Re: OT: OpenOffice not 100% compatible?

Hello Jeff,


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.

All that you have said is true.
Now compare the relative ages of the packages from the 2 vendors. [1]


So, newer means not-so-good? I have three versions of Word. One is around 6 years old but muffled in order not to use and of the "new and improved" features. The next is about 10 years old, and another is over 15 years old. The 15 year old one is the most stable :-)


How many tries did it take to get things "correct" in M$ Office? [2]


One. (The installation)


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]


No, but I thought a *** with only one drawing on there and no other text ain't all that complicated.


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]


That's what I have heard. But twice I have seen it the other way around.

.
[1] as well as what you paid for them.

[2] Like THAT is not STILL an issue.


I am willing to pay a reasonable price. I paid for all the MS stuff so there is no reason why OO couldn't have a license fee as well. But as long as it is completely Java based I guess I wouldn't go for it anyway.


[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.


Then programs should not let people do that or at least beep a warning.


[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.)


I'll keep it for a while. It does have a nice slide show creator which I like better than PowerPoint.


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


Now here is the puzzler. MS seems not to be able to maintain backward compatibility with their MS-Word line. However, another group, the creators of MS-Works do a much better job. I am using Works for my business books and the reason is simple: I can still read files that I created in 1889 with any version. I can even create a new file in the latest version and have it stored in a format that is understood by the old DOS-Works. I have tried it and to my amazement it really worked. Also, no matter how hard I pounded on it Works never froze up on me once in 17 years. Word (and OO as well) freeze all the time. No idea why but I believe there could be a distinct difference in design quality between those two groups in Redmond. I always felt that difference, even in DOS days. Word did crash on occasion while the Works word processor never did. Then they began shipping Works bundled with Word and sure enough that WP reliability ended for me.

Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com
.