Mailinglist Archive: opensuse (3378 mails)

["John Blue" <jblue@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> On Fri, 2002-03-29 at 16:54, John Blue wrote:
> > I am using SuSE 7.3 and still learning basics at the beginning of a 
> > move of a small home/office network from M$ NT4 / 2K to Linux (or at 
> > least as far as I can go).
> > 
> > I have used Star Office 5.1, 5.2, and 6 beta as well as Open Office 
> > on Windows NT, but have not as yet stated using applications in a 
> > Linux environment. That will come but I am still learning and playing 
> > around.
> > 
> > One significant problem we have is that my wife receives a lot of 
> > word processing documents and occasional spreadsheet files, and the 
> > odd presentation file from members of an organisation in which she 
> > has an executive role. These files invariably originate from an M$ 
> > Office version from 95 to XP.
> > 
> > In most cases she has success with reading them in SO5.2 and then 
> > edits, or creates documents and saves them in M$ Office 97 format to 
> > send out.
> > 
> > Her recipients often have difficulty in reading these files.
> > 
> > Has anyone suggestions on the best way of dealing with this problem? 
> > Which software would do the best job, presently under M$ NT4, but 
> > subsequently under Linux? My preference is not to have to run 
> > M$Office...!
> > 
> > All advice appreciated.
> > 
> snipped
> > 
> > 
> > 
> 
> It is too late to suggest that you try the StarOffice 6 beta, as
> StarOffice 6 will be generally unavailable for the next couple of
> months.
> 
> However OpenOffice is available and works as well as StarOffice.  With
> the latest OO 641D some of the differences that were visible between SO
> 6 and OO 6xx appear to have disappeared.
> 
> You can set OO or SO to automatically save your files as MS Office
> formats.  You do not have to specifically import or convert MS files
> into OO/SO, you just open the MS files directly into OO/SO, seamlessly.
> 
> My day job plus my startup company make extensive use of MS files.  My
> employer and customers send files in MS format and expect to receive
> everything back in MS format.  The new OO/SO does an excellent job of
> handling these MS files such that no one even questions how the files
> have been handled.  With Word and Excel files the transfer success is
> probably 95 to 98%.  The 2 to 5% failure in exchanging files is not a
> small piece of several files but rather one or two problems files that
> do not import or export well.  This failure rate is low enough that MS
> users expect it, as transferring files from Word95 to Word97 to Word2000
> to WordXP will produce similar if not higher failure rates.   I have had
> 2 page simple Word documents that would not transfer well and have also
> had 45 page word documents with automated Table of Contents, embedded
> pictures, multiple sections with differing headers and footers plus text
> with coloured backgrounds that were imported perfectly.
> 
> My experience is that MS powerpoint files (4 to 19 MB) are successfully
> transferred OO/SO about 85 to 90% of the time.  The real business ppt
> and pps seem to be transferred fine and it is mostly the joke ones that
> do not open up correctly in OO/SO.  Perhaps it is the extra animations
> in the joke pps that cause the problem.
> 
> I encourage you to try OO 641D (www.openoffice.org).  The linux binary
> download is around 65 MB (openoffice does not include a database or
> java) and the installation is very simple.  Spend about 1/2 hour setting
> up the options and defaults and MS Office is not needed.  With OO/SO you
> do not need to try and convince the world around you to abandon their MS
> Office and to send all files to you in RTF or non-proprietary formats,
> which is not going to happen. 
> 
Hi Ralph,
Your detailed response is very much appreciated.

I have downloaded the windows version of 641d and we will try it out, 
using some of the files that had caused problems recently.
Once I have the linux system running OK I will download the Linux 
versions and see how we go.
> 
Best wishes,
John
> -- 
> Ralph Sanford       -       If your government does not trust you,
> rsanford@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx   -   should you trust your government?
> 
> DH/DSS Key   -   0x7A1BEA01
> 
> 
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> 


John Blue, 
PO Box 542 
Mawson ACT 2607 
Australia
email: jblue@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Fax: +61 2 6291 1119

Thought for the day:
    Intuition (n): an uncanny sixth sense which tells people 
    that they are right, whether they are or not.