hi all after much debate, here's the rtf of the small-scale technology pilot document and also an amusing cartoon hey...i don't mind the debate or the slagging Malcolm ------------------------------------ Dr Malcolm Herbert Head of Technology R&D, Becta 02476 847126 Fax: 02476 847120 ------------------------------------ on 12/9/00 11:38 am, Frank Shute at shute@esperance.demon.co.uk wrote:
On Tue, Sep 12, 2000 at 06:27:26PM +0100, Adrian Wells wrote:
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!
Quite apart from anything else the `bloody paper-clip' (tm) makes me want to throw a brick at my monitor, so Word is ruled out on expense grounds (19" monitors being expensive to replace :)
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.
I don't exactly see what Word can do that free tools can't. I think there is truth in the phrase "you get what you pay for", in the case of Microsoft it's bloated, proprietry software that locks you in to a life of software and hardware upgrades and misery at vast expense.
I used to use Word but when I found that I couldn't read .docs produced in one version of Word with an older version of Word I rapidly cottoned on to what MS's game was - ie. forcing users to upgrade whether they liked it or not.
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.
PDF and PS are proprietry but open formats for which there are freely available readers for /all/ platforms. There are few tools for dealing with .doc's on nix and none to produce them.
HTML - non proprietry and can't word spit out, admittedly bad, html anyhow?
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.
I don't want html emails but I don't mind html attachments. Ascii is of course limited and I would personally recommend that PDF is used for documentation that needs to be distributed with formatting preserved. Anybody with a reasonably modern computer will either have a copy of Acrobat Reader or can download one from http://www.adobe.com/ for free.
Adrian, can you save a Word .doc as plain text? Perhaps you would be good enough to post Malcolm's .doc to me as plain text and I'll make it available as PDF for those who can't deal with .docs
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