Gary Schnabl wrote:
Now that we know that there are numerous discrepancies after converting
to/from MS Word and Writer (and ditto for the other components), just
how are we going to deal with them?
The existence of those discrepancies is not exactly news, and fortunately
each release of OOo has reduced the number of discrepancies (except for the
odd occasion where a new bug in OOo has caused a new problem, which is then
corrected in the next release -- as is the case with the misplaced frames
than Andrew discovered).
But there re some long-standing differences that are not documented well:
for example, the different ways that Writer and Word handle the "first page
of a chapter has a different style from the rest of the pages" sometimes
(always?) causes conversion problems. Gary mentioned some others.
Like many others, I often have to
start and end with MS Word DOC documents while using Writer for the bulk
of the writing or editing tasks. That's just how the real world operates.
If OOo users write or edit in Writer's ODT file format and also save it
to DOC, how can they feel secure that what they see with Writer will
appear the same when viewing their DOC docs with Word?
In my experience, the number and severity of discrepancies between OOo and
Word is no more than one finds when using different versions of Word.
But I completely agree that if people don't know what the problems are, and
if there are things they could do differently (e.g. avoiding using fields
that don't convert), then conversion problems are going to be an irritation
or worse. Same as when bringing Word documents into some DTP or other
programs: I used to have a little checklist of things to avoid (like "smart
quotes") in the Word file, in order to get a clean conversion.
OOoAuthors should maintain a list of who's been naughty or nice (and
check it twice...). Every known OOo conversion bug should be disclosed
(both in the appropriate chapter in the docs and in an omnibus chapter
or appendix), so that knowledge of their presence can be determined at
once. Also having these bugs listed might even get them remedied quicker
in case a critical mass of bugs or a tipping point is exceeded.
Several years ago I had started a project to keep track of such things, and
to suggest ways to avoid problems.
http://oooauthors.org/en/authors/mso/folder_contents
Unfortunately, nothing ever came of it -- the usual problem of insufficient
time among those who were interested.
Perhaps, the OOoAuthors could have another Note devoted to bugs of this
type until they are eliminated. In any event, we should amass a list for
ourselves and clean up the "published" chapters so that the conversion
errors are noted and any kludges or work-arounds are described.
There are other sites that list conversion problems and workarounds, but
the ones I've seen tend to be incomplete or out of date. I certainly
encourage you, and others, to pursue this. It's definitely worth doing and
IMO would be a great help to the community. If I had the time, I would be
doing more in this area, but given that I've had the intention of pursuing
it for over 3 years, without actually doing much of anything, I am not
going to pretend that I'll be much help.
--Jean
