I have recently been given to opportunity to act as a consultant on a new lab book that the college is developing that will be "book neutral" and available for the students as a free download for their computer or tablet but they will also be able to purchase a hard copy at cost, produced by the colleges print shop.
Surprisingly, the book is being done in.........EXCEL!! :0
Well, after I saw the "logic" of it, it is a good idea.
a) It really is a universal file type(it would be better if it was just .xls but I'm not going to push things.
a) inclusion of charting in which the students enter their data and it automatically produces a graph in the questions section.
There is also a function in whick the students enter their school e-mail addys, the instructors is provided, and the "recorder" then e-mails their lab to "the team" for recording purposes and also sends it to the instructor.
the Instructor then evaluates one file and e-mails the resulting evaluated file back to the team members.
This "may" be the reason for .xlsx. The e-mail "touch" might not work in just plain .ex, I don't know since I've never done this before.
This should be trey kewl when it is finished.
However, back to Libre Office.
I was given the "work in progress" file to use as a template.
L.O. calc, does indeed:
recognize the file
open the file
display the file
margins are correctly implemented
hard page breaks are correctly implemented.
The locked sections are locked and the interactive sections are interactive.
A "sentence" which is made by starting in one cell and just "keeping on typing" is correctly displayed.
There are a couple of formatting problems.
a) the normal one of L.O. using a different font which is larger than the original occurrs, however, that is easily fixed.
b) one that occurs as a result of not knowing the "tricks of the trade" in terms of images.
The included charts do translate correctly into LO and retain their correct size.
However, images are not constrained and if a very large image has been "dragged" to make it smaller it expands to it's real size. And it also moves around on the page, again, a normal problem, nothing that is unexpected.
The trick of the trade, of course, is to resize the image before inserting it into the sheet.
It remains to be seen as to whether a file made in LO will, indeed, be able to be opened correctly by the latest and greatest Windblows an Itablet, Macish thing.
If anyone has questions, please ask.
woodsmoke
Surprisingly, the book is being done in.........EXCEL!! :0
Well, after I saw the "logic" of it, it is a good idea.
a) It really is a universal file type(it would be better if it was just .xls but I'm not going to push things.
a) inclusion of charting in which the students enter their data and it automatically produces a graph in the questions section.
There is also a function in whick the students enter their school e-mail addys, the instructors is provided, and the "recorder" then e-mails their lab to "the team" for recording purposes and also sends it to the instructor.
the Instructor then evaluates one file and e-mails the resulting evaluated file back to the team members.
This "may" be the reason for .xlsx. The e-mail "touch" might not work in just plain .ex, I don't know since I've never done this before.
This should be trey kewl when it is finished.
However, back to Libre Office.
I was given the "work in progress" file to use as a template.
L.O. calc, does indeed:
recognize the file
open the file
display the file
margins are correctly implemented
hard page breaks are correctly implemented.
The locked sections are locked and the interactive sections are interactive.
A "sentence" which is made by starting in one cell and just "keeping on typing" is correctly displayed.
There are a couple of formatting problems.
a) the normal one of L.O. using a different font which is larger than the original occurrs, however, that is easily fixed.
b) one that occurs as a result of not knowing the "tricks of the trade" in terms of images.
The included charts do translate correctly into LO and retain their correct size.
However, images are not constrained and if a very large image has been "dragged" to make it smaller it expands to it's real size. And it also moves around on the page, again, a normal problem, nothing that is unexpected.
The trick of the trade, of course, is to resize the image before inserting it into the sheet.
It remains to be seen as to whether a file made in LO will, indeed, be able to be opened correctly by the latest and greatest Windblows an Itablet, Macish thing.
If anyone has questions, please ask.
woodsmoke