Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: LibreOffice for Academic Work -- College/University

2012-05-18 Thread Mark Preston
Marc,

My apologies; I was not aware you were looking for how people managed
to up-rate LibreOffice to work better for academic work. In my own
case, I found the writer's tools offered by Dimitri Popov as an
extension toolkit to be most useful, particularly for things like
citations, bibliography and footnotes.

It must be admitted that the extension is an OpenOffice item rather
than LibreOffice, but I found it would work quite well with minimal
extra work to put into LibreOffice. I hope this is the sort of thing
you were looking for.



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Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: LibreOffice for Academic Work -- College/University

2012-05-16 Thread Mark Preston
Marc,

So far I've avoided commenting on your request for two main reasons: I
was obliged to retire last February so am no longer an academic as
such and also it was not clear what you were meaning.

Let me say that I never had problems with LibO (since the addition of
free-motion paths into Impress) for academic work. True, there are
differences in the way LibO and MS manage insertion of bibliography,
citations, references and so on but so what? You just get used to the
different way of working.

I had issues - probably my fault for not working it out - getting text
to flow round a graphic in any shape other than a rectangle. That can
be a real bother. I also don't like the way floating text boxes drift
around not just the page but the whole document when format changes
are made - or even worse when sections are moved!

I also never managed to put a working spreadsheet into a text
document, though it is something I use only rarely. Finally, the real
bugbear I have is that you can't quick-roll a database on the fly.
Either the database has to exist before you start (even if empty) or
you are tied into one highly restricted way of working.

I do hope this helps in some way.

On 16/05/2012 06:28, Marc Paré wrote:
 Hi Jonathan,
 
 Le 2012-05-16 01:02, Jonathan Aquilina a écrit :
 Bibliography creation as well as source citations are very very
 important.

 Regards
 Jonathan Aquilina

 On May 15, 2012, at 9:32 AM, Marc Paré wrote:

 
 Thanks, I am looking for people who are using specific extensions in
 their academic work. Maybe I should post this on the users' list as
 well. I was hoping that some people who work in academia could chime
 in and say what extensions they were using specifically for use in
 academia.
 
 Cheers,
 
 Marc
 
 


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Re: [tdf-discuss] MS Outlook?

2012-02-15 Thread Mark Preston
i most sincerely hope not! It is not an email reader or a task
scheduler. For that, may I suggest you get Thunderbird from Mozilla

On 15/02/2012 08:58, Shawn Sumin wrote:
 Will LibreOffice ever have a similar program like MS Outlook?
 
 i.e. Calendar, Tasks, Contacts and Mail
 

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Re: [tdf-discuss] OASIS Standard ODF 1.2 Approved

2011-10-03 Thread Mark Preston
Well, I worked with the W3C on doing the initial work on RDF but not
done anything for a while. If I can remember the login details I can
try to mention it.

On 03/10/2011 09:45, Jaime R. Garza wrote:
 It would be great if connected people could help to introduce this idea. I
 hope it doesn't stay just as an idea! I'll be willing to help in the
 discussions and organization, but I don't have the contacts. Anyone with
 contacts willing to help?
 
 
 On Mon, Oct 3, 2011 at 09:44, Ian Lynch ianrly...@gmail.com wrote:
 
 On 2 October 2011 23:41, Jaime R. Garza gar...@gmail.com wrote:
 Hello All,

 Why isn't ODF added as an extension of HTML5?

 That is a very good idea.

 This would define ODF as the defacto Web Standard for Files!

 An ideas who could try to pursue such an agreement?

 Presumably get OASIS, TDF and AOO representatives to talk to W3C. Get
 a strategy agreed with say Mozilla and Google for good browser support
 for rendering and editing ODF documents. (assuming MS will not play
 ball but you never know). Editing could be a subset to start with eg
 limited to editing text.

 Cheers!

 Jaime


 On Sat, Oct 1, 2011 at 03:17, Dennis E. Hamilton 
 dennis.hamil...@acm.orgwrote:

 The OASIS ODF 1.2 Committee Specification 01 has been successfully
 advanced
 to an OASIS Standard, 
 http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/tc-announce/201109/msg00010.html.

 The final ballot results for approval of OASIS Standard ODF 1.2 is at 
 http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/ballot.php?id=2115.

 Rob Weir has a nice summary on his blog, 
 http://www.robweir.com/blog/2011/09/odf12-approved.html.  He lists the
 names of the contributors of 1.2 from the specification.  Some of those
 names will be familiar here.

  - Dennis


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Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: Top Posting... Can we have an LO Mailing List Guidelines Page?

2011-10-02 Thread Mark Preston
How about you just read the goddamn RFC's for email protocol and stop
whining about it?

On 01/10/2011 23:26, Dennis E. Hamilton wrote:
 orcmid comments-in-line=true /
 
 -Original Message-
 From: Tim Schofield [mailto:t...@weberpafrica.com] 
 Sent: Saturday, October 01, 2011 14:03
 To: discuss@documentfoundation.org
 Subject: Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: Top Posting... Can we have an LO Mailing List 
 Guidelines Page?
 
 On 30 September 2011 02:46, NoOp gl...@sbcglobal.net wrote:
 
 I must say that I *am* surprised that LO haven't the technical/political
 ability/tenacity to properly post information regarding this issue in
 the same manner as the links provided (OOo, Mozilla, Ubuntu, et al).

 
 It may be possible they have important things to do?
 
 orcmid
   How about a monthly FAQ message that 
   establishes what constitutes appropriate 
   etiquette?  This should be customized
   for each list separately.
 
   There could be all facts applicable to
   the specific list, including the
   ever-popular unsubscribe instructions, 
   what the subject matter of the list is, 
   writing subject lines, finding other places 
   to play and additional sources, etc.
 
   It would be good to say what actions 
   arouse moderator actions and that nothing 
   else does.
 /orcmid
 

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Re: [tdf-discuss] ignore m$ legacy?

2011-07-30 Thread Mark Preston
Frankly, I'm sure the law just says copies must be kept and doesn't
care how they are kept. The point is that they *will* be kept on
secured digital media, which means MSO, which means they will need a
copy of MSO, which means they will not need a copy of LibO.

That was rather my point. We cannot compete with what has been done in
the past unless we deal with those legacy documents that will be kept
anyway.

On 30/07/2011 14:33, e-letter wrote:
 On 23/07/2011, Mark Preston m...@mpreston.demon.co.uk wrote:
 Look, lets be honest about this - Microsoft has by far the largest
 proportion of legacy documents out there and there is no way that
 people can manage without access to those documents. Apart from
 anything else, the law will require them to be kept and available if
 needed for any future investigations.
 
 Does the law require these documents to be stored in the native binary
 format, or would a paper copy archive be considered acceptable. In any
 case, is this relevant to LO? Why wouldn't users simply keep an old
 version of m$? Is it not possible for m$ to be used for legacy
 documents and use LO for future documents in the native odf?
 

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Re: [tdf-discuss] ignore m$ legacy?

2011-07-23 Thread Mark Preston
Look, lets be honest about this - Microsoft has by far the largest
proportion of legacy documents out there and there is no way that
people can manage without access to those documents. Apart from
anything else, the law will require them to be kept and available if
needed for any future investigations.

That leaves one and only one choice if some fool decided to remove
interoperability, namely to build a mass-conversion tool that can
convert all those legacy documents. And if we have to build a
conversion tool anyway, then why not simply have it as a part of the
standard services offered by the software.

In short, the choice is offer interoperability or close down
LibreOffice and give up. Let's not give up.

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[tdf-discuss] New install issue

2011-07-19 Thread Mark Preston
Just installed the 3.3.3 version from the website on a clean machine
and hit a problem. I already had ODT documents copied to the PC, the
install when perfectly fine. Snag was, the ODT documents were not
recognised and set to default to LibreOffice - and to make matters
worse, couldn't be assigned to it by the file types defaults either.

No idea why this is - the earlier version was perfectly fine on a
different PC. Could be differences in the system, perhaps?

Hardware: Leonovo N3000 laptop
OS  : Windows XP Sp3
Previous Office : None used

Any ideas folks? What changed?


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Re: [tdf-discuss] Offer MHTML support

2011-07-11 Thread Mark Preston
Well, Jesse - where to begin?

Let's start with what MHTML is - it is Mime-encoded Hypertext Mark-up
Language or alternatively Multipart What this refers to is that
the various parts that may be in a web page (images, Flash videos,
audio tracks etc.) are all saved as a single file, usually with the
extension *.mht, (which explains the multipart and then the whole
lot packaged as a 64-bit MIME (email message) encoded data (whiche
explains the Mime-encoded bit).

From that, you should gather the blindingly obvious fact that
web-browsers and web-page editors don't use it - since it is not a web
page structure or organisation. In fact, Microsoft IE5 could and did
and later versions have, I understand, a patch or add-on that can
allow them to read or save MHTML. I seem to recall that Opera and
Firefox also have add-ons that sort of let them do the same.

However, to the best of my knowledge not a single browser or any other
item of software on Linux has ever even tried to deal with this mess -
up to and including the Safari browser on Apple systems.

I can also tell you that in days gone by it was referred to as
Microsoft Huge Text Mess Language since it was and still is
something used almost exclusively by Microsoft products and
particularly by Microsoft Office. It always was - and always will be
in the future - a disastrous attempt by Microsoft to screw with the
heads of everyone else. It was quite rightly never supported and
should never be supported by anything either now or in the future!
Even Microsoft has pretty much given up on this particular mess.

It offers no convenience, no benefit, no organisational advantage, no
readability advantages, no operational benefits - nothing good at all
in fact. It is not and should *never* be supported.

On 11/07/2011 13:04, Jesse wrote:
 Hey guys. First, great job on maintaining this software. I love it!
 But there is a feature I was wondering if you guys would mind
 implementing. In MS Word, the user can save their document in MHTML
 format. I have yet to find an editor for Linux which allows the user
 to do this. Though it may be true that most projects don't require
 this, it does offer a layer of convenience to the user in general. It
 takes them from carrying around about 10 files, to just carrying
 around one. Again, I love the software and what you guys have done
 with it, but please consider adding support for MHTML.
 


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Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: Font Embedding in ODF

2011-07-05 Thread Mark Preston
Plino,

You seem a little confused, which is quite remarkable given the blog
you linked to is quite clear. First of all, font-embedding is not
supported because embedded fonts are one of the very many things ODF
and indeed XML in general is intended to get rid of. It was always a
bad idea, is a bad idea now and will be a bad idea in the future. The
style of an XML document is intended to be provided by CSS and to be
quite separate from the data content.

What the blog said, but you missed, is that the spreadsheet part of
the ODF did not include formulae and syntax content for cells. Which
it actually does do, thanks very much.

The blog in fact stresses two things - the ODF does not always work
with Gnumeric (which is a known problem with Gnumeric and not
restricted to ODF anyway) and it is different to Excel - which is a
*good* thing frankly, since there are some real issues with the way
Excel worked.

In fact, that blog (you need to track it back and check the sources
etc.) was actually missing the point that the formulae and syntax
included in ODF did not include the same *binary* notation as used in
Excel. Again, this is just as well since the old Excel binary was
actually faulty and is one of the things (hopefully) fixed by the XLSX
format in newer versions.

While I am sure your comments are appreciated, they do seem somewhat
confused. Perhaps you could clarify them a little?

On 05/07/2011 11:25, plino wrote:
 Today I found the most interesting article on ODF, which explains why it
 doesn't support font embedding:
 
 http://blogs.gnome.org/mortenw/2010/02/10/odf-plus-five-years/
 
 ODF was created in a hurry to support text files. Later some people started
 to worry about spreadsheets (apparently not that much). Maybe in the future
 it will support the features that presentations and vector drawings require.
 
 Only then it will make sense to use ODF as the file format for all OOo/LO
 applications.
 
 --
 View this message in context: 
 http://nabble.documentfoundation.org/RE-tdf-discuss-Re-Font-Embedding-in-ODF-was-RE-ANN-ODF-1-2-Candidate-OASIS-Standard-Enters-60-Day-Pu-tp3110117p3140307.html
 Sent from the Discuss mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
 


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Re: [tdf-discuss] Enhancement Request: Comment Ranges

2011-06-10 Thread Mark Preston
Well, Charles, I also write fiction and publishers can be swine, I
admit - but I also write for journals and you should see editors! With
care, I do manage to use LibreOffice, and earlier OpenOffice,
throughout though I agree they don't all like it.

My attitude is that slowly we will get them to switch especially since
we can read and write Word formats. Not perfectly, but we can do it.
We also have a great range of add-ons that are perfect for the writer
to use (I am particularly fond of the Writer's Tools from LibreOffice
and Screenwright from the Open Office extensions at the moment).

You have, though, highlighted the one area where there are problems
because editors and proofreaders everywhere do like to use the
revisions tools - and we can't. Not so easily anyway. But how would
you change what we already have?

On 10/06/2011 19:03, Charles Jenkins wrote:
 As a fiction writer, I currently must use Microsoft Word on the Mac to
 exchange documents with editors, because Track Changes and commenting
 features are a necessity.
 
 In Microsoft Word, an editor can mark a section of text and add a
 comment like, This is redundant. Recommend deletion. When I click on
 the highlighted range, I see the comment and can make my decision
 accordingly.
 
 In LibreOffice, it appears that comments always have zero length. If I
 were to open my editor's document and encounter This is redundant.
 Recommend deletion, I would have to guess at which range of text she
 meant to point out.
 
 [snip]

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Re: [tdf-discuss] [Call for help] Native English speaker needed for proofreading a LibO tool draft proposal

2011-05-21 Thread Mark Preston
Will do - no problem. Give me a day or two to go through it.

On 21/05/2011 17:08, Gianluca Turconi wrote:
 Hello *,
 
 I really need some native English speaker in order to proofread a LibO
 tool draft proposal I made here:
 
 http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Website/LibreOfficeWiki/Proposed
 
 Any discussion about corrections or the content of the proposal itself
 can
 be done directly in the discussion page of the wiki.
 
 Thanks in advance,
 
 Gianluca

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Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: OpenOffice dead and burried?

2011-05-18 Thread Mark Preston
May I just take the time to agree 100% that this old stuff is, or
should be, dead and buried so we can move on. Remember, we are not
alone in forking from Oracle this way - for instance the Drizzle
database (by ex-MSQL developers) is now rated best non-proprietary
database option and this month LibreOffice was for the first time
similarly rated as the best non-proprietary office option.

Frankly, there is only Java left before Oracle burns all the bridges
it bought. So let's just move on and do what we are here for.

On 18/05/2011 11:05, Cor Nouws wrote:
 Hi Ben,
 
 This discussion is a bit, as we say in Dutch ouwe koeien uit de sloot
 halen :-)   (hmm, old stuff that maybe you shouldn't care about any
 longer)
 
 I have seen moments too in the first months of TDF that did not feel
 so good. However ...
 
 BRM wrote (18-05-11 11:53):
 While I was originally optimistic that TDF/LO would be better than
 Sun/Oracle
 OOo, as a result I have yet to see that happen.
 That's not to say it isn't happening or the community isn't taking
 over - I'm
 just waiting a bit longer to see.

 So for now yes, I continue to use OOo. If TDF/LO shows it is truly a
 community
 project and not ruled by a benevolent few that are forcing the hands
 of the
 community, then I will likely switch over and start participating
 more - until
 then I shall continue to watch.
 
 .. in this community there is no single person or party pushing
 decisions. All that participate have a saying. But of course, most in
 areas where your participation is relevant. And sure, still some
 processes are not perfect. But that is noticed and people involved
 discuss about how it works and haw to improve.
 
 Be welcome.
 
 Best,
 Cor
 
 

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Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: Question about proposing the creation of a new format

2011-04-27 Thread Mark Preston
Dear good gods alive no! :eave the HTML to proper HTML IDE tools like
Eclipse and don't try to be everything in one package.

On 26/04/2011 22:48, e-letter wrote:
 I think this is a very interesting issue. We are moving from the dominant
 technologies that were designed to put information on paper to the dominant
 need of presenting information on screens. With the revolution in digital
 readers this is only going to increase and then what relevance has document
 formats that are primarily designed to target hard copy output? If odf does
 not adapt it will become obsolete.

 
 Seems to suggest that LO should become some sort of html (or any other
 electronic format) editor?
 
 I am constantly irritated by having to download pdfs, .docs and so on when
 all I want to do is view the information without cluttering up my download
 
 May I suggest to use the 'load url' bar to read documents directly on
 the web? As for pdf documents, evince can open directly from the url
 when activated via the command terminal
 

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Re: [tdf-discuss] European Commitee enter talks with MS licences, Please make your action today against it.

2011-04-05 Thread Mark Preston
Steve,

While I understand your points, and Mike's, I can't say I agree with
them particularly.

On one issue we do agree and it is perhaps something to be looked at
by the development team. That is the automatic timed save of documents
while worked on. It is the case that should you lose a working
document LibO or OoO will try to recover it next time it is started,
but it does not always work nor assure a copy is made of all
documents. As you say, that is not usually acceptable to businesses.

However, for the rest I disagree. I have heard the claim about files
from Microsoft Office needing to be changed in Open Office before but
only rarely seen it to be true with a word-processed document.

It is true that not all Powerpoint comes over to LibO accurately since
LibO does not have available all the features that PPT can guarantee
by being a closed and proprietary system. To me, this seems absolutely
inevitable and not a fault at all.

Similarly, I have heard about problems with Excel and especially the
way pivots and data handling operations are carried out but also with
rounding features to make the spreadsheets balance out. And yes,
there are differences - although for the rounding features I have
seen used are because there are technical errors with storage of some
numbers in Excel that have been widely discussed on the web. I have to
say that while I have seen that doing the same sort of thing to the
Calc GUI results in a different operation, it is not yet clear to me
whether the difference is the way that Calc is used or the way the
same operation is carried out. Perhaps you could give us details?

Most common of all though, is the complaint that my company macros
don't work. Frankly, I am sick to death of hearing this one! MS macros
are written in an MS language for MS features in an MS environment on
MS software. There is no way in *hell* and Open Source software can
pinch it, copy it, reverse engineer it, duplicate it in new code or
anything else. If the macros are any use, then rewrite the damn things!

On 05/04/2011 20:08, Steve Edmonds wrote:
 All.
 I tend to agree with Mike on many aspects.
 We use 12 instances of LO in our business and I support more privately.
 I inter-react with an educational institution and others predominantly
 MO, our business is mainly LO.
 
 For a corporation or large entity to adopt LO it must be able to
 transfer MO docs well.
 I find that probably 90% of MO docs I receive don't open in LO without
 need of reformatting, a corporation could not tolerate this. I found
 that LO does not time save (auto backup) .docs, a corporation would
 not tolerate that.
 
 LO development is going great, but to be considered for
 corporate/large organisation environments some consideration of what
 is stopping LO adoption is required.
 These are not show stoppers but a different emphasis on development
 and bug fixing. May be this is not the interest of developers and may
 be corporate environment is not the future of LO.
 
 I have seen some discussion regarding the mapping out of the future of
 LO, LO design and developer focus. May be it is a good discussion to
 have soon.
 
 steve
 
 On 6/04/11 5:12 AM, Mike Hall wrote:
 Charles,
 I think an appreciation of this point is absolutely crucial to a
 successful product, which is why I bang on about it. And I'm only
 faithfully recording my own experience.

 Unfortunately there is a difference in quality, which implicitly you
 seem to recognise. Yes, it's true that there have been several poor
 MSO releases, but in a large organisation those are not normally
 deployed on the corporate desktop until the problems are fixed. MS
 does eventually retreat on its silly ideas and there are, to all
 intents and purposes, almost bug free MSO versions so far as the
 vast majority of end users are concerned. This isn't the case with
 OOo/LibO - there has never been a release of such a quality that
 support costs could be contained at a realistic level. I wish there
 were and I can fully understand why this community would be very
 inclined to argue black is white here. Further, it's pretty
 frustrating to report bugs and find that they aren't fixed within a
 reasonable period. I don't think you would deny that that is a
 fairly common experience and complaint from OOo/LibO users. I see
 that on many bug reports.

 My perception and experience of the choice of application software
 in large organisation is that it is much more rational and
 hard-headed than you imply. The main cost is not the licence, for
 which in any case large organisations generally pay very little per
 desktop. It's user support that is costly, ie overall cost of
 ownership.

 Mike

 On 05/04/2011 16:52, Charles-H. Schulz wrote:
 Hello Mike
 (since we're all top posting in this thread)...

 To claim that MS Office is devoid of bugs is somewhat extravagant.
 There have been several versions of MS Office that were plagued with
 bugs; people complained but the products continued 

Re: [tdf-discuss] Two questions about course of LO

2011-03-31 Thread Mark Preston


On 31/03/2011 05:48, aqualung wrote:
 Got a couple of questions.
 
 (1) I heard that OpenOffice is restricted from re-using code from
 LibreOffice because Oracle insists on broader licenses than LO developers
 are willing to give, but the reverse is not true. So, from this aspect LO
 can only get stronger while OOo stagnates. Is this accurate?
 
As I understand it, this is more or less true though it is mainly due
to copyright assignments that Oracle insist on but that LibreOffice
will not grant.

 (2) According to what I've read so far, most of the work to create and
 maintain OpenOffice was done by a team of developers originally working for
 StarOffice, later bought by Sun, in turn bought by Oracle. Outside
 volunteers working without pay contributed only a small portion of the code.
 
This is certainly true, but let me say right now that it was
definitely the right way to work! I suggested and to some extent drove
a change to Impress to allow free-motion movement paths for objects.
Sun - this was before the Oracle takeover - were quite happy to let me
see code and to suggest changes and even where in the code they might
be made. But to be honest, the code was such a tangled and complex
mess that I would have needed months of work just going through code
before I even tried to change a single command.

I am slightly concerned that, even now, there is a damn good chance
the code for LibreOffice is still much the same tangled (and
uncommented) mess.


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Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: Euro symbol not inserted into write documents

2011-03-25 Thread Mark Preston
Yes, I'm aware you can do that. I was talking about the standard
keyboard - which I thought Tinkerer was too.

On 24/03/2011 23:00, Simon Cropper wrote:
 On 25/03/11 09:18, Mark Preston wrote:
 How odd. Here in the UK - and most other places I've seen,Alt Gr  +
 (numeral) 4 produces the Euro symbol.

 On 23/03/2011 18:55, Tinkerer wrote:
 On my keyboard Option+2 prints €.

 Tink


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 Sent from the Discuss mailing list archive at Nabble.com.


 
 Mark,
 
 The euro symbol (U+20AC) can be found in most common fonts.
 
 You can create a macro that inserts the symbol then attach this macro
 to any keystroke combination you like.
 

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Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: Euro symbol not inserted into write documents

2011-03-24 Thread Mark Preston
How odd. Here in the UK - and most other places I've seen, Alt Gr +
(numeral) 4 produces the Euro symbol.

On 23/03/2011 18:55, Tinkerer wrote:
 On my keyboard Option+2 prints €.
 
 Tink
 
 
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Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: Setup Advice

2011-02-27 Thread Mark Preston
I can understand that Barbara and generally agree - there should be no
issues running the two together. This, in fact, is what I shall be
trying first.

The issue, as I see it anyway, is not so much that there *will* be
problems running the two together as that there is the very clear
*impression* that there will. It is made all the worse by even we
doing the LibreOffice work and testing are reporting that there can be
problems (as NoOp did below).

What we need, in my opinion, is not necessarily changes to the code or
the installation method as to the clarity of information about doing
it in our own documentation and on the site.

On 27/02/2011 19:29, Barbara Duprey wrote:
 On 2/26/2011 4:27 PM, Mark Preston wrote:
 Thanks very much for this. I have the downloaded set-up files now and
 will think hard on whether to install it or not - it has to depend on
 how heavily we need the system working over the next weeks.

 If this remains an issue, I can see it being a major stumbling block
 for places - such as mine - where there may be several users and a
 need for continual document operations. Unfortunately that will mean
 our primary target audience (to offices that currently use either
 Microsoft Office or Open Office on Windows systems or networks).

 On 26/02/2011 03:18, NoOp wrote:
 On 02/21/2011 02:16 PM, Mark Preston wrote:
 I'm about ready to load up LibreOffice and start running it for work
 but have really one simple question before I do. Background is I will
 be running it on Windows Vista, currently run OpenOffice and will be
 using it near daily including with MS Office documents and
 presentations.

 So the question is: can I load LibO side-by-side with OpenOffice and
 if not what is the procedure to load LibO and - should there be
 probelms - to reload OpenOffice? Most importantly, this is a
 multi-user system so it needs to be loaded for at least three users.
 Any advice much appreciated.

 It's an issue:
 http://www.libreoffice.org/download/release-notes/
 quote
 For Windows users that have OpenOffice.org installed, we advise
 uninstalling that beforehand, because it registers the same file type
 associations.
 /quote

 The issue is that LO uses the same executables as OOo (swriter,
 etc) and
 hasn't yet cleaned up the code to use something else (lowriter, etc).
 This can cause *considerable* issues with OOo and LO coexisting on the
 same Windows system. If you want to have both installed (on Windows -
 it's no issue on linux) at the same time, then I'd suggest installing
 'in parallel', see:
 http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Installing_in_parallel
 http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Run_OOo_versions_parallel#Windows


 So at this point (on Windows) you are better off with either/or:
 OOo or
 LO, but not both at the same time.
 
 I've been running with both on Win7 for several months, primarily
 using LibO but occasionally OOo. I've had no problem at all with
 resetting file associations, it's just a matter of browsing to the
 soffice.exe that's in the desired directory. I didn't do anything
 special at all for installation, and I've had no issues of any
 conflicts with files created on one fork and used on the other. YMMV,
 but you probably needn't be paranoid about this.
 

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Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: Setup Advice

2011-02-26 Thread Mark Preston
Thanks very much for this. I have the downloaded set-up files now and
will think hard on whether to install it or not - it has to depend on
how heavily we need the system working over the next weeks.

If this remains an issue, I can see it being a major stumbling block
for places - such as mine - where there may be several users and a
need for continual document operations. Unfortunately that will mean
our primary target audience (to offices that currently use either
Microsoft Office or Open Office on Windows systems or networks).

On 26/02/2011 03:18, NoOp wrote:
 On 02/21/2011 02:16 PM, Mark Preston wrote:
 I'm about ready to load up LibreOffice and start running it for work
 but have really one simple question before I do. Background is I will
 be running it on Windows Vista, currently run OpenOffice and will be
 using it near daily including with MS Office documents and presentations.

 So the question is: can I load LibO side-by-side with OpenOffice and
 if not what is the procedure to load LibO and - should there be
 probelms - to reload OpenOffice? Most importantly, this is a
 multi-user system so it needs to be loaded for at least three users.
 Any advice much appreciated.

 
 It's an issue:
 http://www.libreoffice.org/download/release-notes/
 quote
 For Windows users that have OpenOffice.org installed, we advise
 uninstalling that beforehand, because it registers the same file type
 associations.
 /quote
 
 The issue is that LO uses the same executables as OOo (swriter, etc) and
 hasn't yet cleaned up the code to use something else (lowriter, etc).
 This can cause *considerable* issues with OOo and LO coexisting on the
 same Windows system. If you want to have both installed (on Windows -
 it's no issue on linux) at the same time, then I'd suggest installing
 'in parallel', see:
 http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Installing_in_parallel
 http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Run_OOo_versions_parallel#Windows
 
 So at this point (on Windows) you are better off with either/or: OOo or
 LO, but not both at the same time.
 
 
 
 

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Re: [tdf-discuss] Setup Advice

2011-02-22 Thread Mark Preston
Thanks very much Barbara. Glad to see someone has beaten me to it.

On 21/02/2011 23:08, Barbara Duprey wrote:
 On 2/21/2011 4:16 PM, Mark Preston wrote:
 I'm about ready to load up LibreOffice and start running it for work
 but have really one simple question before I do. Background is I will
 be running it on Windows Vista, currently run OpenOffice and will be
 using it near daily including with MS Office documents and
 presentations.

 So the question is: can I load LibO side-by-side with OpenOffice and
 if not what is the procedure to load LibO and - should there be
 probelms - to reload OpenOffice? Most importantly, this is a
 multi-user system so it needs to be loaded for at least three users.
 Any advice much appreciated.
 
 They ordinarily coexist peacefully, although you may want to modify
 the file associations to make the right one the default. Also, it
 might be best to run without the QuickStarter. I generally have at
 least one document or the splash page active, and I don't set the
 option to look for updates, so OOo and LibO both come up quite quickly
 even the first time.
 

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[tdf-discuss] Setup Advice

2011-02-21 Thread Mark Preston
I'm about ready to load up LibreOffice and start running it for work
but have really one simple question before I do. Background is I will
be running it on Windows Vista, currently run OpenOffice and will be
using it near daily including with MS Office documents and presentations.

So the question is: can I load LibO side-by-side with OpenOffice and
if not what is the procedure to load LibO and - should there be
probelms - to reload OpenOffice? Most importantly, this is a
multi-user system so it needs to be loaded for at least three users.
Any advice much appreciated.

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Re: [tdf-discuss] REVIEW ARTICLE: VITAL reading for LibreOffice developers, users, supporters

2011-02-17 Thread Mark Preston
Thanks for getting in touch, Joe, and I'll try to answer where I can.

On 16/02/2011 16:45, Joe Rotello wrote:
 Almost VITAL reading for LibreOffice developers, users, and supporters:
 
 [snip]
 
 The reasoning is that these weakness areas MUST be addressed and SOON,
 ...[snip]
 
 These include compatibility with MS Office XML and 2010 files,

As has been mentioned here before, LibO will both read and write MS
Office OOXML files. The matter of changing specifications for those
files by Microsoft in the future is under their control and all we can
do is catch up later since the openness of their file structure
details is less than perfect.

 Presentation having limited PowerPoint features, and a few others that
 the article mentions.
 
The only significant missing feature was the use of free-motion paths
which was addressed in a previous version of OpenOffice and is now
available. It is true that some of the effects and transitions are not
available, as the article notes, but also as it notes wherever
possible these degrade gracefully to the best available common form.

 Hope that this reading of the article brings many fruits to
 LibreOffice, perhaps in 3.3.1 or the next release and Update.

The other significant points the article raises are the lack of full
compatibility for macros and programming languages and the lack of a
connector to Microsoft Sharepoint.

While both are true, I can only point out macros are conversions from
Microsoft macros, not implementations of Microsoft coding languages
and programming of course also does not implement Microsoft coding
languages. Similarly there are no links to Microsft Sharepoint and for
the same reasons.

Remember that LibO is provided as Open Source Software and operates on
systems with very different OSs, not just Windows. We cannot commit to
Windows-only versions or to providing proprietary code owned by
Microsoft. Simply put, these issues are outside our control.

 Joe Rotello
 WindowGroup / Knoxville, TN / USA
 

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Re: [tdf-discuss] Who Handles LO Portable?

2011-02-12 Thread Mark Preston
I regularly use Oo_O Portable in classes to avoid the obvious
potential file type clashes in different versions of the UK education
standard MS Office but have so far not been able to find a LibO
Portable version.

Could you give me a link to it if you have it handy?

On 12/02/2011 10:38, Harold Fuchs wrote:
 I have installed LO Portable (latest version as of Feb 11, 2011) on a
 USB hard disk running under Windows Vista Home Premium.
 
 When I run its Writer and go to ToolsOptionsLanguage
 SettingsLanguages I am told that the Locale is set to English
 (USA). I change it to English (UK) and shut down Writer. When I
 re-open Writer the Locale is back to USA. Windows Vista itself says UK
 and OpenOffice 3.2.1 also says UK.
 
 I'm pretty sure this is a bug in LO but do I need to report it to LO
 or to the Portable Apps folk?
 
 Also, if I need to report it to LO, please someone explain exactly
 where the LO bug reporter is.
 

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Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: Hate to mention this but

2011-01-28 Thread Mark Preston
Yeah, sorry about this NoOp - I should have mentioned we tried that
but got complete gibberish.

On 27/01/2011 23:27, NoOp wrote:
 On 01/27/2011 02:50 PM, Mark Preston wrote:
 The other day we were sent a document but the sender had - presumably
 by mistake - a template rather than document and in the DOTX format.
 Searching the web, we found this is a horrible format with which an
 awful lot of people have had problems with this format and even the
 Microsoft Word Viewer will not handle it.

 I just want to check that, along with the DOCX formats, LibreOffice
 will also be able to open DOTX - and, of course, recognise them as a
 template rather than a document.

 
 File|Open|File type: you will find dotx at 'Microsoft Word 2007 XML
 Template'.

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[tdf-discuss] Hate to mention this but

2011-01-27 Thread Mark Preston
The other day we were sent a document but the sender had - presumably
by mistake - a template rather than document and in the DOTX format.
Searching the web, we found this is a horrible format with which an
awful lot of people have had problems with this format and even the
Microsoft Word Viewer will not handle it.

I just want to check that, along with the DOCX formats, LibreOffice
will also be able to open DOTX - and, of course, recognise them as a
template rather than a document.

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Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: Do not support writing to OOXML format

2011-01-03 Thread Mark Preston
I actually agree wholeheartedly with Italo here - please do not try
to hamstring the developers with your (or our) own preferences! The
idea of community discussion is to guide developers, not to instruct
them to do the impractical or impossible and equally not to instruct
them (for whatever reason) *not* to do what can be done.

On the other hand, though I have already done so in another message, I
am more than happy to discuss why some options are more or less
pragmatic for developers and will do so inline with Italo's comments
as quoted below:-

On 02/01/2011 18:47, Italo Vignoli wrote:
 On 1/2/11 7:15 PM, Larry Gusaas wrote:
 
 No, that was not the point. Italo Vignoli wrote: LibreOffice
 writes OOXML and will write OOXML, and this is not under
 discussion. That is the point I objected to.
 
 [snip]
 
 I am a member of the Steering Committee, and I totally second this 
 decision just because it makes sense for the users (as I have tried
 to explain in another message). LibreOffice is the office suite
 with the widest document format support, and this is a plus.
 
This is, and long has been, a *major* plus for both OpenOffice and now
for LibreOffice - we do need to keep this as an objective.
 
 As long as OOXML is a standard recognized by ISO, it makes sense
 to support it completely. This is different from the fact that we
 are trying to make ODF the only winning standard, and that we are
 telling people that they should not use OOXML.
 
Again, this is exactly the point I also made - although I did perhaps
attribute a little more evil to Microsoft by suggesting the issues
with OOXML may be a deliberate move to capture that standards
compliant high-ground from us.

 [snip]
 
 TDF is a community driven project, not a mailing list driven
 project. Community is not just writing in a mailing list, is a lot
 different and a lot more than that. I do not think that we ever
 gave the perception that this is a mailing list driven project.
 
Well said, Italo!

Where the wider community has something relevant to say on this, it
should begin from the presumption that we somehow *will* write OOXML
to the best practical ability of the developers. That, not personal
preferences, is the real issue.

I remain convinced that it is for all practical purposes not possible
to write OOXML in the currently active Microsoft format since that is
both a rapidly moving target and might leave us open to claims of
patent-breaking unless we can demonstrate clear reverse-engineering of
the format. Even if we could do that, we would then face the problem
of the target rapidly moving away from us.

Rather than play a catch up to Microsoft game, it remains my view
that we should write OOXML in the ISO-standard format for so long as
that standard lasts. That gives Microsoft the chance to either catch
up and use the standard they set themselves or to change the standard
so that they can meet it. In either case, LibreOffice would be ahead
of the game Microsoft plays rather than behind, provided we do make
sure to pop up a warning to remind users we are using the standard and
Microsoft may not yet be able to deal with it.

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Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: Do not support writing to OOXML format

2011-01-03 Thread Mark Preston
On 02/01/2011 18:29, Charles Marcus wrote:
 On 2011-01-02 12:07 PM, Mark Preston wrote:
 Please remember that both LibO and OpenO can already *read* the
 formats and the issue is whether or not it is practical or pragmatic
 to put effort into developing something to *write* the OOXML form.
 
 Eh? It already can write them. Why go backwards? There definitely needs
 to be a warning when doing the Save-As, but going backwards (ie,
 removing the ability to write them) would be counter-productive at best.
 
I perhaps put that badly this time. My apologies. My concern is not so
much with what we do, but with what we can do *well* and effectively.

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Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: Do not support writing to OOXML format

2011-01-02 Thread Mark Preston
Craig,

Please remember that both LibO and OpenO can already *read* the
formats and the issue is whether or not it is practical or pragmatic
to put effort into developing something to *write* the OOXML form.

On 02/01/2011 00:50, Craig A. Eddy wrote:
 Barbara,
 
 First, ODF IS the ISO standard - honestly made so without the dirty
 tricks that MS used to stuff the committee and force it to approve
 something that wasn't ready to be used by anyone.
 
 Second, MS refuses to support any ODF except the one that is actually an
 ISO standard.  That makes their version of ODF suspect as to its actual
 compatibility.
 
 I don't suggest using the same tactics on MS as it is using on Open
 Source Software.  Doing to others as they do to you is NOT a recommended
 tactic for honest people or organizations (though it's too often been
 used, in my arrogant opinion [There AIN'T no such thing as a humble
 opinion]).
 
 By being able to read .doc and .docx formats LO demonstrates it's
 willingness to at least reach out to MS and its customers.  Therefore,
 LO ends up being the good guy.
 
 Craig
 Tyche

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Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: Digest of discuss@documentfoundation.org issue 140 (3843-3863)

2010-12-31 Thread Mark Preston
I should have thought that, with the massive issues even Microsoft has
of meeting the alleged standard they have set, it was fairly obvious
why other software has not tried to meet it.

ODF works, is well-supported and even works in Microsoft Office so
with respect the answer is to use ODF and not bother with the
Microsoft formats at all.

On 31/12/2010 11:27, Jaime R. Garza wrote:
 Hello,
 
 I just want to inform you all that docx, pptx, xlsx, etc is not the same as
 the ISO OOXML which was saddly accepted as an ISO standard. The
 currently used OOXML format is a completely proprietary XML based format.
 And the specification of the OOXML ISO Standard is so complex and long
 that not even MS has been able to implement it, and they are promising they
 will implement it for MS Office 2014, so there you you go, yet another MS
 format for 2014!
 
 The next MS format, which is supposed to be completely specified in the
 open, still has proprietary hooks, like WordArt, and such stuff that
 remains proprietary but the base is completely specified in the open. The
 specification is so long and complex, that there will be a lot of time
 before someone can even start to be really compatible to the files generated
 from MS office 2014.
 
 In the other hand, MS already supports ODF, read  write, so if we can, why
 the %$%$ wouldn't we support the MS formats? Don't you understand that
 there are customers for every LO user that use MS Office and they need to
 exchange information. And since MS office can read and write ODF, why would
 an enterprise customer choose LO or even OO?
 
 I work in a big German company, and I have tried to make ODF, OO/ LO
 relevant, but nobody cares because a great majority of our customers use MS
 Office and MS Office formats. What is wrong with you guys? To be a religious
 freak doesn't help for the adoption of open standards and open source.
 
 Cheers!
 

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Re: [tdf-discuss] Do not support writing to OOXML format

2010-12-31 Thread Mark Preston
If I may inject what I hope is a little sense into this argument:-

A major strength of Open Office is and always was that it could read
and often write documents in many proprietary formats. That strength
should remain solidly a feature of Libre Office and for exactly the
same reasons.

When it comes to the Microsoft formats there is a significant issue
with writing the formats - specifically, that even Microsoft cannot
fully adhere to the standards they set. This is a major fault and it
is one which Microsoft has placed into the marketplace.

It leaves Libre Office with three choices when it comes to these
formats. It can either:-

1. Write in the format as used by Microsoft.
2. Write in the format as specified in the ISO standard.
3. Refuse to write in the new formats at all.

The problem with option 1 is that it is a strictly proprietary form
which even Microsoft admits does not actually meet the open standard.
It is therefore open to attacks using patent and other legislation if
adopted by Libre Office.

The problem with option 2 is that while it is an open standard it does
not actually fully work with Microsoft Office and is therefore a
pointless choice until (according to Microsoft) at least 2014.

The problem with option 3 is that Libre Office would be left in the
situation where its own files would need to be read by the ODF open
feature in Microsoft Office, thus making Microsoft appear to be the
ones making efforts to read incompatible formats. I would suggest
that this is the very reason why Microsoft has taken this action with
these formats.

We are left, in short, with just two realistic choices. Either we
reverse-engineer the OOXML as actually used and let Microsoft scream
about it (as they certainly would) or we simply ignore the format for
written documents and write them in the old doc format... while
telling people clearly on the download website that this is because we
are prevented from using the Microsoft open standard. Given the work
involved in these choices, I would suggest the only realistic option
is the latter one.


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Re: [tdf-discuss] Google changes and Torrents

2010-12-27 Thread Mark Preston
The suggestion, apparently stated at a show recently by Google
staffers, is that certain words associated with copyright breaqking
on the internet will be removed from the quick-searching terms that
the updated version of Google pops up for you. It was said to be
because of the new digital copyright protection regulations mainly in
the USA but to a lesser extent also in Europe and the example they
used was the word torrent.

It was reported in several magazines, including Linux User and
Developer and PC Pro recently. Both said that Google would continue to
return results if the word was typed into the search engine but that
it will not be used for the search hints list or quick search features.

On 24/12/2010 15:47, Michael Wheatland wrote:
 On Sat, Dec 25, 2010 at 12:48 AM, Mark Preston
 m...@mpreston.demon.co.uk wrote:
 Is it likely that the - I suppose I should say suggested - changes
 to Google search terms, specifically the removal of the word torrent
 from the simple search terms, will affect Open Software availability?
 Specifically the Libre Office obviously.

 
 I am a bit confused by this? Has there been suggestion of Google
 filtering legitimate and legal torrent files?
 Can you provide a reference.
 
 Michael Wheatland
 

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[tdf-discuss] Google changes and Torrents

2010-12-24 Thread Mark Preston
Is it likely that the - I suppose I should say suggested - changes
to Google search terms, specifically the removal of the word torrent
from the simple search terms, will affect Open Software availability?
Specifically the Libre Office obviously.

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Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: A better idea for a download package.

2010-12-03 Thread Mark Preston
I see several issues in the discussion about installers - and I only
just joined the list! Let's list 'em...

1. You are assuming everyone will be running Linux. They won't.
2. You assume they all have a packaged Linux distro. They won't.
3. You presume they can all grab tar's themselves. They can't.
4. You assume they will all download the package. They won't.

Installers are needed because (1) you can adapt an installer to manage
installation on all the systems people *will* be using, such as
Windows XP, Vista, Win7 and - for some - either 32-bit or 64-bit
versions; Linux using Debian-based or other installers and (2) those
who have no standard installer system included; Android users and even
Apple users (3) who want something that installs like an app does;
even, despite the undoubted acrimony, Solaris users.

Finally (4), there will be those users who buy a preconfigured or even
standard virtualised system from a supplier and want both the supplier
provided system and the discs to fix any problems - and for that you
want a packaged product with installer and repair system to put on disc.

While an installer may not be the top priority, it is undoubtedly a
very important feature that needs to be present to reach the widest
number of users.

Mark

On 03/12/2010 04:13, Sophie Gautier wrote:
 
 For years I only had a connexion in cyber cafes, so I dowloaded the
 tars on an external device (or sometimes several) and installed at
 home on my computer. I don't see what you're talking about, your
 distro has all what you need to install the downloaded archives and
 manage dependencies.
 
 The only issue that I see still existing currently is the size of the
 download. When you have a very slow and expensive connexion, it makes
 LibO very difficult to get and distribute.


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