Ian Lynch wrote: > On Mon, 2009-04-06 at 13:22 -0400, Twayne wrote: >> Ian Lynch wrote: >>> On Fri, 2009-04-03 at 13:14 +0100, Ron wrote: >>>> I use and prefer Openoffice.Org . Its an excellent program. >>>> >>>> However my correspondents use only MS Word and the command open >>>> with , does not work. How do we get around this problem ??? >>> >>> >>> You can either "save as.." rtf or .doc. They can download OOo for >>> free like they would Acrobat reader and open your files and then >>> export them to whatever format they use. They can also e-mail >>> Microsoft and ask them to produce odf support in whatever versions >>> of MS Office they are using. >> >> Right. When sending documents, if the recipient's capabilities are >> known, the sender should try to accomodate. It's better for one >> person to make mods than for possibly several to accomodate the one. >> >> .rtf (rich text format) and .doc(word format; and can include >> version) are the usual solutions. >> In additon, SUN also provides an add-in for MS Office that will >> allow Word to open Writer documents to work on them. I find it >> curious no one mentioned it. > > Mainly because I have never used it. I don't use Word any more and > when I did I would just export from OOo.
Ahh, that's a fairly good reason<g>. I've found it handy a couple times to convince people to give OO.o more serious consideration, rather successfully I might add. In particular, newbies tend to love it. > >> Unless the recipients are open to installing OO.o, which would be >> unusual in this kind of instance, > > Well they seem happy enough to install Acrobat Reader so why not OOo? > Its a bit bigger file size but on modern computers it won;t make much > difference. It would seem that way, but OO.o isn't yet as well known as Adobe and most people's experience with the Reader are considerably simpler than with OO.o usage. I've even heard more than one person refuse to even discuss it because "no free program can be any good". I don't think it's filesize that's an issue; in many cases you're trying to convert someone perfectly happy with MSO for no good reason as far as they can see. Everything works, why change? But if you happen to catch them at upgrade time, well, suddenly the 'price' becomes a lot more interesting to them<g>. Then you get the kind that have support, etc., all in place, and money is nothing to them so why change horses? Sometimes the only tool that's effective is to use money in such cases. > >> then the file formats, or them >> installing the SUN addin are IMO the best solutions. >> But the OP should be the one making changes for the recipient/s >> IMO. > > Depends really on whether you believe downloading and installing OOo > is going to be a big hardship to them. Sometimes it is sometimes it > isn't. I believe it IS a hardship for many, because it's new, must be rolled out if they're a company or on a LAN, would interrupt a development flow and gosh knows what else. If they're busy with something that's working it's not right IMO to be pushing them to make a change to an in-use tool midstream like that. Even the hobbyist isn't going to want to be changing horses midstream; it has to be presented as something to be done when it's most convenient, whether that's budget time, between projects, or whatever. my thoughts, anyway. I tend to be very careful of anyone I have a relationship with think I am trying to pressure them. > >> OTOH, maybe you can convert another user/s to OO.o; who knows<G>? > > If you don't try you never will ;-) For Sure! > I recently sent someone some odt files and he e-mailed me saying he > couldn't open them I said download and install OOo, its free. He just > replied thanks! So you never know. IMO, that's wrong unless it's someone with lots of time on his hands and no money interests to impact. I politic OO.o to everyone I can, but I don't send them files and then later tell then BTW, in order to read them, you need ... . That's a little rude & crude to the person if you're not careful. But agreed, for the most part Ian. I've managed to "convert" more people than I thought I could by simply making them aware of the OO.o suite and its capabilities. Most are pretty happy with it, only one so far gave up and went back to Word. Ooof! Talk about drifting toward OT! I'm done, folks. Cheers, Twayne --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected]
