On Jan 9, 2007, at 12:51, Robin Laing wrote:
Jim Smith wrote:
I have used OpenOffice in the past when it claimed to be 100%
compatible with MS Word. Unfortunately, I discovered that it was not.
When graphics such as drawings made with Word, pictures, or imported
clip art were used, the formatting and display of these would break
down.
If I fixed them, a tedious and time-consuming process, they would
appear OK, until they were re-opened in Word, then they would be wrong
again. This means they could not be exchanged with Word users. As a
professional writer who submits most things in electronic format, this
was unacceptable.
Has new versions of OpenOffice addressed this incompatibility? Also,
is there a utility to convert documents to and from Adobe .pdf format?
Is there a way to test these things without first going to
OpenOffice?
Thanks,
James Smith
João Pessoa, Brazil
Hello James,
I feel your pain. FWIW, you will run into the same issues between
different versions of Word so it isn't just a OpenOffice issue. I
have seen my wife scream over this issue when trying to combine
multiple documents created on different versions of Word into a single
document.
I have never seen OpenOffice announce 100% compatibility and if I try
to save in a non-open standard, I am warned about this problem. Don't
you get the warnings as well?
One thing that one of my co-workers told me is that working with
graphics in Word can be a real pain as the auto-formatting will move
things on it's own. He now uses OpenOffice as he can control the
graphics much better. This is after Word reformatted a report that he
had been working on all weekend and wouldn't undo.
If formatting is an issue, then make sure all people are using
OpenOffice or the same version of Word for the best compatibility. At
least OpenOffice doesn't cost any money.
--
Robin Laing
Robin,
I think that much of the problems come from people trying to do things
in a word processor that should really be done in a desktop publishing
program.
It is a byproduct of people who don't know the difference between a
text editor, word processor and desktop publishing. It has helped push
the feature
bloat in word processors as programs are touted to have more "features"
than the competition, regardless of weather they are useful or even
hinder the
program. Compare the size and speed of MS Word 5.0 and the current
version of Word as an example of feature bloat and size increase.
I did a large document a few years ago. I gave up on Word at about 7
pages and brought my Mac from home and used Word Perfect which did a
much better job. If I had to do it again, I would use a desktop
publishing program for the document and a word processor or text editor
for the text portions and import the text into the desktop publishing
program.
Ross Bernheim
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