On 2 Nov 2008 at 10:56, Ian Lynch wrote: > On Fri, 2008-10-31 at 23:41 -0400, Huan Mo wrote: > > Hi! > > > > I am a graduate student on biology/biomedicine/bioinformatic field. > > Since I am using a Ubuntu (linux) system, openoffice.org 2.4 is the only > > productive software in my system. I very appreciate robust function of > > Openoffice.org, but there is still some inconvenient aspects where > > should be improved in my opinion. > > > > 1. There are no basic image edit tools in Writer and Impress, such as > > cropping the picture, > > Ubuntu comes with GIMP. That has extensive graphic editing including > cropping pictures. Prepare your images in GIMP and simply import them to > OOo. Also I tend to use Inkscape (Use add remove programs from Ubuntu > file menu to get and install it) for vector diagrams these days so you > don't really need any drawing tools at all in Writer and Impress. Better > and more comprehensive tools are available for free from Ubuntu.
Hi Ian, Huan, I think the above point is fair. If I am using MS Office 2000+ I do find it handy to be able to import an image, resize/crop it and then compress the image Word is saving so that the .doc file is no larger than it needs to me. I'm of the generation where you used an image editing program and then imported to your word-processor/DTP, so it's not a major hassle for me to revert to this way of working. A lot of my (High School) students who have tried OOo do point out that it "doesn't work" - as in, it doesn't have all the features they expect. There's tons of features in Word I (and they) don't care about, but handy time-saving features like image compression are missed when they aren't there. A typical experience they have is putting together a nice report with lots of images and realising they can't email it (because our internal mail limits attachment size to 2 MB). Right-click, format image, delete cropped areas, compress all images - it's a lot easier than putting all the images into Photoshop and reformatting them. Yep, useful tool. > 4. In MS Office 2007, the reference function (for citation in academic > writing) is very very helpful for students, faculties and scientists, > especially that it can automatically converting different styles of > citation. I HIGHLY recommend Openoffice.org can integrate such > functions in the future releases. I've heard this one mentioned before. MS give their products to schools/colleges at reduced prices to make sure the next generation are hooked. If OOo is to keep making inroads in these areas the usual excuse of "This key feature in Word just ain't in OOo" has to be rendered useless. OOo is great for 95% of what I do - there are a few wee things where I think MS Office has the edge. I can live with them missing from OOo -some people can't - for them, the issue is whether the product does what they need, regardless of price, source, etc. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
