Re: [libreoffice-users] Compatibility LO/MSO
On 07/05/2013, Milos Sramek sramek.mi...@gmail.com wrote: Hi, thank you all for your answers. In fact I take part in a larger scale testing of interoperability of formats, since open source software is currently considered by Slovak administration as and alternative to the standard MS stuff. If everything goes really well, there will be a transition period when open source (say, LO) and proprietary applications will be used in parallel and documents in various formats will be interchanged. Therefore, we want to understand the situation and prepare a guide (use this feature, avoid that feature), which would help in creating documents which can safely be opened by the other tool. I am aware of the fact that open standards like OOXML, which are more-or-less in hands of only one company (even if it is an ISO standard) will always be a problem. Simultaneously, MS support of ODF will probably never be perfect. But a state administration does not need complex features and formatting - therefore we want to prepare the guide which would tell them, what is safe to use. You may want to review the following guide published by m$: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word-help/differences-between-the-opendocument-text-odt-format-and-the-word-docx-format-HA010355788.aspx If this is a bug in LO I will file a bug in its Bugzilla. If it is a bug in MS2013, we will ask MS to correct that (there is a guy from Microsoft in our team who promised to do that). If they do not correct it, it will be a nice argument against using MSO at all. Could you also ask your m$ guy to ask that m$ publish in public domain all their bugs? :) -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: users+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-users] Compatibility LO/MSO
Hi :) Welcome back e-letter! I can get back to my normal role now safely knowing the extreme anti-MS points wont be missed Regards from Tom :) From: e-letter inp...@gmail.com Sent: Wednesday, 8 May 2013, 7:50 Subject: Re: [libreoffice-users] Compatibility LO/MSO snip / You may want to review the following guide published by m$: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word-help/differences-between-the-opendocument-text-odt-format-and-the-word-docx-format-HA010355788.aspx If this is a bug in LO I will file a bug in its Bugzilla. If it is a bug in MS2013, we will ask MS to correct that (there is a guy from Microsoft in our team who promised to do that). If they do not correct it, it will be a nice argument against using MSO at all. Could you also ask your m$ guy to ask that m$ publish in public domain all their bugs? :) -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: users+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-users] Compatibility LO/MSO
Hi, thank you all for your answers. In fact I take part in a larger scale testing of interoperability of formats, since open source software is currently considered by Slovak administration as and alternative to the standard MS stuff. If everything goes really well, there will be a transition period when open source (say, LO) and proprietary applications will be used in parallel and documents in various formats will be interchanged. Therefore, we want to understand the situation and prepare a guide (use this feature, avoid that feature), which would help in creating documents which can safely be opened by the other tool. I am aware of the fact that open standards like OOXML, which are more-or-less in hands of only one company (even if it is an ISO standard) will always be a problem. Simultaneously, MS support of ODF will probably never be perfect. But a state administration does not need complex features and formatting - therefore we want to prepare the guide which would tell them, what is safe to use. The discrepancies between rendering of odt and docx files by the other applications are really big. Jean-Francois pointed to Styles. Or lack of. I've heard this also from other people. So, is it really possible, that a program, when opening a document, applies some additional formating, which can change appearance in comparison to the original? Should this be considered as a bug, or is it a feature (which can be eventually switched off) ? As an example I created a simple document in LO40 (MS2013), stored as odt (docx) and opened and printed in MS2013 (LO40) : http://ubuntuone.com/1lkbhsT9veT24B9a9jPUpr In the pdf (overlay of rendering in bork applications) you can see that the major difference resides in interline spacing. Do you have and idea, where is the reason? ODF 1.1 and OOXML transitional were used, the used fonts were available on both computers. Line spacing does not seem to be a big issue, but one can see inconsistent line spacing nearly everywhere. So, from the point of view of interoperability it is perhaps a blocker, since the displacement is sometimes a couple of lines per page. If this is a bug in LO I will file a bug in its Bugzilla. If it is a bug in MS2013, we will ask MS to correct that (there is a guy from Microsoft in our team who promised to do that). If they do not correct it, it will be a nice argument against using MSO at all. I will be grateful for each advice on how to analyze the problem and how to sort out the reason. With best regards Milos Dňa 06.05.2013 18:31, Regina Henschel wrote / napísal(a): Hi Milos, Milos Sramek schrieb: Hi, I observe that LibreOffice and MS Office display even simple documents, containing just a few paragraphs with numbered and bulleted lists, differently. These differences are from both sides: a document is created in LO, stored in odf and opened in MSO (2013) Do you mean, that you write to .odt and open the document then in MSO-2013? Are you writing with ODF1.2 or with ODF 1.2 extended? In case of ODF 1.2 extended, you cannot expect that MSO can read it the same way, because is might contain parts which are specific to LO. Do you write and reopen the document on the same machine? Otherwise make sure, that you have installed the same fonts on both machines. and vice versa: created in MSO, stored in docx and opened in LO. I would like to understand the situation and to know - if it is just a bug (perhaps on both sides) - if some standard local settings are applied, which result in different display - if it is a fundamental problem residing deep in the ODF and OOXML standards If one application writes ODF (without extended) and another application reads this file and shows it with large differences, then there might be errors in the application, but it can be shortcomings in the specification as well. In such cases you should provide sample documents and detailed descriptions, so that it is possible to investigate. Kind regards Regina -- email jabber: sramek.mi...@gmail.com -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: users+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-users] Compatibility LO/MSO
Hi :) Ok, several points; (again just my own personal opinions which often put me at risk of being thrown off the mailing-lists for being too blunt) (err, and i'm English not US) 1. To analyse you might find it better to add 2 programs into the mix. 1.a. On the OpenSource side perhaps Calligra/KOffice or AbiWord (AbiWord is smaller and faster but Calligra is more fully featured) or any other OpenSource office programs. So, just 1 of these 2 would help; http://www.calligra-suite.org/ http://www.abisource.com/ 1.b. On the MS side a lot of companies are still on MS Office 2003 while a lot of others are on MS Office 2010 now or moving to it now that 2013 has been released. It's still very rare to be using 2013 or 365 and will be for the next couple of years. Perhaps add MS Office 2003 to the analysis. Even a quick analysis between the different versions of MSO will flag up a lot of differences in the handling of their ooxml formats and even some in their handling of their older formats. By contrast even an in-depth analysis of the 2 different OpenSource programs (LibreOffice and whichever other) will show that both Doc and Odt are handled very much the same by both OpenSource programs. Also a Doc created by any OpenSource program will also look very much the same in both versions of MS Office. A few people have reported that when MS Office users have troubles sharing documents because the formatting has gone too strange then it's the LibreOffice user that is able to fix it so that all 3 sides can read it the same way. 2. So, during the migration and for external communications in the near(ish) future you will see that it is best to use the older MS formats Doc, Xls, Ppt and so on. NOT the ooxml ones. DocX, XlsX, PptX The ISO standard as registered with the ISO committees does NOT seem to be the same as any of their implementations of it. I guess they have a legitimate argument in saying that accidents happen, as they tried to use in the court-case over their RTF (=Rich Text Format). Actually even if you decide to stick with MS then it's still probably better to use the older formats for greater interoperability even between the different versions of MS Office (even between 2007, 2010, 2013 365). In the mid-term future an increasing number of external people will be using ODF but it's a little way off yet. I think almost every single one of the responses agreed on using the older formats for greater interoperability. 3. Are you only getting advice from MS about the migration? Do you have people from the Free Software Foundation involved in the process? If you are only accepting advice from MS then their lack of understanding about OpenSource will typically steer you into as many problems as they can manage to find. That would explain your current difficulties. We have seen this over and over again. 4. The promise from MS sounds good BUT if it would be that easy for them then why haven't they done it already? Why don't they just do it rather than make promises which may or may not happen? In the case of the RTF court cases it seemed that MS were better at making promises and blaming other people than actually delivering the results they promised. For a successful migration you need to involve OpenSource experts such as the people at FSF. Actually the lining up issue looks like a styles or a fonts thing to me, but any editable format is going to look different on different machines or in different programs. It's only Pdf that is meant to look the same on all and the main reason for that is that it is not meant to be editable and is meant to ignore all local conditions. Just because fonts have the same name doesn't mean they are identical. I think there are 2 ways of generating Pdfs in LibreOffice. 1. File - Export to Pdf or Save as 2. File - Print - to file and change the format from .Ps to .Pdf The 2nd way embeds the fonts into the document. The first way has more flexibility about the configurationssettings used in the Pdf, such as if you want it to be improved for screen-readers or have different amounts of, or type of, compression (do you want a lot of swirls and a very light-weight document for emailing or do you want it print-quality). The 2nd way is not easy to finduse. I hope this helps! Regards from Tom :) From: Milos Sramek sramek.mi...@gmail.com To: users@global.libreoffice.org Sent: Tuesday, 7 May 2013, 8:28 Subject: Re: [libreoffice-users] Compatibility LO/MSO Hi, thank you all for your answers. In fact I take part in a larger scale testing of interoperability of formats, since open source software is currently considered by Slovak administration as and alternative to the standard MS stuff. If everything goes really well, there will be a transition period when open source (say, LO) and proprietary applications will be used
Re: [libreoffice-users] Compatibility LO/MSO
Hi :) Errr, one of the classic moves from MS is to get people to do an all or nothing approach. They will try to tell you that you can't have MS Office and LibreOffice on the same machine. Going that way is disastrous and requires huge amounts of training and leads to immense dissatisfaction. Users hate this route and fight against the new toys. Almost every OpenSource advocate recommends keeping whichever MS Office happens to be on existing machines but to install LibreOffice alongside. After that point-of-agreement is where we all start disagreeing. Some say to do something like; 1. keep installing MS Office on newer installs of Windows or on refurbished machines (refurbs) but only for the first 6 months to 1 year or so 2. let people keep using primarily MS Office but encourage them to play around with LibreOffice so they can figure it out for themselves 3. Use training courses to bring 2 or a few people from each office up-to-speed with LibreOffice. It helps if those individuals are the ones people usually seek advice from and includes the office manager. There are online courses (mostly in English though and just the basics so far i think) but i think it's best to collect people together away from the regular office space and give them proper training. 4. Start encouraging greater use of LibreOffice and roll out training to the rest of the staff. 5. Keep any existing versions of MS Office on machines even well into the future, evn if everyone has fully moved over o LibreOffice and seems happy with it. Just don't install on any refurbs or newer machines. Some OpenSource experts recommend skipping one or 2 steps or slightly different order or different time-scales or even adding a step (or few) or cover it in more detail. The aim is gentle migration NOT revolution. Give people time to adapt but not too much time because those older versions of MS Office get out-dated. If people are to continue meeting deadlines and remain productive they need access to the tools they are familiar with. They will become more familiar with LibreOffice but it takes time. Regards from Tom :) - Original Message - From: Tom Davies tomdavie...@yahoo.co.uk To: Milos Sramek sramek.mi...@gmail.com; users@global.libreoffice.org users@global.libreoffice.org Cc: Sent: Tuesday, 7 May 2013, 10:38 Subject: Re: [libreoffice-users] Compatibility LO/MSO Hi :) Ok, several points; (again just my own personal opinions which often put me at risk of being thrown off the mailing-lists for being too blunt) (err, and i'm English not US) 1. To analyse you might find it better to add 2 programs into the mix. 1.a. On the OpenSource side perhaps Calligra/KOffice or AbiWord (AbiWord is smaller and faster but Calligra is more fully featured) or any other OpenSource office programs. So, just 1 of these 2 would help; http://www.calligra-suite.org/ http://www.abisource.com/ 1.b. On the MS side a lot of companies are still on MS Office 2003 while a lot of others are on MS Office 2010 now or moving to it now that 2013 has been released. It's still very rare to be using 2013 or 365 and will be for the next couple of years. Perhaps add MS Office 2003 to the analysis. Even a quick analysis between the different versions of MSO will flag up a lot of differences in the handling of their ooxml formats and even some in their handling of their older formats. By contrast even an in-depth analysis of the 2 different OpenSource programs (LibreOffice and whichever other) will show that both Doc and Odt are handled very much the same by both OpenSource programs. Also a Doc created by any OpenSource program will also look very much the same in both versions of MS Office. A few people have reported that when MS Office users have troubles sharing documents because the formatting has gone too strange then it's the LibreOffice user that is able to fix it so that all 3 sides can read it the same way. 2. So, during the migration and for external communications in the near(ish) future you will see that it is best to use the older MS formats Doc, Xls, Ppt and so on. NOT the ooxml ones. DocX, XlsX, PptX The ISO standard as registered with the ISO committees does NOT seem to be the same as any of their implementations of it. I guess they have a legitimate argument in saying that accidents happen, as they tried to use in the court-case over their RTF (=Rich Text Format). Actually even if you decide to stick with MS then it's still probably better to use the older formats for greater interoperability even between the different versions of MS Office (even between 2007, 2010, 2013 365). In the mid-term future an increasing number of external people will be using ODF but it's a little way off yet. I think almost every single one of the responses agreed
Re: [libreoffice-users] Compatibility LO/MSO
Milos Sramek wrote: MS support of ODF will probably never be perfect. Sun had an ODF plugin for MS Office. I'd bet it works better than what MS provides. It's also the only option for older Office versions. -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: users+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-users] Compatibility LO/MSO
Hi :) Most newer versions of MS Office have ODF support built-in. Unfortunately it's only the 2013 and 365 that use the same version of ODF as everyone else. 2007 and 2010 use the old 1.1 which is not great for spreadsheets! Regards from Tom :) - Original Message - From: James Knott james.kn...@rogers.com To: LibreOffice users@global.libreoffice.org Cc: Sent: Tuesday, 7 May 2013, 12:57 Subject: Re: [libreoffice-users] Compatibility LO/MSO Milos Sramek wrote: MS support of ODF will probably never be perfect. Sun had an ODF plugin for MS Office. I'd bet it works better than what MS provides. It's also the only option for older Office versions. -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: users+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: users+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-users] Compatibility LO/MSO
Tom Davies wrote: Hi:) Most newer versions of MS Office have ODF support built-in. Unfortunately it's only the 2013 and 365 that use the same version of ODF as everyone else. 2007 and 2010 use the old 1.1 which is not great for spreadsheets! Regards from Tom:) It's been a while since I've had occasion to use it, but, IIRC, you could choose whether to use the Sun plugin or built in ODF support even on the later versions of office. Of course, with the older versions, there wasn't any native support at all. Either way, the Sun plugin should be used in my opinon. -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: users+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-users] Compatibility LO/MSO
Milos, I'm no expert, nor can I tell you why you're having those issues, but I can confirm that there are many differences in the way Word and LO Writer work. I use a lot of outline styles and they just don't translate well between the two programs. For me the differences seem to be in the spacing between the outline number/letter and the following text. I see the same issue with footnotes that also have automatic numbering. I think the difference lay in the way each program inserts space after bullets or automatic numbers. I think that Word inserts a tab character whereas LO inserts space using a different method (but I could be wrong). Also, there are fundamental differences in page structure that I have noticed. LO uses page styles to distinguish between different types of page formatting, whereas with Word, you use section breaks and format the pages directly. This doesn't translate well between programs. I have used both for years. I would absolutely love to see Open Source software become much more successful, but I fear that will only happen when the ODT file format becomes the industry standard. If your primary concern is being compatible with the MS standard, I fear that Open Source will always come up short because there are just too many differences between file formats. I have long given up trying to use LO and/or OO any time I am sharing documents with a Word user. It just don't work. But, Tom is correct in saying that even within the MS world, there are significant differences between different versions of the same program. In 2007, when MS adopted the DOCX format, my employer's older Word program couldn't open the newer files. Virgil -Original Message- From: Milos Sramek Sent: Tuesday, May 07, 2013 3:28 AM To: users@global.libreoffice.org Subject: Re: [libreoffice-users] Compatibility LO/MSO Hi, thank you all for your answers. In fact I take part in a larger scale testing of interoperability of formats, since open source software is currently considered by Slovak administration as and alternative to the standard MS stuff. If everything goes really well, there will be a transition period when open source (say, LO) and proprietary applications will be used in parallel and documents in various formats will be interchanged. Therefore, we want to understand the situation and prepare a guide (use this feature, avoid that feature), which would help in creating documents which can safely be opened by the other tool. I am aware of the fact that open standards like OOXML, which are more-or-less in hands of only one company (even if it is an ISO standard) will always be a problem. Simultaneously, MS support of ODF will probably never be perfect. But a state administration does not need complex features and formatting - therefore we want to prepare the guide which would tell them, what is safe to use. The discrepancies between rendering of odt and docx files by the other applications are really big. Jean-Francois pointed to Styles. Or lack of. I've heard this also from other people. So, is it really possible, that a program, when opening a document, applies some additional formating, which can change appearance in comparison to the original? Should this be considered as a bug, or is it a feature (which can be eventually switched off) ? As an example I created a simple document in LO40 (MS2013), stored as odt (docx) and opened and printed in MS2013 (LO40) : http://ubuntuone.com/1lkbhsT9veT24B9a9jPUpr In the pdf (overlay of rendering in bork applications) you can see that the major difference resides in interline spacing. Do you have and idea, where is the reason? ODF 1.1 and OOXML transitional were used, the used fonts were available on both computers. Line spacing does not seem to be a big issue, but one can see inconsistent line spacing nearly everywhere. So, from the point of view of interoperability it is perhaps a blocker, since the displacement is sometimes a couple of lines per page. If this is a bug in LO I will file a bug in its Bugzilla. If it is a bug in MS2013, we will ask MS to correct that (there is a guy from Microsoft in our team who promised to do that). If they do not correct it, it will be a nice argument against using MSO at all. I will be grateful for each advice on how to analyze the problem and how to sort out the reason. With best regards Milos Dňa 06.05.2013 18:31, Regina Henschel wrote / napísal(a): Hi Milos, Milos Sramek schrieb: Hi, I observe that LibreOffice and MS Office display even simple documents, containing just a few paragraphs with numbered and bulleted lists, differently. These differences are from both sides: a document is created in LO, stored in odf and opened in MSO (2013) Do you mean, that you write to .odt and open the document then in MSO-2013? Are you writing with ODF1.2 or with ODF 1.2 extended? In case of ODF 1.2 extended, you cannot expect that MSO can read it the same way, because is might
Re: [libreoffice-users] Compatibility LO/MSO
Hi Milos, Milos Sramek schrieb: Hi, thank you all for your answers. In fact I take part in a larger scale testing of interoperability of formats, since open source software is currently considered by Slovak administration as and alternative to the standard MS stuff. Then you might be interested in the work of https://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=oic http://www.ecis.eu/intraoperability/ http://www.fokus.fraunhofer.de/en/elan/publikationen/infomaterial/white_paper/documentinteroperability/index.html And Plugfest http://plugfest.opendocsociety.org/doku.php?id=start Do you want to host a Plugfest? If everything goes really well, there will be a transition period when open source (say, LO) and proprietary applications will be used in parallel and documents in various formats will be interchanged. Therefore, we want to understand the situation and prepare a guide (use this feature, avoid that feature), which would help in creating documents which can safely be opened by the other tool. I'm very interested in a comparison. Perhaps you can start a page on the Wiki to collect all the problems? I am aware of the fact that open standards like OOXML, which are more-or-less in hands of only one company (even if it is an ISO standard) will always be a problem. Simultaneously, MS support of ODF will probably never be perfect. But a state administration does not need complex features and formatting - therefore we want to prepare the guide which would tell them, what is safe to use. The discrepancies between rendering of odt and docx files by the other applications are really big. Jean-Francois pointed to Styles. Or lack of. I've heard this also from other people. So, is it really possible, that a program, when opening a document, applies some additional formating, which can change appearance in comparison to the original? Should this be considered as a bug, or is it a feature (which can be eventually switched off) ? There are some features, which are available in one format and not in the other. Therefore it is no good idea to keep both formats parallel. I prefer ODF ;) The support for ODF in MS Office 2013 is already good. MS has an overview, what is not supported yet. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj680136%28v=office.12%29.aspx As an example I created a simple document in LO40 (MS2013), stored as odt (docx) and opened and printed in MS2013 (LO40) : http://ubuntuone.com/1lkbhsT9veT24B9a9jPUpr In the pdf (overlay of rendering in bork applications) you can see that the major difference resides in interline spacing. Do you have and idea, where is the reason? Yes :) MS Word adds space after the paragraph in a list in docx. In Word open the context menu of a paragraph of the list. Click on 'Paragraph'. You can see, that Spacing after and you will find a checkbox for not adding the space. Let read MS Word the ODF 1.2 version of your document, you will notice a better layout. ODF 1.1 and OOXML transitional were used, the used fonts were available on both computers. Line spacing does not seem to be a big issue, but one can see inconsistent line spacing nearly everywhere. So, from the point of view of interoperability it is perhaps a blocker, since the displacement is sometimes a couple of lines per page. Do not use ODF 1.1. ODF 1.1 has no namespace for formulas in Calc. Therefore Excel do not import the formulas, but only the values. Use ODF 1.2 and MS Office 2013. If you will go with ODF, one Windows PC with MS Office 2013 should be sufficient to analyze and transform documents with broken layout. If this is a bug in LO I will file a bug in its Bugzilla. If it is a bug in MS2013, we will ask MS to correct that (there is a guy from Microsoft in our team who promised to do that). If they do not correct it, it will be a nice argument against using MSO at all. It need not be a bug, but different default settings and missing features. I will be grateful for each advice on how to analyze the problem and how to sort out the reason. If you provide examples, it is much easier to find the reasons. Missing feature is a large problem. Very difficult is for example the handling of tables. Word knows floating tables, which LO does not. Therefore LO converts a floating table by putting as normal table into a frame. But a frame cannot extend a page and therefore the table does not break to the next page. But in Word this table breaks to the next page. Similar problems exists with anchor and wrap settings of objects. Kind regards Regina -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: users+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-users] Compatibility LO/MSO
Hi Milos, Milos Sramek schrieb: [..] ODF 1.1 and OOXML transitional were used, the used fonts were available on both computers. Line spacing does not seem to be a big issue, but one can see inconsistent line spacing nearly everywhere. So, from the point of view of interoperability it is perhaps a blocker, since the displacement is sometimes a couple of lines per page. And another reason not to use ODF1.1: If you save from LO to ODF1.1, then the old kind of lists are used. These do not know tabs for indenting. When you will write a new list in the current LO, it will get the interface for the actual kind of lists, but its settings will be lost when saving to ODF1.1. Reopening such document will have different list formatting than those before saving. That will likely confuse average users. Kind regards Regina -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: users+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-users] Compatibility LO/MSO
Hi :) There is an add-on for older versions of MS Office that do now allow it to open the newer ooxml formats such as DocX. Somewhere in microsoft.com but i'm not sure where. The problem is that it's a bit variable depending on which version of MSO created the document. With Open Source, one option that a few large organisations go for is to use some of the saving on license fees to establish their own devs. Those are then directed to work on the bugs the organisation or government wants fixed. So, for a 30 million Euro saving then maybe put 3 million of that into employing some devs to get some control. Various organisations already do this. Another option might be to pay TDF to employ people but then that becomes less easy for the external organisation/government to control. So far TDF only directly employs 1 person and that is not for coding work. So each organisation develops LibreOffice as though it was an in-house project but shares the infrastructure and the process with other organisations and volunteers. Redhat, SUSE and others directly employ their own devs to work on LibreOffice using the systems set up here. So Redhat benefit from work that SUSE does (and that volunteers do), likewise SUSE benefits from Redhat's work. Regard from Tom :) - Original Message - From: Virgil Arrington cuyfa...@hotmail.com To: Milos Sramek sramek.mi...@gmail.com; users@global.libreoffice.org Cc: Sent: Tuesday, 7 May 2013, 13:38 Subject: Re: [libreoffice-users] Compatibility LO/MSO Milos, I'm no expert, nor can I tell you why you're having those issues, but I can confirm that there are many differences in the way Word and LO Writer work. I use a lot of outline styles and they just don't translate well between the two programs. For me the differences seem to be in the spacing between the outline number/letter and the following text. I see the same issue with footnotes that also have automatic numbering. I think the difference lay in the way each program inserts space after bullets or automatic numbers. I think that Word inserts a tab character whereas LO inserts space using a different method (but I could be wrong). Also, there are fundamental differences in page structure that I have noticed. LO uses page styles to distinguish between different types of page formatting, whereas with Word, you use section breaks and format the pages directly. This doesn't translate well between programs. I have used both for years. I would absolutely love to see Open Source software become much more successful, but I fear that will only happen when the ODT file format becomes the industry standard. If your primary concern is being compatible with the MS standard, I fear that Open Source will always come up short because there are just too many differences between file formats. I have long given up trying to use LO and/or OO any time I am sharing documents with a Word user. It just don't work. But, Tom is correct in saying that even within the MS world, there are significant differences between different versions of the same program. In 2007, when MS adopted the DOCX format, my employer's older Word program couldn't open the newer files. Virgil -Original Message- From: Milos Sramek Sent: Tuesday, May 07, 2013 3:28 AM To: users@global.libreoffice.org Subject: Re: [libreoffice-users] Compatibility LO/MSO Hi, thank you all for your answers. In fact I take part in a larger scale testing of interoperability of formats, since open source software is currently considered by Slovak administration as and alternative to the standard MS stuff. If everything goes really well, there will be a transition period when open source (say, LO) and proprietary applications will be used in parallel and documents in various formats will be interchanged. Therefore, we want to understand the situation and prepare a guide (use this feature, avoid that feature), which would help in creating documents which can safely be opened by the other tool. I am aware of the fact that open standards like OOXML, which are more-or-less in hands of only one company (even if it is an ISO standard) will always be a problem. Simultaneously, MS support of ODF will probably never be perfect. But a state administration does not need complex features and formatting - therefore we want to prepare the guide which would tell them, what is safe to use. The discrepancies between rendering of odt and docx files by the other applications are really big. Jean-Francois pointed to Styles. Or lack of. I've heard this also from other people. So, is it really possible, that a program, when opening a document, applies some additional formating, which can change appearance in comparison to the original? Should this be considered as a bug, or is it a feature (which can be eventually switched off) ? As an example I
Re: [libreoffice-users] Compatibility LO/MSO
Hi Milos, Milos Sramek schrieb: Hi, I observe that LibreOffice and MS Office display even simple documents, containing just a few paragraphs with numbered and bulleted lists, differently. These differences are from both sides: a document is created in LO, stored in odf and opened in MSO (2013) Do you mean, that you write to .odt and open the document then in MSO-2013? Are you writing with ODF1.2 or with ODF 1.2 extended? In case of ODF 1.2 extended, you cannot expect that MSO can read it the same way, because is might contain parts which are specific to LO. Do you write and reopen the document on the same machine? Otherwise make sure, that you have installed the same fonts on both machines. and vice versa: created in MSO, stored in docx and opened in LO. I would like to understand the situation and to know - if it is just a bug (perhaps on both sides) - if some standard local settings are applied, which result in different display - if it is a fundamental problem residing deep in the ODF and OOXML standards If one application writes ODF (without extended) and another application reads this file and shows it with large differences, then there might be errors in the application, but it can be shortcomings in the specification as well. In such cases you should provide sample documents and detailed descriptions, so that it is possible to investigate. Kind regards Regina -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: users+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-users] Compatibility LO/MSO
Hi, Le 05/05/2013 11:01, Milos Sramek a écrit : - if the reason is somewhere else Do you have an idea? Styles. Or lack of. -- Jean-Francois Nifenecker, Bordeaux -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: users+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-users] Compatibility LO/MSO
On 05/05/2013 05:01 AM, Milos Sramek wrote: Hi, I observe that LibreOffice and MS Office display even simple documents, containing just a few paragraphs with numbered and bulleted lists, differently. These differences are from both sides: a document is created in LO, stored in odf and opened in MSO (2013) and vice versa: created in MSO, stored in docx and opened in LO. I would like to understand the situation and to know - if it is just a bug (perhaps on both sides) - if some standard local settings are applied, which result in different display - if it is a fundamental problem residing deep in the ODF and OOXML standards - if the reason is somewhere else Do you have an idea? Thanks Milos For Writer's .docx display, the developers had to create the driver/filter from scratch, since MS does not offer hardly any information about their format. MS wanted it to be the International Standard but they would not provide all of the needed openness needed for other to use it. As of MSO's display of .odt, well itis the same mindset. MS decided to go their own way with their use of that file format. Personally, I think MS is deliberatelymaking issues to prove that the ODF does not, and will not, work as a International Standard and people should not use it [and buy MSO instead of using FOSS packages like LO]. ODF is fully open and fully defined OOXML is not fully open and not fully defined due to proprietary format information that is included with it [as far as I have been told]. Also, if I was going to send documents back and forth between a LO user and MSO user, I would use the older formats like .doc and the other from pre MSO 2007 format changes. by the way. MSO 2013 can read MSO 2010 .docx files. MSO 2010 may not be able to read MSO 2013 files. The same goes with MSO 2007 and 2010. MS keeps changing their OOXML formats with every new version of Office. -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: users+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-users] Compatibility LO/MSO
Kracked_P_P---webmaster wrote: OOXML is not fully open and not fully defined due to proprietary format information that is included with it [as far as I have been told]. Lots of info on this at Groklaw: http://www.groklaw.net/staticpages/index.php?page=20051216153153504 http://www.groklaw.net/staticpages/index.php?page=20080719233709726 -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: users+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-users] Compatibility LO/MSO
Hi :) My own personal views from observations, NOT TDF's view and nothing to do with anyone else involved with LibreOffice is as follows. Check the voracity for yourself. Don't rely on what people spoon-feed you! There are 2 problems in play. 1. Any document in any editable format will display differently on different machines with different printers attached and different settingsconfigurations. 2. MS is unable to follow a standard. Even the so-called standards they created themselves. The OOXML is implemented differently in each of their versions such that a document written in MS Office 2007 may well display differently in MS Office 2010 on the same machine. If you install 2010 yourself then you might notice their disclaimer that even on the same machine if you have 2 versions of their OS, say Xp and Win7, then MS Office 2010 documents may well be different on each. None of their implementations seem to match the ISO standard they managed to push through as an ISO format. As for their attempts to follow the ODF they carefully went for the old 1.1 version when everyone else had already moved to ODF 1.2. Their reasoning sounded solid. The 1.2, despite having been in use for years, had not been fully released and was still being called a beta release. So, MS Office 2010's 'support' for ODF was based on an ancient format that no-one was still using at the time. If you look back at the court case about MS's RTF format which they had designed to allow all programs to be compatible with each other then you might notice similarities with the current situation with their OOXML format. MS are a profit making company and they need to find ways to get people to buy their new versions. 'Accidental' incompatibilities with their older formats pushes everyone to buy their newer versions at around the same time in order to be able to read/write each others documents. The MS formats are subject to radical change at the whim of 1 single profit-making company. Of course any program has a few issues but when they are spotted in LibreOffice it's easy to post a bug-report about it. If MS's implementation of their format is a bit off then it's practically impossible to post a bug-report or get anyone to listen to the problem The only formats that currently seem to truly work just fine across all different programs are the older MS formats. The ones that don't end in X, so NOT DocX, XlsX and the rest of the OOXML ones. The ones that do seem to work best are the Doc, Xls and so on. However, ODF is starting to be used more often by more people. For longer-term storage of documents it might be wise to store them in ODF but for current active collaborations the Doc, Xls and so on are more widely used at the moment. The ODF ISO standard is set and agreed by an independent organisation called OASIS. Many different companies, including TDF, have at least 1 person sitting on the board at OASIS in order to make sure that there is agreement about the standard itself and acceptable variances in it's implementation. It's not going to suddenly change if IBM release a new version of Lotus Symphony. So it's a lot more stable, predictable and reliable. Also because it's implementation matches the standard that has been written up, published and fairly easy for everyone to access it means that the format is 'always' going to be possible to read certainly for longer than the old Rtf, Doc, or DocX. So the future is ODF. Regards from Tom :) From: Milos Sramek sramek.mi...@gmail.com To: users@global.libreoffice.org Sent: Sunday, 5 May 2013, 10:01 Subject: [libreoffice-users] Compatibility LO/MSO Hi, I observe that LibreOffice and MS Office display even simple documents, containing just a few paragraphs with numbered and bulleted lists, differently. These differences are from both sides: a document is created in LO, stored in odf and opened in MSO (2013) and vice versa: created in MSO, stored in docx and opened in LO. I would like to understand the situation and to know - if it is just a bug (perhaps on both sides) - if some standard local settings are applied, which result in different display - if it is a fundamental problem residing deep in the ODF and OOXML standards - if the reason is somewhere else Do you have an idea? Thanks Milos -- email jabber: sramek.mi...@gmail.com -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: users+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: users+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org Problems?
