[CLUE-Talk] would like to try Linux \\ SuSE ???

[Timothy C. Klein]

* Matt Gushee (mgushee at havenrock.com) wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 23, 2002 at 03:33:32AM -0600, Wayne Schneider wrote:
> 
> > As far as the interchangability of files look into www.openoffice.org or Sun's Star Office.
> 
> I think we should be honest about this--not that I think anybody's
> lying, but I sense a reluctance to reveal what most of us know--that
> there is no software that will perfectly import all MS Office documents.
> Star/Open Office does a reasonably good job, but there are almost always
> formatting bugs with documents of any complexity--e.g. list bullets and
> numbers tend to be messed up. I don't know if we can expect any better,
> as long as Microsoft feels free to change their already obfuscated
> document formats whenever they see fit. The StarOffice team has done a
> heroic job as it is.
> 
> I hope that doesn't turn anybody away, but I'm thinking back to when I
> was considering using Linux. One of the major reasons I decided to go
> ahead with it was that--unlike any proprietary software product I know
> of--I could get the unvarnished truth about what worked and what didn't.
> 
> By the way, if you want to find out whether StarOffice's Word and Excel
> filters are good enough for you, you might try installing the Windows
> version first.
> 

You are right here.  You can *usually* see what was meant about the
document.  Simple docs are fine.  Complex ones will almsot certainly have
formatting problems.  I was recently sent a MS Word doc from my Prob.
Theory professor.  The doc was full of equations.  The layout of the
document was right, and StarOffice even knew that there were equations
emebedded, and imported them.  However, the symbols were all wrong.
There were summation, union, intersect, etc symbols, and I got arrows.
I had no idea what the equations were.

But like I mentioned in another email after I thought about it, you can
use MS Office on Linux.  If you are willing to work at it, it can probably
be done for free with WINE.  Or if you want it to be easy, buy the
CodeWeavers product.

Also, StarOffice is fine for MS Office document creation.  If you create
the doc in SO, and then save it as MS Office, I have never had any
problems.  My wife does this all the time, between home and work, with
no trouble.  So even StarOffice can be quite usefull.  And if you are
really serious about open/free, you should work on ditching MS Office.  

Tim
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== Timothy Klein || teece at silverklein.net   ==
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