bob lyskowski wrote:
Robin Laing Wrote:
I disagree. If I open something in text, I may want to save it as
odf or pdf with changes that are acceptable. I may also open a
spreadsheet that I want to export as text which will lose sheets and
formatting. When I run a program, I want all the features
available. When I save it is when I make a decision on what I can
afford to lose. If I want to edit a text document, I don't use OOo,
I use emacs or a text editor. OOo is just overkill.
Bob Writes:
First off, don't take anything I say as criticism of OOo. I actually
really like OOo, and that is not just the cheap engineer in me
talking. I really get frustrated with M$ and many other programs. I
guess what this jumble of words is, is just a suggestion of improvement
for all programs. Microsoft being the biggest culpret.
I had used text as an extreme example. Although, saying using OOo is
overkill misses the usefulness of spell check etc. I have found that
the only truly universally compatible format is text. Although, you
have to be careful when using an unfamiliar machine or program because
if autocorrect is turned on you could end up with 1/2 being turned into
½ and such. Of course text is extremely limited. I have seen
incompatibility issues between OOo and M$ as well as between different
versions of M$ or even the same version of M$ but on different
machines. I haven't tried going from one version of OOo to another,
but lets pick a scenario that is likely. Lets say I have an old
version of OOo on my old Pentium Laptop running Win95 ( I do ) and I am
using the latest version of OOo Spreadsheets. I expect that there are
some new formulas available on the new version of OOo. Lets say I want
to create a spreadsheet that I can use on either machine. I would want
to create the spreadsheet, then save as OOo 1.0 or whatever.
From the time I saved it, I would not want to be able to use features,
formulas or formatting that is not available in OOo 1.0 because then it
would be unreadable.
A good real world example that I have experienced happened with M$ and I
have experienced similar issues with other programs. I had a Microsoft
Excel 2003 that I used at work. There was a formatting option that I
put to good use where I could input a number and the number would be
displayed with letters. In this case I would enter say 5.30 and it
would display "$5.30 / month". I was on a friend's machine which had
Microsoft Excel 2003 but I guess with a different service pack or
something because it changed all the cells with the "$5.30 / month" type
formatting to text format. I did not realize it until much later when
I noticed some calculations were screwed up. By then it was too late,
I had to either edit each of the old entries or redo everything.
Fortunately I have learned to always make a backup copy before editing
if using an unfamiliar machine so I had to just redo that day's work.
I have not been using OOo a lot until very recently. I have run into
compatibility issues with formatting. I actually think the issue is
with M$ and not OOo, but can not tell for sure. Maybe I am missing
something. For example, I use M$ to create and edit a word doc that I
keep saved as RTF. It works fine from one 'puter to the next (using
word), but when I bring it into OOo highlighted sentences are not
highlighted and other issues. Mostly minor. I would be willing to
bet that M$ saves RTF files with some extra crap that only works on M$.
So, anyway, the best suggestion I received here is also exactly what I
would want to see in all programs: The program will shadow out any
commands etc that are incompatible with the version that the file was
last saved in.
Bob
I don't take things that hard in this world. I would be in really shape.
I do agree with compatibility issues between any application. I run
into it almost daily. I just use the tools that work for me that are
the most productive. I wouldn't use Word to edit text either. I would
use WordPad or Notepad if I was editing a text file that I was going to
leave as a text file.
My wife uses Mac, Linux and Windows and OOo is the best across all
platforms. Even MS Office between different Windows machines was
problematic as you have stated. I ran into the same issues with Office
2000 myself.
You did bring up an interesting point on saving a file in an older
format as to what would change. Maybe an improvement to the "Save As
XXX format" could have a "further information button" to explain what
would be lost or changed. But that still would not fix the issue of
saving as a the current format and there being a machine dependent
difference causing issues. Just as you mention the problems you had.
I for one wouldn't like to lose formatting features on imported files
because I will save the documents in odf and then when I am done my
work, export it to the format(s) I need then. In many cases pdf is the
first selection, then the office formats and lastly, text based. In
some cases, all of the above for the same document for different reasons.
--
Robin Laing
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