Mmmm, remember my comments about word being a world class piece of software? Used by nearly everyone? The ideal way to disseminate documents.
You all booed and shouted! :-) Did I return fire? - No! I just waited :-)
I still boo and shout. It's a proprietry format which requires you to have proprietry tools to produce it (quite apart from it being horrid). It is very far from being the ideal way to disseminate documentation. I've used WPs from the day dot, even written my own when the cost of something to do the job was just too much or not available on the platform I was using, and the best for general office work, despite all the extra baggage that I never use, and that stupid bloody paper-clip, has got to be Word - sorry! And I can (and do) transmit files to co-workers all around the world. Do you think that I would pay so much to use something that didn't work. There is truth in the phrase, "you get what you pay for" ! Free is great IF it will do the job.
There are any number of acceptable open formats - ascii, html, PS, PDF which can be produced by freely available applications. Ascii - Wot, no formatting. HTML - yeah, okay but clunky to write. PDF - fab, The correct way to do it, but at a cost. PS - huge and at a cost. These are all propriety formats by the way.
It sort of beggars belief that anybody should post a .doc file to a mailing list primarily concerned with the use of open software.
Thanks Malcolm! Regarding OSE too, Whoops! My point exactly.
Good news indeed regarding Becta encouraging the development of OSS for schools. But if schools are going to use OSS perhaps we should show that it is a practical proposition by using it ourselves. So, which will you go for? Some readers of this list can't even read HTML e-mails. You need a format that is already in place though-out the world, so lets go for plain ascii, afterall it does have that computer-nurd look and feel.
This idea of pre assembled modules looks good, but of course this approach requires a supplier, which means added value, which means costs, We can all wave at Bill as we whizz around on a different round-a-bout. Back to that phrase again! A timely misquote, "you can fuel some of the people all of the time, you can fuel all of the people some of the time, but you can't fuel all of the people all of the time" Just a few thoughts. ;-) PS Have you all got your remote computing set up yet for next week ? Mr Sceptical of Weston-super-Mare Kind regards Adrian Wells