Hi There I author the covermounted CD-ROM for BBC Who Do You Think You Are? Magazine, a UK-based publication licensed from the BBC TV programme of the same name and published monthly by BBC Magazines Bristol (a subsidiary of Origin Publishing).
We regularly include tables of data and records on the disc, invariably in PDF or HTML format, and we use these formats largely so that the magazine readers can view the files using standard and freely-downloadable applications. However we regularly have problems with this approach because (as you probably know) once one starts getting beyond a certain amount of data in a table (or similar) PDF and HTML files become wholly inadequate and take wwwaaaayyyyy too long to render etc. when the file is opened. We had considered working around this by including Micro$oft's free Excel Viewer and Access Runtime installers when necessary, but these are Windows-only apps and so leave our Mac-based readers high-and-dry. And then it occurred to me - Open Office is the perfect solution - therefore: - What do we need to do in order to get a license to distribute the Open Office installers on our cover-discs on those occasions when it's required? - Would it be sufficient for me, as the freelance disc author, to gain the license, or would the publishers have to apply for it? Many thanks Adam Crute
