Daniel,

As is usually the case, it's easier to point to problems than it is to
illustrate solutions.  I've already received several responses that
range from the specific (yours) to the 50,000 foot level discussion of
OO in a more global perspective.  I appreciate all of it.  I'll offer
a couple of thoughts while trying to keep my promise to (mostly) lurk
for a while and come up to speed on things.

>The Microsoft file format is a company *secret*. It is propietary. The way

I understand the problems with MS's proprietary formats.  I suspect
that even their releasing the XML DTD schemas (not sure if that's the
exact corrrect terminology) will not completely address this problem.

>The compatibility of OpenOffice.org with MS Office is about the same
as that between
>different versions of MS Office.

Agreed -- I've seen that plenty of times!

>If we don't say anything we'll get yelled that because the conversion
isn't perfect.
>Shouldn't we warn users about that?

Definitely. My contention is that the warning (if it's necessary) is
misplaced. Having gone to the effort of formatting a document and then
attempting to save it in a format that is "comfortable" (as well as
possibly required) it's very disconcerting to receive that message. 
If there are known issues (e.g. the style sheet issue mentioned in a
different message), or areas of ambiguity where there _might_ be
problems, they should be noted at the time that those features are
selected.  As I mentioned in my previous email, one option might be to
provide a warning when any feature is selected that is in the "we're
guessing here" domain. Another option is to only offer the warning at
save time if there are indeed formatting elements that may be
problematic. In every instance where I have received the message my
documents were very plain documents -- little formatting other than
just bolding,  various font sizes, justification, etc.

Again,  I know it's much easier offering suggestions from the outside
looking in.  I intend to do the reading suggested by Christian and
others and think about this in the context of users other than those
switching from MS Office.

Rick.

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