Re: OT: OpenOffice not 100% compatible?

I tried OpenOffice after some fellow newsgroupers suggested it
but so far I am not enthused.
It takes many times longer [than] Word (!) to load the Writer program,
it has no file preview AFAICT
and gobbles up a huge amount of RAM resources.
Joerg

All that you have said is true.
Now compare the relative ages of the packages from the 2 vendors. [1]
How many tries did it take to get things "correct" in M$ Office? [2]

The version-dependent annoyance which is the main topic of this thread
is the most obvious flaw in the M$ product and its "standard".
If M$ can't even hit the target,
should others be expected to get it correct 100%? [3]
..
..
Word 97: Reads it fine.
Word 2000: Reads it fine.
Word XP: Blank page, can't see drawing.
OpenOffice: Blank page, can't see drawing.

Frankly, *usually* the inverse is noted WRT OOo:
When MS-Office won't open a M$-format document,
the usual fix is to open it with OOo and save it again. [4]
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=166546&cid=13889831&pid=13889831&threshold=1&mode=threaded#13891016
http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=184880&cid=15262999&threshold=2&mode=nested#15266452

There appears to be a solution on the horizon (if folks will adopt it):
Move away from the .DOC "standard" [5]:
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/05/07/0346201&threshold=4&mode=nested#15280371
(Of course M$ is going to do everything possible
to break OpenDocument Format compatibility.)
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/05/07/0346201&threshold=4&mode=nested#15280371
Remember "DOS isn't done until Lotus won't run."?

The bad news for Joe Average
is that the OpenDocument Format plug-in isn't available to him yet.
http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/05/04/1246256&threshold=5&mode=nested#15262547
..
..
[1] as well as what you paid for them.

[2] Like THAT is not STILL an issue.

[3] As Nico's post suggests, combining *content* with *formatting*
in a proprietary binary protocol is a recipe for disaster.
The use of Cascading Style Sheets with HTML
is an acknowledgement of a better concept for these things.

[4] If you do revert to the M$ product, you may find that
keeping OOo around for exactly this reason could save your ***.
(Just once will be worth the purchase price. Heh.)

[5] Which everyone in the know realizes
is only a "standard" IF YOU SPECIFY A VERSION NUMBER.

.