On 12/3/05, John Thompson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > On 2005-12-03, Chad Smith <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > Adobe Reader isn't a 50 MB + download, and a massive 100 MB + install, > and > > doesn't take a lot of time to load or a lot of RAM to run. > > You're right -- Acrobat Reader (7.0.5) is a svelt 20MB download and only > requires about 55MB to install... :-)
Well, OOo is 75 MB (English, Windows, 2.0). That's a lot more than 20 MB. And I think the final install is over 150, probably over 200 MB - the 100 was being very conservative. My point is, Reader is a *LOT* smaller and lighter than OOo. And it should be, a reader should be a ton smaller than an office suite. Downloading and installing a complete office suite in order to open a file or two is crazy, even if it is a free office suite. Agreed, a simple viewer would be nice. But installing OOo to view .odt > files is no worse than having to install MS-Office to view .doc, .xls, and > .ppt files -- cheaper too! You can download AbiWord to view MSO files too. Or a number of MSO viewers that exist, many from Microsoft itself. Plus, all Windows installs since like 98 or 95 include a little program called WordPad (unless the user specifially asks for it not to be installed) which can open Word DOC files. Here are some DOC, PPT, and XLS viewers. http://www.microsoft.com/office/000/viewers.asp http://tinyurl.com/3qlb4 - 12 MB Word Viewer http://tinyurl.com/6tss3 - 11 MB Excel Viewer http://tinyurl.com/3nend - 2 MB Powerpoint Viewer* *That's 25 MB total - 1/3 the size of OOo. And it's free, too. Or you could download a trial version of MSO for free. Look, the point is not that you can view MS files for free - OOo proves that. And it's not to promote MS Office, or it's formats. I'm using those as examples of what *COULD* be done for ODF - and what I think *SHOULD* be done. Telling someone the only way they're gonna open the spreadsheet I sent them is to download a 75MB file and install a full-featured office suite on their computer, is not a good way to promote OpenOffice.org - or ODF. Of course, all this could be avoided if you sent the file in a format they could open - which to more than 90% of the world is MSO formats - .doc, .ppt, .xls. PDFs work good too. -- - Chad Smith http://www.gimpshop.net/ Because everyone loves free software!
