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:-O
by yg on Tuesday 26/Aug/2003, @14:13

looks like this has been read: http://www.mind.lu/~yg/office.html

... ;-)

so now we gotta convince Abiword and Gnumeric developers...

Related Links

·   Articles on KDE Office Suite
·   Also by yg
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Re: :-O
by Maynard on Tuesday 26/Aug/2003, @17:01

A little wrong here though. I think Gnumeric beats OOo calc anyday. It is really quite amazing. I do wich they could use the same file format though. That way, they could probably cooperate to use the same export filters too.

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Re: :-O
by James Richard Tyrer on Wednesday 27/Aug/2003, @14:18

Much of what: http://www.mind.lu/~yg/office.html says is simply wrong.

What does it mean that you have to "deal with Microsoft Office (MSO) files"? Does this mean that you have to be able to open them in an application so that you can edit them, or does it mean that you just have to read them somehow?

This is an important distinction. Does this "you" really need import filters or just a way to view the file? It would appear to me that it would be MUCH simpler to make (or reverse engineer the MS one) a file viewer than to make an import filter.

And the printer example is even dumber. Hasn't he heard of PDF. Which also means that you don' have to ask somebody to send you a "weirdo-0.00001%marketshare.xxx format???" file, you need to ask them to please send you a PDF.

--
JRT

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Re: :-O
by anon on Wednesday 27/Aug/2003, @16:06

> And the printer example is even dumber. Hasn't he heard of PDF. Which also means that you don' have to ask somebody to send you a "weirdo-0.00001%marketshare.xxx format???" file, you need to ask them to please send you a PDF.

Most windows users don't know how to make pdf's. They are pretty uncommon in the buisness world compared to .doc's. Having MS Office compatability is *wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy* more important for most users of koffice than having good pdf compatability, although it'd be nice to have both :-)!

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Re: :-O
by James Richard Tyrer on Wednesday 27/Aug/2003, @22:52

> Most windows users don't know how to make PDFs

I would go farther than that, I would say that most Windows users don't know what a file format is. If they did, they would have probably sent you an RTF file.

But, that doesn't mean that products should be designed based on user stupidity. It is my belief that Linux should not be dumbed down to accomodate stupid users because such users have no reason to switch to Linux.

--
JRT

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Re: :-O
by anon on Thursday 28/Aug/2003, @06:46

> It is my belief that Linux should not be dumbed down to accomodate stupid users because such users have no reason to switch to Linux.

Ok, but the world doesn't work like that. I'd get fired if I refused to take MS Office formats and work with them, and demanded non-company-standard file formats. Remember that Linux users represent less than 1 or 2 percent of the desktop.

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Re: :-O
by James Richard Tyrer on Thursday 28/Aug/2003, @14:36

I think that you missed the point.

I presume that you mean that at work you use MS Office as your office suite. This is not the issue since if your company used WordPerfect Office, you would be using WPO file formats. If you used Foo-Bar Office, you would be using FBO file formats, etc.

The question is not about documents you are working on, it is about *completed* documents. Specifically about the bad habit of sending people completed documents in DOC files rather than RTF files (as I think MS originally intended) or converting to PDFs.

--
JRT

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Re: :-O
by yg on Thursday 28/Aug/2003, @03:20

> Much of what: http://www.mind.lu/~yg/office.html says is simply wrong.

That is your opinion.

> What does it mean that you have to "deal with Microsoft Office (MSO) files"?
> Does this mean that you have to be able to open them in an application so that
> you can edit them, or does it mean that you just have to read them somehow?

Edit them (which includes saving without screwing them) and print them.

> This is an important distinction.

Not in business. Ask your CIO if he would give green light for a new Office suite that can only read MSO files... dunno if he would like it...

> And the printer example is even dumber. Hasn't he heard of PDF.

sure I have.
I work for a service company, and when a customer sends me a document I am not
really in the best position to tell him "buddy, I need a pdf".
Coz I would be the only 1 to tell him "I cannot handle M$ Office files".
All the other IT companies he deals with don't bother him.
And you know sometimes I get documents I have to edit and send back.

I wrote this document http://www.mind.lu/~yg/office.html with users in mind.

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Re: :-O
by James Richard Tyrer on Thursday 28/Aug/2003, @15:02

> Edit them (which includes saving without screwing them) and print them.

IIUC, people from outside your business, send you DOC files and you have to edit them. Is this the norm, or just a small percentage of the cases.

Printing isn't an issue, a viewer can print if you have the fonts.

> Ask your CIO if he would give green light for a new Office suite that can
> only read MSO files... dunno if he would like it.

Not "read" but rather view them.

My CIO understands that it is a LARGE security problem to exchange DOC files, and I use MS WordViewer to view them.

Actually, HOWEVER, it is *reading* DOC files which is the problem, many wordprocessors can write perfect DOC files (because they don't use the cryptic "features").

> And you know sometimes I get documents I have to edit and send back.

Edit, or just mark up?

What I am saying -- my point -- is that a viewer, like MS's viewer that could view and print (this should include print to PDF and FAX) DOC files would solve many of the issues without the problems of an import filter.

--
JRT

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Re: :-O
by Nicolas Goutte on Friday 05/Sep/2003, @11:53

Reading MS Word file is not really a problem. The problem is the automatically executed macros. KWord has not any macro inside documents. So no need to worry about that!

(That is the same reason why some people prefer RTF over native MS Word documents.)

Have a nice day!

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Re: :-O
by Nicolas Goutte on Thursday 28/Aug/2003, @05:12

Sorry but where do you see that a file viewer would be easier than an import filter? For both you have to "dissect" the file format.

Have a nice day!

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Re: :-O
by James Richard Tyrer on Thursday 28/Aug/2003, @15:16

The disection is done by a library:

http://wvware.sourceforge.net/

To view the document all you need is sufficent information to "paint" the screen. You do not need any information about the document's structure.

--
JRT

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Re: :-O
by Nicolas Goutte on Friday 05/Sep/2003, @11:55

And how can you paint without browsing in the document structure? (I suppose that you want a little more than just the raw text.)

Have a nice day!

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