Hello,
Since it's my first post on this list, please let me introduce myself: Răzvan
Sandu, from Bucharest, Romania. I'm a diplomated engineer - network
administrator, GNU/Linux consultant and CEO for a small private business.
I personally use OpenOffice.org day by day and I regularly manage a network of
about 1000 computers with OpenOffice.org and OpenDocument files on them. My
kindest appreciations and thanks to the developers !
In the light of recent events - rejection of OOXML by ISO - I've discussed with
many people on http://www.nooxml.org . They pointed me to this list for
discussing some ideas about practical means for accelerating ODF adoption.
Basically, it boils down to this:
With another OOXML vote programmed for February 2008, it becomes increasingly
critical that we *quickly* migrate from binary Microsoft documents (.doc, .xls,
etc.) directly to ODF, without passing through an OOXML phase (converters to be
developed, lot of work, trouble and so on).
We already have the basic tool for that, namely the OpenOffice.org converter in
File -> Wizards -> Document Converter.
This is easy to use when one has a hundred Microsoft documents to convert. But
when we speak about mass-converting tens of thousands of documents, buried in
complex directory structures, the task becomes more difficult:
- optionally, you may want to automatically delete the original files that have
been sucessfully converted (to avoid seeking them manually through a complex
directory structure or to prevent disk becoming full);
- some files are to be excepted from conversion, like:
a. files containing VBA code that have no equivalent in ODF yet;
b. Pivot Tables with external data sources which are painfully slow to execute
in OpenOffice.org, for the moment (compared to their Excel 2003 equivalents);
c. files that have a wrong or ambiguous extension, for example .rtf documents
that have a .doc extension or files that have been incorrectly renamed manually;
d. other kind of documents that don't transpose well;
- one does not have to install the full OpenOffice.org suite just to migrate
Microsoft documents;
- for large number of documents, any increase in conversion speed is critical
and welcomed;
- maybe we can use the existing converter code to obtain a plugin for
amavisd-new (http://www.ijs.si/software/amavisd/) that will convert, on the fly,
Microsoft e-mail attachements to their ODF counterparts, when passsing through
an e-mail server (similar to virus scanning).
IMHO, a more flexible and faster converter tool is needed; I would suggest pairs
of Unix-like command-line utilities like "doc2odt" or "odt2doc" (with
command-line configuration parameters) and/or a standalone GUI version.
Since I'm not a programmer, I can't write these by myself. But I'm willing to
help in any way I can.
Could we please discuss this idea ? Is any developer on this list willing to
help, if it's feasible ? The general idea is to develop and distribute such
utilities ASAP, to help people migrate as many Microsoft documents as possible
till February 2008 and create a huge, critical mass of ODF files that can't be
ignored by large businesses and authorities.
Is there someone willing to help for *very quickly* improving the existent
Document Converter ?
Many thanks,
Răzvan
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