> On Tue, 16 Sep 2008 11:04:08 +0100
> Came this utterance fomulated by Mark Potter to my mailbox:
>
>> Michael
>>  How is MS Word a better application for this purpose? it seems
>>  better in that you can create your own unique style
>
> OpenOffice.org has more control of styles than MSWord. You can set
> styles on individual pages, lists, tables, TOC's etc, even having
> portrait and landscape page styles in the same document.

Just for the sake of accuracy and meaning nothing at all against OOo or 
the author, you can do all of those things in Word too.  So it doesn't 
actually have "more" control in the sense of your listing. Word is even 
slightly more intuitive in a couple of those and less in others.

>
>> and have criteria you decide in the resume.
>
> Any template can be modified, and you are welcome to submit
> modifications or alternatives to the documentation project.
>
>> it would be helpful if the application in linux is broadened somewhat
>> similar to that in MS.
>
> I disagree, that is the trap that many making suggestions fall into.
> Making it more like MSWord means that it can never be better than
> MSWord. It will always be playing catch-up to try to look like the
> latest improvement to the competitor. Are we trying to make a better
> app or an also-ran?

True, but IMO, what the development team is up against is, the public 
wants Word capabilities first, and better second.  What they want is to 
get out from under MS's planned obsolescence and expensive upgrades 
every time you turn around or else stick in the same rut year after 
year.  "also-ran" is also past tense, which so far comes nowhere near 
the track for Ooo.  So more accurately, they first want Word and 
improvements over Word would be the icing on the cake to bring more and 
more Word professionals into the fold.  So in a way the OOo team has a 
tougher project description than do the MS folks.  And they have 
achieved some pretty good improvements.

>
>> it would be far better than MS as linux is! thanks for the site, I'll
>> have a look around.
>>
>
> Many power users (i am not a power user) already think it is better.

I'm sure that's true in some cases, but this user still has to keep Word 
around, much as he doesn't like to.  OOo still has some weaknesses that 
won't allow the complete separation from Word yet that a lot of people 
run into.  The biggie for me is image stability in and out of table 
structures for large documents, including during PDF creation.  There 
are ways to work around them and i've used a lot of them, but for some 
few I still have to return to Word to get it done in any reasonable 
timeframe.  Another real annoyance is that Writer just can't do 
envelopes accurately and for me, with a center-feed laser printer, it's 
a pain to get a template for an envelope I haven't yet created a custom 
template for, to print right.  Where with Word it's just a couple of 
keyclicks.

Nothing I'm saying is meant to minimize OOo in any way.  It's a 
fantastic accomplishment to date and is continuing to progress, but it 
gets harder and harder every day.  These sort of programs are almost 
living programs as documents are living documents.  And when you add 
Calc, Base et al to the mix, you realize just how huge an accomplishment 
Ooo really is. And f course, it couldn't have happened without SUN.

Twayne


>
> [snip]





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