On Monday 06 November 2006 9:28 pm, Glen wrote: > I pulled up a document done in MSOffice which had numbered paragraphs. > When I attempted to insert additional text the numbering got > out-of-whack. I see when I start a new OOo document up with numbering > it goes much smoother. So, it seems the translation from an original MS > doc to OOo Writer isn't totally clean. This is probably back-burner > stuff for the developers, but with more people learning about OOo, > they'll need to bring their old MS files with them and go back and > forth, perhaps more so going forward.
I felt a need to chime in here. For some reason people who use Word and OO think things should go back and forth perfectly. But they don't expect different versions of word to do the same thing. WHY do you do this? I have never been able to figure this out.. I simply can't understant this simple minded ness.. Example: create a document with the latest version of Word and then attempt to open it with a 3 version back copy of Word. You get a simple message. "You must use a newer version of Word". This simply is called Vendor Lockin. You accept this but openly state that OO is broken because the document doesn't look EXACTLY the same. or in this case the "conversion is not clean" Now to OO at least OO attempts to open the document, no matter what version, no matter what format it was stored in. It may not look exactly the same but the data is there and the data is intact. The glit (presentation) may look different but so what.. I guess my point is simple.. if you accept vendor lockin don't go looking for EXACT replacements in the open source community. Just keep buying what you already have. Don't expect the program to look EXACTLY the same, Don't expect the program to work EXACTLY the same. DAM MS can't make things look exactly the same that why you get the buy me now message. Their solution is to move to the latest version (read buy). I faced a simple decision about 5 years ago. I realized that my data is MINE, it was created by me and dam it I will do what I want with it. Accepting this fact made me ralize that if it is truely my data no company is going to tell me I have to purchase another one of their products in order to modify it or update it. The solution was OPEN standards. I no longer use any product that does not support OPENness.. I migrated all of my companys machines to Linux and standardized on using products that are open. Was it painfull, sure it was but freedom is not easy. both in politics and business. My solution is simple.. anytime someone sends me a document I save it in its origional format. I convert it to an open format and use it in that form. When I send someone something I ask myself one simple question. Do they ever need for edit my document? if the answer is no they get a PDF simple..no pain decision. If they say they need a doc file I ask them why they want to be able to edit my corrispondance. Think about. In 99% of the cases there is absolutly no reason anyone needs to EDIT your stuff. Ask yourself.. Why do they want to edit my document? They usually tell me a PDF is ok. I have discovered its only the word users who think they need to edit or grab your work. (sorry about the sterotyping) If its a colaboration document it goes in open format or I don't participate in the colaboration. I have worked for customers who require a certain format, I really havn't found that a problem. As I have in my mind seporated the glit from the content years ago. I simply don't care if the origional had 12 pixel line spacing and mine looks like it might have 12.5 pixel line spacing. I don't even care if they used paragraph endings at the end of each line and their document has huge spacing between lines because of my style spec. Content is seperate from presentation ie glit. Freedom from hostage ware is painfull till you get the right mindset then it becomes simple. My life has been simple with one easy question Why do you want to edit my document? Fred. > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
