naysayers vs OO templates

[woodsmoke]

I still, quite often, run across a rant about how Libre Office just "isn't up to the quality of Microsith Office". Of course they are either fanbois or trolls but, because of my greatly changed life situation I'm putting rezooomies out almost daily to any and all colleges that have even a whiff of having an on-line education division.

And, to that effect, I needed to really get my act together in terms of communicating with them. They all want an initial on-line application and then some want a hardcopy of other stuff, I think it is a primitive way to try to filter out liars but anyway...

I initially was going to start a "database" and set up my own template. But then thought...what about an L.O. template?

Now I want to ask you a SERIOUS question.

How many of you know that waaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyy down at the bottom of the "insert" menu drop down that there is ..."envelope"?

Well, I MUST have looked at that menu a thousand times, but always to insert an image, or whatever and just never looked DOWN THERE!! I mean...waaaaayyyyyy down there! lol

Well, it works just spiffy!

And, even though THE ENVELOPE FUNCTION... CONTAINS... a built in database function ...it occurred to me that putting the stuff into a database is probably overkill so I am just typing the stuff into a master document and doing copy and paste for now. But, if it comes to that...the envelope function of LO will provide it and all I have to copy and paste the saved data into the fields.

So, that kinda puts the lie to the trolls.

I did not need any instructions for the envelope, it is very straightforward: but the database function does need some guidance, so I provide a linky below.

BTW the instructions are still for OO..

https://wiki.openoffice.org/wiki/Doc...ting_envelopes

So...just sayin, LO was not intended to be used by Big Blue to do stuff, but for the average bloke, it works just spiffy!

woodsmoke

[SpecialEd]

I am certainly no Microsoft "fanboi," and I don't consider myself to be a troll but I don't think LO is as good or as polished as MS Office. It's a good substitute and the price is right, and it may suffice for the "average bloke." The real problems start when you try to co-mingle the two. Basic word processing documents do well enough but when you get to presentations and such, things can get squirrely. Having an "Envelope" function does not prove it to be better, equal or even worse. If I understood it correctly, one of the biggest complaints out of Munich, was incompatibility with MS Office.

Cheers,

[GreyGeek]

I've use LO since before StarOffice. I love its F4 DB functions and similarity to Jet.
99% of the time I use only the WP & SP. I haven't used Office in over a decade so I don't if it is more polished that LO or not. All I know is that it is good enough.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[woodsmoke]

Hi SpecialEd

The following IS NOT DIRECTED AT YOU...it is directed at "new" people to open software, documents, etc.

i'm just using your comment as a springboard for them...

as to presentations I use LO for the college all the time there are only two "problems" with it.

a) Since LO cannot use "proprietary fonts" MS will "translate" Open Fonts to MS fonts and there can be ensuing problems on the display of the page.

So the problems which occur are those of "translation" of the font and the "newly rendered (by MS) sentence of letters going "off the page". And MS can get really squirley about this because they desperately want people to use THEIR fonts.

The simple answer to this, in presentations, is to recognize what Microsith wrote in it's own book about how to make a Powerpoint (tm) which I own because I purchased the program when I was running Windows(tm) and was making my first lectures for the college.

The book, btw, was about a quarter inch thick and had NO instructions about ANYthing...they just shoved it out the door to prove ownership. BUT, it did have a very, very, good and thoughtful discussion about "how to make an effective presentation. And that was very simple...

a) use only one font and use a VERY SIMPLE one so that it can be easily READ "from the back of the room".
b) put one and only one idea on a slide because this is not an overhead projector thing with all those sheets of plastic. One can have an INFINITE number of slides so... one idea per slide in a large and simple font.
c) Include a pertinent and simple graphic to reinforce the idea while the person talks.
d) How to make your own backgrounds, which was a really, really good thing about the philosophy and practicality of how to make a background.

So, the end of all this is that the REAL reason that "people" ( NOT you ) complain that LO is not "compatible" with MS is because they don't keep things simple. They try to get fancy with fancy fonts and a lot of text and yada and yada and when it is reformatted by a MS system then it gets jiggied up. And that is just a "thing" about most people they WANT to HAVE IT MY WAY...,

The simple "fix" for this is two fold.

A) Use an open and truly "equivalent font" tp Arial which is the agreed standard for "all things read online". MS will recognize it and not try to jiggy with it.

Liberation Sans is a metrically equivalent font to Arial developed by Ascender Corp. and published by Red Hat in 2007

Liberation Sans is discussed at the bottom of this Wikipedia Article.

No yes Arial, and the whole "sans" set of fonts don't have "little feet" and if one likes little feet on fonts then one needs to definitely use the next thing.

B) Actually use the provided "text" box that is on the provided pages and do not "force" sentences outside the provided box. Keep the "sentence" simple and short.

In that way MS won't i) jiggy with the font ii) be able to run the sentence off the page.

And, as a note, by using the provided "text box" one can hand out "the text" to the viewers which reduces paper as opposed to the thing about handing out the paper version of the presentation in boxes.

For presentations...the REAL problem is what MS does ON PURPOSE...and it is AGAINST the LAW... and None of the "administrations" have done anything about this since Clinton, Obama didn't do anything and Trump wont' do anything, for different reasons.

The whole "XML" thing is a good thing and a bad thing, the debates raged over this in Linux communities for several years.

But what MIcrosith does with it is to "search" immediately on opening a "thing" such as a .docx or a .pptx to see if there is a "script" in the doc that proves that it was made by a Microsith application.

MS really can't "do" much about "docx" because it is...just text, UNLESS one includes a "thing" like an image or a "chart" or whatever and then it will try to jigger the display.

But, MS doesn't really "care" about that so much because "everybody uses a wordprocessor" so, they can make money where they can.

HOWEVER... and they really DO have a "point" here... They really DID "invent" Powerpoint (tm) in a useable manner. Yes, there were other attempts but MS really did pull this app off right.

And, presentations are "generally" a business thing or a college thing and so those entities can PAY large amounts of money for the privilege of using it, and they should, I'm not quibbling.

But, what MS does is...

Upon opening a .ppt or a .pptx which was NOT made by the true Powerpoint(tm) app CHECKS...for... in the .pptx "information" to determine what app made it.

If it does not find reference for Powerpoint it complains MIGHTILY that the presentation is "CORRUPTED" and that it has had to REPLACE "certain slides" with blank slides.

This is a BALD FACED AND PROVEABLE LIE...

What it REALLY has done is OVERLAY a random number of slides with a "white sheet" ( generated by a script in the xml code") The original slides are there they are just hidden.

The proof of this is very simple:

A) the file is larger, if one has gone to the trouble to check the file size before and after.
B) One can remove, if one know how, it is not hard, the extra code in EACH AND EVERY AFFECTED SLIDE and guess what, the slides are then there.
C) One can take the presentation to an apple computer and it is all there. One can take it to a "non updated" Windows computer and the slides are there. One can take the presentation home and the slides are there, but...in all three cases the larger file size is still there and one can observe the extra code.

So, the fix is actually very simple but "slightly" tedious.

A) set the permissions to "read only" for everybody.

However, and this behaviour has been observed by me multiple times - If one leaves the presentation "on the server" when MS does a "major upgrade" then the code that MS has put on the SERVER looks for the ppt and the puts a WRAPPER around the persentation and says that the whole thing is corrupted.

The fix to that is, again, very simple.

Open the read only file from a usb stick and take it home.

For the SECOND opening, The situation is one of "the interaction" of the snippet of code in the .pptx folder with the Powerpoint application that is on the server.

Take the usb stick home and simply change the name.

That way, when the server Powerpoint is "looking" for the previous pptx it doesn't find the name and opens the presentation the NEXT time.

But again, as with me, the next semester I have to rename it, but it does work. all the time.

The "discussion" ON THE CLOSED LOOP of the web forums and blogs etc...

is always about LO being "not compatible with MS".

But, actually as the "undisclosed" consequences of the Clinton lawsuit played out OVER THE YEARS...Microsith has had to open up more and more of the "basic" things that "everybody needs". Powerpoint is not a "basic", although it can now be argued that it is, so the administrations and DOJ etc. have just looked the other way on it.

MS very carefully DOES NOT USE the term "compatiblity" they say that the file is "corrupted"..."compatibility" is a "code word" in the law. MS must be "compatible" with the basic needs of the computing public.

And again, since Clinton, every administration has turned a BLIND EYE because MS runs the government computers and the education / industrial complex computers. Both parties get a lot of money from MS and money talks and walks.

The ULTIMATE FIX is to simply ...don't fall! ... lol ...the advertising for the stair lift...right... oh well...

the ultimate fix is to convert the presentation to a .pdf.

Now, that, in and of itself, creates a problem of it's own IF there are oddments of text that are on the edge of a slide and also if one does not have the file in a folder with things like a video that the .pdf can "point to" to play it then one has to "stop the presentation" and open the video seperately.

Now...is all of this "jiggery pokery" on MY part to adapt to MS...yes...

Can a "government" be expected to "adapt" like this...no...

There are to many party third proprietary apps that are designed to run only under MS and that sometimes even MS has problems with the stuff so, since it is commercial they get together and work it out, everybody makes money.

An example is a certain educational supply company which really does have a "quantum leap" of a device which is a Bluetooth "car" for studying motion that will transmit directly to a student's tablet in the laboratory.

What they do not SAY is that the college has to buy a site liscence for the application which is exhorbitantly expensive but that will be paid for by "somebody's taxes" ultimately so what the hey.

This app really does need Microsoft to run it. It really IS...a jiggered around older app which ran under Win 98 and has been upgraded to work in a bluetooth environment.

So... is there a compatibility problem between "open source" and MS...yes... partly caused by MS and partly by third parties because they BOTH want to MAKE MONEY...

So the correct way of putting the statement is that Microsith is purposely not compatible with open documents, not the other way around... I mean the open document foundation has done heroic work going on bended knee to the government and to Microsith etc...

In some ways President BILL Clinton really was a friend of the open source community and does not get credit for it. But, he at least did what he could.

Hey, thanks for the comments, very cogent to the discussion!

woodlikesdiscussionsmoke

[GreyGeek]

Cogent indeed! Thanks for that info, Woody!

Your discussion reminded me of the family geneology my wife cooked up over a 20 year period and which I committed to a LO document 253 pages long. It had a Master document with a title page, toc, and with links to chapter documents (which were bios of specific families and people) and finished up with an index. Worked very nicely. Bios had jpgs embedded, grids, header controls, etc. If I expanded or contracted a bio the photo tag numbers, page numbers, toc and index updated nicely. Worked like a charm and I printed 20 copies of that document (127 sheets, both sides).

And that was 10 years ago. LO has probably improved considerably since then so, yes, LO is very capable.

[woodsmoke]

Nice post GG and again, I was not saying against SpecialEd but the REAL problem with "all of the posts, talking heads passing very "erudite" opinions etc is the ASSUMPTION that LO is NOW what it was "back then" and so...

out of the gate, LO just HAS to be not as capable as MS.

WHAT IS LOST IN ALL OF THIS TALKING HEAD AND OPINING ...is...one simple fact.

MOST PEOPLE DO NOT ACTUALLY INTERACT with "complex, large, whatever" software that actually requires Windows / MSOffice.

Most people "work in a bubble" of their computer with some miscellaneous software and seldom interact with OTHER...OPERATING SYSTEMS...

They "interact" though the format of e-mail mostly.

They "when necessary" may attach a document to an e-mail.

VERY FEW PEOPLE actually do what SpecialEd and I do which is actually...physically...transport... a "thing we made on our computer" to "work" to interact with it at work.

HOWEVER...those very same "very few people" are the ones who actually END UP on forums like this or "Windows" forums etc. and so they think in terms of "their bubble".

And yes, in THEIR few cases... yes maybe less than a thousand world wide of the literally millions of miscellaneous computer users world wide ..." see situations where the interaction does not work ".

We live in a bubble of our own making and it is a great bubble... really!

But, precisely because "the other 99 percent" of people really do have a single computer, at a desk, in their house playing some games on it and surfing the web, and maybe doing e-mails ...

They really can exist "within the bubble of Linux and open docuements".

But... as opposed to Microsith, or Apple...

THERE ARE NO STORES that are selling Linux or open software.

this is a part of a slide show for Best Buy sales agents.



So... the market will never grow because there are not third party people who want try to sell "open stuff" to make money.

With all of the grousing about Shuttleworth wanting to "monetize" Linux... that is the ONLY way that it would end up on a computer at Wal-Mart.

AND BTW...Linux people should NOT ESCHEW Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart has SEVERAL TIMES tried to sell a Linux desktop in their "box stores".

I know because I purchased one that had been returned. They have attempted to sell laptops also.

But, if there is no active advertising, people just walk by.

So again...this thread is for the NEW user to Linux to try to encourage them to try to move beyond the talking heads that MAKE MONEY by writing articles about Linux / MS compatibility.

[GreyGeek]

The Comes vs Microsoft trial (2007 Iowa court case) documents established why Walmart stopped selling Linux computers, even though they sold thousands in a week ... they were flying off the shelves. The documents revealed that MS threatened to raise the unit price of Windows on the hardware they did sell, or cut Walmart off of Windows all together. Walmart caved.

[woodsmoke]

Oh Great Gray one...

I DID NOT KNOW THAT!!! REALLY!!!!!

I purchased a returned box that had PCLinuxOS cd on the top of it, and assumed, you know what that makes out of me, that maybe the company didn't have the sense to actually INSTALL the os and maybe that was why it was returned.

Amazing...and again I did NOT know that!

woodthanksthegrayonesmoke

[GreyGeek]

MS was full of dirty tricks. Their "Technical Evangelists", trained by James Plamondon, is what I'd call today "Digital Terrorists". Remember Groklaw? She documented it all.

[woodsmoke]

Yep and it was a sad day when it shut down.

woodsmoke

[woodsmoke]

WOAH!! I thought that I kinda kept up "on things" but I don't use Google doc and so did not know this:

NOW I KNOW why it is that several years ago MS at the college started READING... read only .odp presentations correctly, given that I had followed my own guidelines on formatting...woah!!!

Don't forget that Google Docs uses .odt files and Microsoft is now feeling a lot of pressure from the .odt format.

https://forum.openoffice.org/en/foru...388728#p388728

AND as a written confirmation of my prior discussion of the .xml format promoted by Microsith is this:

. each version of MS Office since 2007 has a different and non standard implementation of OOXML,

which is defined as “transitional” because it contains elements which are supposed to be deprecated at standard level, but are still there for compatibility reasons.

Although LibreOffice manages to read and write OOXML in a fairly appropriate way, it will be impossible to achieve a perfect interoperability because of these different non standard versions.

In addition to format incompatibilities, Microsoft – with OOXML – has introduced elements which may lead the user into producing a non interoperable document, such as the C-Fonts (for instance, Calibri and Cambria).

woodWOAH!!smoke

[GreyGeek]

Microsoft – with OOXML – has introduced elements which may lead the user into producing a non interoperable document, such as the C-Fonts (for instance, Calibri and Cambria).

Does "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish" sound familiar? It has been MS's game plan since the days Joe Barr began reporting on their dirty tricks in the Canopus Forum on Compuserve. Shortly after that James Plamondon formed Microsoft's team of "technical evangelists" to spread FUD and disinformation. When the documents in the Comes vs Microsoft trial were unsealed and revealed what he said and did, he pleaded mea culpa and ran to Australia.