Doug, a couple of general comments: On Sun, May 06, 2007 12:44:29 PM -0700, Doug Koup ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
> I understand all the advantages of the open formats. I also > understand that these formats will never be used unless people give > up the crutch that is proprietary formats. Sadly, the only thing my > elderly neighbors know is that they wrote a letter to a friend and > their friend was unable to read it. This makes me think that your neighbours don't write those letters to _print_ them and put them in an envelope, but they write and then send the file by email. If this is the case, file formats have nothing to do with the actual problem. Just out of curiosity, have you already tried to explain them that sending their words as email body, rather than as an attachment (Word or OpenDocument doesn't matter) is much better for lots of reasons? It costs less if one is on a metered connection, is much less likely to get labeled as spam, it will never cause compatibility problems and so on. > Some people may say, "They should spend the time to learn the > difference." but my elderly neighbors and their friends just want > their grand kids to do homework at their house. Yes, I agree this is a much bigger problem, and it's the schools fault (a serious one) if they only accept proprietary formats. In the short term, I also agree that there is no other choice but to set MS Word format as the default in OpenOffice. In the long term, the solution is to demand that schools switch, but that is a parent's task. To get them (your neighbours kids, not the grand kids) started, you may suggest your neighbours to pass to their sons and daughters this page: http://digifreedom.net/node/74 or any other of the similar resources about the importance of Free formats and software in education. Hope this helps, Marco -- Help *everybody* to love Free Standards and Free Software! http://digifreedom.net --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
