T
Tiger
Then don't recommend them here.
--
Tiger
"Zero is where the fun starts
There is too much counting everywhere else."
- Hafiz
Then don't recommend them here.
--
Tiger
"Zero is where the fun starts
There is too much counting everywhere else."
- Hafiz
J
JunkMonkey
I could see businesses who have a large number of people who need JUST a
word processor buying copies of Sun Office (Really just OO - with support).
But I have a LOT of experience in helping people automate their businesses
and OO and SO just isn't at the point where it/they are a viable alternative
to a good office suite. I posted a sort of mini review of Sun Office in a
previous post. (I'm not saying it will never be an alternative, just that
it isn't one now.)
My point is, that there is nothing wrong with wanting to find a way to limit
the amount of money you want to pay to Microsoft, but lying to yourself and
to newbies about the quality and efficacy of Open Office can get very
expensive in the long run,and can weaken your credibility.
There ARE viable and INEXPENSIVE alternatives to Microsoft Office and I
think we need to be honest about the quality of the freeware that's out
there.
word processor buying copies of Sun Office (Really just OO - with support).
But I have a LOT of experience in helping people automate their businesses
and OO and SO just isn't at the point where it/they are a viable alternative
to a good office suite. I posted a sort of mini review of Sun Office in a
previous post. (I'm not saying it will never be an alternative, just that
it isn't one now.)
My point is, that there is nothing wrong with wanting to find a way to limit
the amount of money you want to pay to Microsoft, but lying to yourself and
to newbies about the quality and efficacy of Open Office can get very
expensive in the long run,and can weaken your credibility.
There ARE viable and INEXPENSIVE alternatives to Microsoft Office and I
think we need to be honest about the quality of the freeware that's out
there.
A
Alan
JunkMonkey wrote:
Congratulations! By failing to attempt to discredit and debase M$ on any
and all fronts with an unqualified rant, you have just gained admission
to Blinkered the Sharleton's Hall of Microsoft Adorers. After being
quizzed on whether you work for M$ or how many shares you have, you can
look forward to being added to his Too Hard Basket... er, I mean Bozo
Bin, in the near future. ;-)
<snip>
Congratulations! By failing to attempt to discredit and debase M$ on any
and all fronts with an unqualified rant, you have just gained admission
to Blinkered the Sharleton's Hall of Microsoft Adorers. After being
quizzed on whether you work for M$ or how many shares you have, you can
look forward to being added to his Too Hard Basket... er, I mean Bozo
Bin, in the near future. ;-)
O
ozzy
There are alternatives, as you mention, that many do in fact use. The
OP found problems with her version of OO & others still use it with no
problems. OO may not be for everyone but it does function very well &
serves as an Office replacement for some.
Some clients we deal with, who prefer to stay away from Office have
chosen to use Wordperfect. They are quite happy. Some are even trying
the A.C.F recommended software with great success & satisfaction.
Undeniably; there are still those out there that have already tried &
used Office & are now spoiled. They refuse to switch unless the new
replacement has 100% of the same features & stability as Office. IMO
the stability part is questionable and I have not come across a true,
replacement that meets ALL their needs. There is no doubt that one
exists, we'll just have to try harder to locate one.
T
techie
Nevertheless a lot of businesses are using it. Perhaps they need something
different in an office suite than you do?
That's one of my own pet peeves about the open-source community - they
sometimes get a little too enthusiastic about their projects, and run
around telling everyone something is ready when it still needs a little
more work. But I also get frustrated with Windows users who complain
that something is "broken" because they think every application in Linux
should be a perfect clone of their Windows software, or whine when a
Linux application doesn't read Microsoft's undocumented and
ever-changing proprietary file formats with 100% accuracy.
I'm quite happy with the quality of free software that's out there. It
does everything I need to do, and then some. If it didn't, I'd have been
running Windows instead of Linux and FreeBSD for the past three years.
M
Max Quordlepleen
Helen said:
If you updated "a few months ago" you _ still_ don't have the latest
version, which was released less than a month ago. The rest of your
reply is the sort of bitter, cynical, ill-informed FUD that scarcely
merits a response. What does TCPA have to do with an OpenSource
product? Sweet FA. BTW, I'm not an OOo apologist, it's not my main
auite, and I am _very_ aware of its limitations but I am closely
monitoring its progress, and I'm not given to posts like yours, full
as they are of sound and fury, and signifying very little at
all. Wa-as salaam alaikum, noho ora mai.
W
WebWalker
Aren't OO and StarOffice the same?
StarOffice = OO + Database + customer support.
F
Forrest
JunkMonkey said:
I own WP 7 and 8 and have used 6. I have found OpenOffice Writer to
be Very Nice Indeed, and as I don't care to reinstall WordPerfect
whenever I reinstall Windows[1] I eschew WP in favor of OOo, which
doesn't need reinstalling. MSOffice would have the same drawback.
__________________________
[1] I reinstall Windows far more often than I actually need to.
A
Avraham Hanadari
MS Office does a real fine job in supporting Hebrew word processing. OO
also does a pretty good job. AbiWord slogs along. Which of the many
alternatives out there (free or otherwise) can provide an environment for
word processing in Hebrew and Arabic?
Avraham Hanadari
J
John Corliss
JunkMonkey said:
But they are not freeware. Please don't recommend commercial software
in this group. It's supposed to be for the discussion of freeware.
Recommending commercial software here is like littering: "What if
everybody did it?"
--
Regards from John Corliss
alt.comp.freeware F.A.Q.:
http://www.ccountry.net/~jcorliss/F.A.Q./FrameSet1.html
Note that I can't see any of Andy Mabbett's troll posts
because I have him killfiled.
P
Peter Seiler
WebWalker - 12.10.2003 11:13 :
AFAIK, in principle yes.
AFAIK, in principle yes.
P
Paul
Helen said:
It also takes over HTM(L) files once you saved a file as HTM(L), i.e.
these files are associated with OO.
Paul
J
JunkMonkey
John,
I think you, and a few other readers, missed my point. My point wasn't
about recommending non freeware, it was about recommending freeware to
someone when it clearly is not the appropriate product for them to use. At
some point, we have to stop ignoring the warts, and say "that's one ugly
frog!"
Right now, OO is a pretty good word processor, an OK spreadsheet, and a
wannabe presentation package. Recommending it for any other purpose,
becomes a political statement in a sense.
People ask us, well they ask me, for software recommendations all the time.
They aren't asking to stoke our ego, or to find out our views on Microsoft.
They have a problem that they think software might resolve. Giving them the
name of software that is irrelevant to their problem in the name of politics
just makes us look a little flakey.
Open source software has great potential for shaping the software market,
but only if we resist turning it into some sort of a test for political (or
religious) zeal!
Regards to all, and use what works for you.
I think you, and a few other readers, missed my point. My point wasn't
about recommending non freeware, it was about recommending freeware to
someone when it clearly is not the appropriate product for them to use. At
some point, we have to stop ignoring the warts, and say "that's one ugly
frog!"
Right now, OO is a pretty good word processor, an OK spreadsheet, and a
wannabe presentation package. Recommending it for any other purpose,
becomes a political statement in a sense.
People ask us, well they ask me, for software recommendations all the time.
They aren't asking to stoke our ego, or to find out our views on Microsoft.
They have a problem that they think software might resolve. Giving them the
name of software that is irrelevant to their problem in the name of politics
just makes us look a little flakey.
Open source software has great potential for shaping the software market,
but only if we resist turning it into some sort of a test for political (or
religious) zeal!
Regards to all, and use what works for you.
L
Lefty Mills
This is a freeware group. It is quite in order to ask for "free
alternatives". For "alternatives - otherwise", please ask
somewhere else.
Try ACCOX -freeware-
http://tinyurl.com/qmso
Simple text editor (like WordPad) for reverse writing direction,
used in Hebrew and Arabic language. This editor have got the
input line with 'Left-war cursor movement' - single chars are
inserted form right side to left side of row. Some modification
of text are allowed - change font, color, size, alignment
(left,center,right). Text is saved in RTF or TXT (plain text).
Two sample fonts included.Simple text editor (like WordPad) for
reverse writing direction, used in Hebrew and Arabic language.
This editor have got the input line with 'Left-war cursor
movement' - single chars are inserted form right side to left
side of row. Some modification of text are allowed - change
font, color, size, alignment (left,center,right). Text is saved
in RTF or TXT (plain text). Two sample fonts included.
Simple text editor (like WordPad) for reverse writing direction,
used in Hebrew and Arabic language. This editor have got the
input line with 'Left-war cursor movement' - single chars are
inserted form right side to left side of row. Some modification
of text are allowed - change font, color, size, alignment
(left,center,right). Text is saved in RTF or TXT (plain text).
Two sample fonts included.
J
John Corliss
they > think software might resolve. Giving them the name of softwareJunkMonkey said:
that
I didn't mean to imply that there is anything wrong with criticizing a
particular freeware program. However, the way you did it by
recommending commercial software was inappropriate to this group.
Perhaps a better thing for you to have said would have been:
"Those of you looking for a Microsoft alternative should consider
commercial software since in my opinion, there really doesn't seem to
be any freeware options worth considering at this point."
and left it at that.
IMO criticism of freeware should be done with diplomacy unless you
really don't care whether or not a project continues or about the
feelings of the author(s). Personally, I want all freeware development
to continue with few exceptions, and I try to be respectful of the
developers of such software.
Yes, there are politics involved with the subject of freeware. Damn
right and that's just the nature of it. But I don't think what you're
suggesting certain people in this group to be doing is really what's
going on.
Since the main objection to OO.O voiced by Helen seems to be (and I'm
not really clear about this from the wording of her OP) that it does a
poor job of opening presentations that were created in M$ Office, it
is to wonder:
How bad a job does it do with presentations originally created in
OpenOffice.org?
I've used OpenOffice.org before and my only objection was that it was
*TOO MUCH* like M$ Office. It did, however, work exactly as
advertised. That the word processor module was too much like M$ Word
(which I loath beyond words, pun intended) is why I uninstalled it and
went back to the commercial suite of my choice.
--
Regards from John Corliss
alt.comp.freeware F.A.Q.:
http://www.ccountry.net/~jcorliss/F.A.Q./FrameSet1.html
Note that I can't see any of Andy Mabbett's troll posts
because I have him killfiled.
B
Bob Adkins
I don't agree. I don't think MS hating has much to do with choosing OOo over
MS Office. Sure, a few bitter souls avoid as many MS products as they can,
but not many.
I use OOo, and I'm very intolerant of software that does not work right. I
think OOo is 85% there in usability compared to MS. It does almost
everything I need.
Bothers are the goofy warnings about data or function loss if not saved in
native OOo format. Can this be turned off? I want to use all MS formats by
default. Also the Java warning is a pain. They either need to eliminate the
dependence on Java. This is lame. OOo is not intuitive about open windows
either. I would like to see the apps separated as in MS Office, yet continue
the seamless inter operability. It needs polishing. The graphics, tables,
and menus look fat and rough. Other than that, complaints are minor.
Bob
C
Christopher Jahn
And said:
Not exactly; there is a lag between the time OO releases a
version and StarOffice releases their version. OO will always
be farther ahead on the development curve as a result.
To put it another way: the most current OO build will always
be more advanced than the most current StarOffice build.
--
Christopher Jahn:-(
http://mywebpage.netscape.com/xjahn/Main.html
After a number of decimal places, nobody gives a damn.
A
Alan
Christopher said:
Indeed... the world record for Pi calculation stands at a whopping 205
billion digits!!! (give or take half a billion digits).
A billion digits looks good on paper but think about this. If one were
to find the circumference of a circle the size of the known universe,
requiring that the circumference be accurate to within the radius of one
proton only 39 decimal places of Pi would be necessary.
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Pines/5945/facts.html
This may be the defining limit on decimal places for actually being
*able* to give a damn.
T
techie
It's fun to speculate on what would happen if they kept computing digits
only to find out that, in fact, pi does end?
This may be the defining limit on decimal places for actually being
*able* to give a damn.
needs to be. »
I saw a pretty good one somewhere... A guy asked his old down-to-earth
grandma whether a glass was half empty or half full. She instantly
replied, without even thinking about it, that "it depends on whether
you're pouring or drinking".
Simple, obvious, undeniably correct, and yet in 50 years of hearing that
question I never thunk of it.
B
Blinky the Shark
Might want to check some settings, Paul. It doesn't do that, here. I
just saved a new file as HTML, in OO, and OO didn't hijack .html in my
file associations. Doubleclicking the file in my file manager opened it
in a browser, as it was supposed to.