Sick of Open Office!! Dumped

[Darrien]

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 would complain too if they promised Microsoft compatibility and didn't
deliver.

http://www.openoffice.org/about.html#description

"...OpenOffice.org also works transparently with a variety of file
formats, including those of Microsoft Office."

 

[M.L.]

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.

Seems like you're giving a faint thumbs up to OpenOffice as a word
processing, spreadsheet, and presentation app. Aren't those the main
apps expected in an office suite? IIRC, your only real -- and well
deserved -- damnation was for OO's database support. But if one
purchases MS Access or the freeware dbworx for a database, they'll
still be ahead of the cost of MS Office. I use both MS Office and
OpenOffice, and I just don't see the show stopping deficiencies in OO
that you do.

 

[Blinky the Shark]

Seems like you're giving a faint thumbs up to OpenOffice as a word
processing, spreadsheet, and presentation app. Aren't those the main
apps expected in an office suite? IIRC, your only real -- and well
deserved -- damnation was for OO's database support. But if one
purchases MS Access or the freeware dbworx for a database, they'll
still be ahead of the cost of MS Office. I use both MS Office and
OpenOffice, and I just don't see the show stopping deficiencies in OO
that you do.

Also, the cheaper varieties of MSO don't come with Access, anyway, so
you're paying an extra premium for it by the time you get the more
costly MSO mix, even if you do get an Access-included variety.

 

[Helen]

After reading all the available (from server) posts on this topic, I
wish I had never said a word.
Long story short: My aggravation was at me, not you (the one who ranted
about bitterness
and vitriol, in essence). I have to use Ms Office at work. I did not
want it on my home
machines. Thinking that OO was 'in lieu' thereof, compatible, etc., I
spent hours and hours
downloading it. When I tried to get the work done at home using OO it
wouldn't work
on the office machines. Try a few of those work related encounters.
OK, so after trying
everything I could, I finally resigned myself that they are not
compatible and I cannot use
OO in lieu of MS Office for WORK projects - things that have to be done
correctly and
be reliable. Voila! So I have Microsoft Office Suite 2000 on my
machine at home but it wasn't
from choice. End of story. I will not again report any problems with
programs. I'll just dump
them and keep my mouth shut and let others do what the will, since the
elitism in this group is
becoming a waste to read. I was so enthused about the freeware, the
site, and told everyone
about it. Oh, well, I guess you live and you learn. I apologize for
the posts (all of them).

Best of luck to you all,

Helen
BA,MA,JD

 

[JunkMonkey]

I think compared to many threads this was a rather civilized dialog! Now
that it has run it's course, and considering the high level of anonymity
that the internet provides, I think just about everyone behaved reasonably
well. Positions were stated and argued pretty much in a respectful manner.

Censoring yourself for fear of raising a ruckus in a newsgroup is the last
thing you (or any of us, for that manner) should do. Sometimes the replies
ARE vitriolic and/or mean-spirited, but again considering the high level of
anonymity we have; none of us can know what words or combination of words
will push someone else's hot button. But if you feel something needs to be
said, even if just to vent, PLEASE say it.

Regards
JunkMonkey

 

[Alan]

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.

Yes, very insightful - and amusing. I guess another criterion might be
whether you're selling or buying the beer! ;-)

 

[techie]

After reading all the available (from server) posts on this topic, I
wish I had never said a word. Long story short: My aggravation was
at me, not you (the one who ranted about bitterness and vitriol, in
essence). I have to use Ms Office at work. I did not want it on my
home machines. Thinking that OO was 'in lieu' thereof, compatible,
etc., I spent hours and hours downloading it. When I tried to get the
work done at home using OO it wouldn't work on the office machines.

Maybe you should have done a little homework first. It took me less than
30 seconds to turn up two informative links on Google:

<http://www.winplanet.com/winplanet/reviews/4196/1/>

"...OpenOffice.org is a highly (though not perfectly) file- and
interface-compatible alternative to Microsoft Office. With little or
no time spent converting files and learning different commands, you
can use it to edit your Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents, and
create ones that colleagues can use with Office -- or consider moving
from Microsoft's proprietary, changed-at-whim file formats to
OpenOffice.org's more universally readable XML, which also saves disk
space."

"...Microsoft considers Word's .DOC file format a trade secret as
precious as any Windows programming API, and works hard to ensure that
neither OpenOffice.org nor WordPerfect Office nor any other program
can promise 100-percent accuracy in importing and exporting Office
documents. If your company uses worksheets and other files with fancy,
in-house-developed macros, OOo is likely to stumble -- although the
suite does have a programming language that parallels Microsoft's
Visual Basic for Applications, and offers to set aside and resave the
original VBA code when opening, editing, and saving Office-format
files."

Further down the Google page was the same site's later review of the OO
1.1 release candidate:

<http://www.windowscentral.com/winplanet/reviews/4940/1/>

"We were mystified by one PowerPoint file that crashed OOo every time
we tried to load it, but otherwise batted at least .900 in loading
documents and templates as long as we steered clear of Office files
with embedded macros. Word letter templates with "Click here and type
name" obliged us to press the Delete key instead of simply typing over
the shaded field; no big deal. Excel charts looked fine. A Word 2002
file we use to test would-be challengers' compatibility arrived
complete with styles, footnotes, tables, footnotes within tables,
columns, text wrap around images, you name it. OOo even read a
two-column RTF file created with Atlantis Ocean Mind which Word
renders as one column."

Anyone capable of downloading a file or reading the OO website also has
acccess to the greatest information resource in human history. I don't
feel sorry for anyone who can't be bothered to spend a few minutes
looking for impartial reviews before investing that much time in their
own product evaluation.

Try a few of those work related encounters. OK, so after trying
everything I could, I finally resigned myself that they are not
compatible and I cannot use OO in lieu of MS Office for WORK projects
- things that have to be done correctly and be reliable. Voila! So
I have Microsoft Office Suite 2000 on my machine at home but it wasn't
from choice. End of story. I will not again report any problems
with programs. I'll just dump them and keep my mouth shut and let
others do what the will, since the elitism in this group is becoming a
waste to read. I was so enthused about the freeware, the site, and
told everyone about it. Oh, well, I guess you live and you learn. I
apologize for the posts (all of them).

Oh, boo hoo. Now let's look at what you originally posted:

I'm sick of spending hours constructing ppt slides only to have that
hog Open Office latch onto them and screw them up! OO is INFERIOR in
the ppt area and I loathe it attaching itself to EVERYTHING! Yeah, I
dumped it after hours of downloading it via dial-up and after
unsuccessfully trying to control it's aggressive latching onto my
ppt's. Bye bye OO! I've had it. OO is garbage with regard to power
point slides. It has no option for sound and when installed, it
takes over ppt files and mucks them up. Now for a reg cleaner to
chisel it out and off my computer!

I don't use Windows myself so I've been asking a few friends about this.
According to them, Open Office doesn't take over your associations
unless you give it permission to. You can do this in two ways - by
selecting the default installation which, by definition, means you're
trusting someone else to guess which options you'll want. Or, by taking
the custom-installation route and explicitly allowing OO to take over
your file associations. This subject is amply covered in the Open Office
manual and FAQ's.

<http://www.openoffice.org/dev_docs/instructions.html>

Getting Started

The first thing you'll want to do is read through these instructions
completely, and use the OpenOffice.org site to answer any questions
you might have. The site contains documentation for users of all
levels, beginner to advanced; a good place to get started for all new
users of OpenOffice.org would be browsing the FAQ.

<snip>

<BOLD>Note. Depending on your install set you may be asked if you want
OpenOffice.org to be your default Office suite.</BOLD> If you answer
"yes" and then change your mind, returning to the prior state is
tedious. You need to reassociate all Office files.

Second, as I pointed out above, a few minutes of research would have
told you everything you needed to know, without all that effort. Strange
that someone who claims to have an MA isn't at home with research tools.


In summary, you did not just "report problems". You came in here using
innaccurate information to roundly bash a free application into which
many people have poured years of love and hard work that they were
willing to give to you for free, and got a well-deserved jumping-on.

 

[Alan]

After reading all the available (from server) posts on this topic, I
wish I had never said a word.
Long story short:

End of story. I will not again report any problems
with programs. I'll just dump
them and keep my mouth shut and let others do what the will, since the
elitism in this group is
becoming a waste to read. I was so enthused about the freeware, the
site, and told everyone
about it. Oh, well, I guess you live and you learn. I apologize for
the posts (all of them).

I tend to agree with junkmonkey here, in that this particular "exchange"
has been one of the milder and more civilised ones. Unfortunately, there
are a few regular ACF contributors who are hell bent on beating up on
MS, no matter what the situation, and who will see/ hear nothing that
might suggest that some/ any feature of a MS product is better than
anything in the freeware (or actually non-MS eg. WordPerfect) products.

Still, such exchanges can yield some useful information, if you can sort
the feed from the chaff. It becomes apparent who is there to try to
simply try to cut down the tall poppies, and who might offer some useful
info. The former usually expose themselves by degenerating into telling
you your sig is broken, or your linewrap is wrong, or something equally
relevent to the topic. Such is life on the usenet.

 

[techie]

I would complain too if they promised Microsoft compatibility and didn't
deliver.

http://www.openoffice.org/about.html#description

"...OpenOffice.org also works transparently with a variety of file
formats, including those of Microsoft Office."

First they aren't "promising" anything, and second nowhere does it say
anything about 100% compatability, and third you're trying to read
entirely too much into a brief introductory description of a complex
product.

 

[Kevin Davis³]

Also the Java warning is a pain. They either need to eliminate the
dependence on Java. This is lame.

Since OO is linked inherently to Sun, this is not likely to happen. I
would expect to see you know where freeze over first.

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.

This is common in Open Source software, IMO. A lot of great
developers but few that are fluent in GUI design. And a lot of
extreme antipathy to Microsoft, so the often irrational aversion to
make something that looks and feels like an MS product - even if it
means that it will be less intuitive or counter intuitive.

 

[Darrien]

First they aren't "promising" anything,

Aren't they?

An "introductory description" shouldn't contain false or misleading
information.

and second nowhere does it say anything about 100% compatability,

"works transparently" seems to imply 100% compatibility.

and third you're trying to read entirely too much into a brief
introductory description of a complex product.

How complex can an office suite be?
It's so abstracted from the OS that it doesn't need any "voodoo" the way a
driver or media editor might.

How complex can Microsoft Office compatibility be?
It's either compatible, which they seem to imply, or not.

 

[Max Quordlepleen]

How complex can Microsoft Office compatibility be?
It's either compatible, which they seem to imply, or not.

That is not true. It is not an all or nothing situation. Even your
beloved M$ Orifice doesn't maintain 100% compatibility with older
versions of itself. The latest versions of OOo do an excellent job of
opening M$ Orifice files, but of course, since M$ makes sure that its
file formats are completely secret, no one can make a perfectly
compatible suite, and OOo doesn't promise what it can't deliver. Unless
you're using a truly unique dictionary, "transparently" does not mean
"perfectly", and Sun/OOo can't be held responsible for what you choose
to infer - they "implied" nothing, you "inferred" it.

 

[Alan]

Max Quordlepleen wrote:

Sun/OOo can't be held responsible for what
you choose to infer - they "implied" nothing, you "inferred" it.

And I presume that you would be prepared to extend that same leniency of
definition to anything MS says about its software?

 

[BoB]

There was an article on OO and associations in the Langa newsletter
today. Here are a couple references to past articles.

For more info on backing out of changes cause by testing ANY
software, see "Open Office, And Software Testing In General"
( http://www.langa.com/newsletters/2002/2002-06-03.htm#4 ) That
article tells you how you can safely test any software at all, no
matter how complex, without risk to your system or data.

Another article, "More On Open Office And File Associations" in
http://www.langa.com/newsletters/2002/2002-06-10.htm#5 covered some
alternate methods on undoing changes caused by installing complex
software, including ways to change file associations one at a time.

BoB
For the duration of Swen, my address is inoperative.

 

[Max Quordlepleen]

And I presume that you would be prepared to extend that same
leniency of definition to anything MS says about its software?

It's not leniency. Buy a dictionary, and look up "transparently" and
"perfectly" and if the publication offers one as a synonym for the
other, I'll bear you a son.

 

[TW]

I'm sick of spending hours constructing ppt slides only to have that hog
Open Office latch onto them and screw them up! OO is INFERIOR in the ppt
area and I loathe it attaching itself to EVERYTHING! Yeah, I dumped it
after hours of downloading it via dial-up and after unsuccessfully trying
to control it's aggressive latching onto my ppt's. Bye bye OO! I've had
it. OO is garbage with regard to power point slides. It has no option for
sound and when installed, it takes over ppt files and mucks them up. Now
for a reg cleaner to chisel it out and off my computer!

Helen

One other thing...if you import a csv file into OO's spreadsheet app,
when you save it back as a csv file you get quotation marks around the
csv's. That messes up the program that the csv's were generated from
(Madden 2002; for roster changes, using a csv dump utility). Excel
doesn't add the quotes. Truth be told, that Excel feature is the only
part of MS Office that I still use. OO 1.1 works for me ok.
e-mail modified, take the ** out to reply!

TW

kilocycles***@***yahoo.com

 

[techie]

Max Quordlepleen wrote:


And I presume that you would be prepared to extend that same leniency of
definition to anything MS says about its software?

I'll be equally tolerant of MS when MS-Office is free like OpenOffice
is.

 

[Alan]

I'll be equally tolerant of MS when MS-Office is free like OpenOffice
is.

OK, that's what I was wanting to know - the goal posts are selectively
opened and closed, depending on *who* produced the software. Sad... this
makes comparisons, reviews etc. against any criterion pretty useless and
pointless. Thanks for the heads.

 

[Alan]

It's not leniency. Buy a dictionary, and look up "transparently" and
"perfectly" and if the publication offers one as a synonym for the
other, I'll bear you a son.

Don't worry about the extra kids - the ones I have are already bigtime
payware. Agree with your non-synonym statement... so long as the same
dictionary is used consistently, regardless of the source of the
software, it makes any side-by-side comparisons meaningful; otherwise
they're of no use, other than as a soapbox.

 

[techie]

OK, that's what I was wanting to know - the goal posts are selectively
opened and closed, depending on *who* produced the software. Sad... this
makes comparisons, reviews etc. against any criterion pretty useless and
pointless. Thanks for the heads.

No, the standards change according to whether money changes hands.
There's nothing unusual here - our laws have long held sellers to a
higher level of accountability than those who give away their goods or
services for free.