e-mail address I could find on your Contact Us/Help
page on your web site. I teach computers part time at two small private
elementary schools - and one of them couldn't afford the licenses of MS
Office, so we've been using Open Office. I found it to lacking in all the
things that would make it easier for these younger kids to learn the
application, like Clip art, page borders, etc.
That aside, I am writing to tell you of my latest issue. I usually use MS
Word at home to write up my lesson plans, but last week, I updated the
page in Open Office Writer and saved it in the same format (MS Word), not OO
Writer. When I tried to open it today, in MS Word (my home computer) - none
of the text in my table is there - 99% of it has dissappeared! The onlything
left was my headers and 29 blank pages (it was only one page when I saved
it).
I had to download Open Office on my home computer, where I was able to open
the Word document in Writer. When I copied the table into a new Word
document, it was all messed up - the rows and columns were not the size they
appeared in Writer (or the original Word document), so I spent about 30-45
minutes to fix one of my lesson plans so that it look like I had it
originally. I have 4 total to fix. There was a one-page plan for each week
(Jan. 25th and Feb1st), and each had 3 columns (one for the class period
times, and one for each day that I teach: Tuesday and Thursday and the other
was Wednesday and Friday), and one school had 10 rows and the other had 11.
Now I have to fix the other two, and I don't really have 3-4 hours to waste
fixing this. It's been a struggle with the kids, but I have learned my
lesson - I will never use Open Office for any of my personal and
professional documents.
Kim Walsh
(P.S. I didn't register the version we use in school as we are hoping to be
able to afford MS Office next year and didn't want to be part of any
feedback study, or receive any e-mails or spam.)
Joe Anderson
Hi Kim:
I think what you are seeing is the total garbage that Microsoft puts out. I don't use Word or Office because I have a Mac, and putting that junk on my Mac would be sacrilegious. I do use WordPerfect on a PC and have for many years, when importing or opening a WP doc in Word it is always screwed up. Taking the same doc from WP into OO works fine.
Just my 2 cents worth-Joe
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Bruce Martin
From Canada:
(Parts of this replay are interspersed with your original complaint.)
Out of the box techie here!
This is the kind of problem I have been dealing with for some years. I use a
custom built computer that will run 3 operating systems, BIOS controlled and
share about 4.5 Tb. of data in 3 languages (of the 92 that Open Office
supports).
It boots in either of 2 installs of Win XP or one of Fedora 12 (Linux)
In Windows it runs Open office and Microsoft office concurrently with a
whole roomful of external hardware as a pert of a network on 3 floors.
In Linux, it runs Open office and many Linux based applications (almost
always free and legal) to do a diversity of tasks, some of which one would
not do in Windows.
There are many ways to produce stuff in Oo and render it for use with non Oo
users.
Whether this were done in Linux or Windows is transparent (that is to say
that the end user does not even know which operating system or software it
came from unless he is told, or it comes in a format proprietary to one
platform (typically the Microsoft applications which use specialized
proprietary file formats, not a likely issue for a school.)
The success if importing and exporting documents from any software to any
other values more with the specific details of the content of each
individual file.
The following content categories apply pretty much not only to Word
processor documents (Word, Writer, etc.), but also to spreadsheets, drawings
and presentations.
Generally the basics import/export very well:
- Text (excluding issues with different installed fonts on different
machines.)
- Raster Bitmap) graphics; digital pictures or images (notwithstanding
whether the particular size, resolution and colour depth of the graphic are
appropriate to the needs of the environment into which it is to be imported.
This works better in Writer than in Word, but dragging and dropping an image
into Oo Draw or Impress is not recommended. It is better to use the insert
picture from file approach in these applications.
This does not include anything containing executable content, such as
vectorial information, layers, editable text, etc. Therefore, some raster
files, such as .PSD (Photoshop) or .XCF (The Gimp), being multilayered
graphics rasters, contain layers and this feature is effectively vectorial.
- Language settings for the spellcheckers. This works provided the
environment into which the content is imported supports the appropriate
dictionaries, thesauruses and hyphenation dictionaries for the same
languages coded into the original application.
(Please note that for any language that is spoken in multiple countries,
each country's dialect is treated as a separate language in all systems.)
For exotic languages, additional special setups may be required (right to
left, (Farsi), concept/symbol (such as Chinese), etc. in every system that
needs them. This is in addition to added fonts specific to these languages.
These types of content do not import/export well, but can be handled
effectively by alternative, extra procedures (these are actually forms of
embedded executable content).
- Vector graphics (.WMV, .DXF, .SVG, .PS etc.) These correspond with
Word draw, and may be added to a Word document from Oo Draw or Inkscape by
the use of the clipboard. They may sometimes need fixing up in Word after
the fact due to the proprietary approach of Microsoft. In the case of .DXF,
it should load as a picture, providing your copy of Microsoft office has the
added special filters to handle it (usually available on the original
install disk, but not turned on in a default installation.)
- Animation.
- Sections and some types of hyperlinks.
In more extensively structured documents, it may be necessary to rebuild the
sections and hyperlinks in Word. If you have a non-working hyperlink showing
in a newly-imported Word file, in Word, select the hyperlink and press
{ctrl-k}. This will open the dialogue to fix the coding to suit Word.
In what Country, City are you located? (This might help me to further help
you.)
I have done electronic reconstructions from hard cover books of over 200
pages at a shot, including graphics and illustrations. Output can be in many
formats. Typically this is scan, OCR and reconstruct with hyperlinks to make
the end product easily navigable. These may be multilingual, and/or contain
specialized terms.
I also program large complex spreadsheet workbook applications and some
Relational databases using Oo Base.
If you still have the original Writer file (or the corrupt Word file), you
might want to send me a copy for more diagnostic info.
I can likely help you (and surprise you in the process!)
Best Regards,
Bruce Martin
Brucem...@gmail.com
-----Original Message-----
From: kwalsh2004 [mailto:kwals...@gmail.com] Sent: February 2, 2010 12:44
PM
To: webma...@openoffice.org; us...@openoffice.org; dis...@openoffice.org
Subject: [discuss] OO Writer
Hello -
I am writing to every e-mail address I could find on your Contact Us/Help
page on your web site. I teach computers part time at two small private
elementary schools - and one of them couldn't afford the licenses of MS
Office, so we've been using Open Office. I found it to lacking in all the
things that would make it easier for these younger kids to learn the
application, like Clip art, page borders, etc.
That aside, I am writing to tell you of my latest issue. I usually use MS
Word at home to write up my lesson plans, but last week, I updated the page
in Open Office Writer and saved it in the same format (MS Word), not OO
Writer.
When I tried to open it today, in MS Word (my home computer) - none of the
text in my table is there - 99% of it has dissappeared! The only thing left
was my headers and 29 blank pages (it was only one page when I saved it).
(There may be more there, but hidden. This sometimes happens!)
I had to download Open Office on my home computer, where I was able to open
the Word document in Writer. When I copied the table into a new Word
document, it was all messed up - the rows and columns were not the size they
appeared in Writer (or the original Word document), so I spent about 30-45
minutes to fix one of my lesson plans so that it look like I had it
originally.
I have 4 total to fix. There was a one-page plan for each week (Jan. 25th
and Feb 1st), and each had 3 columns (one for the class period times, and
one for each day that I teach: Tuesday and Thursday and the other was
Wednesday and Friday), and one school had 10 rows and the other had 11.
Now I have to fix the other two, and I don't really have 3-4 hours to waste
fixing this. It's been a struggle with the kids, but I have learned my
lesson - I will never use Open Office for any of my personal and
professional documents.
Kim Walsh
"The Benefits are in the details. No person made this; no person can change
this." To solve problems, one must dig deep, however a large part of that
digging can be delegated, although not all.
(P.S. I didn't register the version we use in school as we are hoping to be
able to afford MS Office next year and didn't want to be part of any
feedback study, or receive any e-mails or spam.)
No virus found in this incoming message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
Version: 9.0.733 / Virus Database: 271.1.1/2663 - Release Date: 02/02/10
02:35:00
Johnny Rosenberg
> Hello -
>
> I am writing to every e-mail address I could find on your Contact Us/Help
> page on your web site. I teach computers part time at two small private
> elementary schools - and one of them couldn't afford the licenses of MS
> Office, so we've been using Open Office. I found it to lacking in all the
> things that would make it easier for these younger kids to learn the
> application, like Clip art, page borders, etc.
>
> That aside, I am writing to tell you of my latest issue. I usually use MS
> Word at home to write up my lesson plans, but last week, I updated the
> page in Open Office Writer and saved it in the same format (MS Word), not OO
> Writer. When I tried to open it today, in MS Word (my home computer) - none
> of the text in my table is there - 99% of it has dissappeared! The onlything
> left was my headers and 29 blank pages (it was only one page when I saved
> it).
>
> the Word document in Writer. When I copied the table into a new Word
> document, it was all messed up - the rows and columns were not the size they
> appeared in Writer (or the original Word document), so I spent about 30-45
> minutes to fix one of my lesson plans so that it look like I had it
> originally. I have 4 total to fix. There was a one-page plan for each week
> times, and one for each day that I teach: Tuesday and Thursday and the other
> was Wednesday and Friday), and one school had 10 rows and the other had 11.
> Now I have to fix the other two, and I don't really have 3-4 hours to waste
> fixing this. It's been a struggle with the kids, but I have learned my
> lesson - I will never use Open Office for any of my personal and
> professional documents.
>
> Kim Walsh
Well, now much helpful, but all I can say is just avoid to use the
Microsoft formats as far as possible. Since Microsoft's file formats
(except those OOXML things) are not open formats, so it is actually
impressing that OpenOffice.org is as compatible with it as it is. I
don't have a clue how they did it, but I guess they had to do some
reverse engineering to get a clue how it works. So of course it
doesn't work for 100%.
I think that, instead of saving to a Microsoft Format, it is probably
better to install Sun's ODF plugin to MS Office, then save your
documents as ODF in OpenOffice.org.
Regards
Johnny Rosenberg
Tony Pursell
>
> (P.S. I didn't register the version we use in school as we are hoping to be
> able to afford MS Office next year and didn't want to be part of any
> feedback study, or receive any e-mails or spam.)
>
You need not fear anything from 'registering' your copy of
OpenOffice.org. It is only used to get some idea of how many people
use OpenOffice.org. Because OpenOffice.org is given away free, we
don't have any sales figures to use.
One thing you probably have not realised yet is that there is an
amazing community of people associated with OpenOffice.org, who
develop it, promote it and, most important for you, are willing to help
others to get the best out of OpenOffice.org. Go to
to find out more about this.
Tony Pursell
One of the community of users who support OpenOffice.org.
PS to my OpenOffice.org colleagues:
Mr Walsh is not subscribed to this mailing list, so he may not see you
replies to him.
Bob Long
> 2010/2/2 kwalsh2004 <kwals...@gmail.com>:
[..]
> Well, now much helpful, but all I can say is just avoid to use the
> Microsoft formats as far as possible. Since Microsoft's file formats
> (except those OOXML things) are not open formats, so it is actually
> impressing that OpenOffice.org is as compatible with it as it is. I
> don't have a clue how they did it, but I guess they had to do some
> reverse engineering to get a clue how it works. So of course it
> doesn't work for 100%.
I thought the Microsoft file formats were now published:
http://www.microsoft.com/interop/docs/OfficeBinaryFormats.mspx
--
Bob Long
M. Fioretti
> Johnny Rosenberg wrote:
> >Well, now much helpful, but all I can say is just avoid to use the
> >Microsoft formats as far as possible. Since Microsoft's file formats
> >(except those OOXML things) are not open formats
Calling OOXML open is... let's say optimistic.
> I thought the Microsoft file formats were now published:
> http://www.microsoft.com/interop/docs/OfficeBinaryFormats.mspx
I recommend everybody thinking that OOXML is open and/or that
publishing a spec is enough to make a format actually usable
(including the person to whom I answered yesterday, the one who was
talking about "complete success" in MS Office compatibility) to read:
"How to hire Guillaume Portes"
http://www.robweir.com/blog/2007/01/how-to-hire-guillaume-portes.html
and the other links in the Resources section of "Just Say No to
OpenXML":
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/9594#mpart8
Marco
--
Should water be public or private? Australian, of course:
http://stop.zona-m.net/node/52
Dotan Cohen
> I found it to lacking in all the
> things that would make it easier for these younger kids to learn the
> application, like Clip art, page borders, etc.
>
There are Open Office clip art packages available, and an Open Office
spinoff called go-oo that contains more clip art. But tell me, what is
missing about the page borders?
> That aside, I am writing to tell you of my latest issue. I usually use MS
> Word at home to write up my lesson plans, but last week, I updated the
> page in Open Office Writer and saved it in the same format (MS Word), not OO
> Writer. When I tried to open it today, in MS Word (my home computer) - none
> of the text in my table is there - 99% of it has dissappeared! The onlything
> left was my headers and 29 blank pages (it was only one page when I saved
> it).
>
If you can send the document to me in private mail I can take a look
at it. In which version of Open Office was the document made?
> I had to download Open Office on my home computer, where I was able to open
> the Word document in Writer. When I copied the table into a new Word
> document, it was all messed up - the rows and columns were not the size they
> appeared in Writer (or the original Word document), so I spent about 30-45
> minutes to fix one of my lesson plans so that it look like I had it
> originally. I have 4 total to fix. There was a one-page plan for each week
> (Jan. 25th and Feb1st), and each had 3 columns (one for the class period
> times, and one for each day that I teach: Tuesday and Thursday and the other
> was Wednesday and Friday), and one school had 10 rows and the other had 11.
> Now I have to fix the other two, and I don't really have 3-4 hours to waste
> fixing this. It's been a struggle with the kids, but I have learned my
> lesson - I will never use Open Office for any of my personal and
> professional documents.
>
The different table layouts may have been due to different default
paper sizes or printer drivers installed in the different machines.
This is a Microsoft Office feature (they don't consider it a bug) by
the way, not an Open Office issue. You would be far better using the
ODT (default) file format, and sharing the documents as PDFs. Writer
can export to PDF, in fact there is a toolbar item for just that!
--
Dotan Cohen
http://what-is-what.com
http://gibberish.co.il
Please CC me if you want to be sure that I read your message. I do not
read all list mail.
Douglas St.Clair
On Feb 2, 2010, at 12:43 PM, kwalsh2004 wrote:
> Hello -
>
> ... I found it to lacking in all the
> things that would make it easier for these younger kids to learn the
> application, like Clip art, page borders, etc.
Let's start at the beginning. I assumed that since you were using Writer you wanted to teach writing, grammar, spelling, etc. What are you trying to teach where a lack of Clip Art or Borders impedes learning?
> That aside, I am writing to tell you of my latest issue. I usually use MS
> Word at home to write up my lesson plans, but last week, I updated the
> page in Open Office Writer and saved it in the same format (MS Word), not OO
> Writer. When I tried to open it today, in MS Word (my home computer) - none
> of the text in my table is there - 99% of it has dissappeared! The onlything
> left was my headers and 29 blank pages (it was only one page when I saved
> it).
There are a number of 'compatible' formats between Microsoft and OO. However, I would suggest RTF as your first choice and HTML as a viable second choice for saving documents that are going to travel back and forth between editors as well as between Operating Systems such as Mac, Linux, Windows, etc. RTF and HTML are both essentially public formats whose specifications are readily available and well understood by developers. Microsoft native formats (doc and docx) are proprietary and which various vendors attempt to provide compatibility Microsoft doesn't make it easy.
Captain Nice
cptn...@gmail.com
"I love my computer, because my friends live in it!"
NoOp
> Hello -
>
...
(kwals...@gmail.com) in their reply, please note that he/she will not
have received your response. Kim Walsh is not subscribed to the list:
From: kwalsh2004 <kwals...@gmail.com>
...
Subject: OO Writer
Date: Tue, 2 Feb 2010 12:43:33 -0500
...
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^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Joe Anderson
M. Fioretti
> On 02/02/2010 09:43 AM, kwalsh2004 wrote:
> > Hello -
> >
> ...
> Note to all those in this thread that didn't cc Kim Walsh
> (kwals...@gmail.com) in their reply, please note that he/she will not
> have received your response. Kim Walsh is not subscribed to the list:
Sounds like a good moment to re-suggest this:
http://www.openoffice.org/servlets/ReadMsg?list=discuss&msgNo=65332
but, above all, to ask again what I asked 3 days ago on this same
list. Harold wrote in the "What to do" message:
http://www.openoffice.org/servlets/ReadMsg?listName=discuss&msgNo=65589
> I am not allowed to [notify unsubscribed users of replies to their
> queries] privately because, apparently, that makes me look like some
> sort of "official representative" of OOo.
so I asked, and ask again:
> I admit I had missed this before and it really puzzles me. May I ask
> when/where/how you were told that you can't do that, and by whom?
oh, and of course: why? What's wrong with notifying unsubscribed users
in a way that doesn't spam the lists and fills their archives with
useless messages, and how in the world would anything like that make
sane people think you're a "official representative" of OOo???
TIA,
Marco
--
A simple exercise about online privacy
http://stop.zona-m.net/node/83