[TriLUG] linux apps on desktop that support *.mdb, *.vsd, *.dwg and *.mpp

[Maria Winslow]

StarOffice writes PDFs, and OpenOffice will write them to a file with mild 
effort. Anytime the organization needs to pass along a document that is not 
intended to be altered, a PDF is preferable. I doubt sales and marketing 
people really want to send a document to prospects that a) can be 
manipulated, b) they can't control the exact look of, and c) may have red 
underlined "misspellings" that are a result of the product name not being in 
the prospect's Word dictionary.

Sometimes a change in process is for the better!

Maria

On Wednesday 14 May 2003 04:04 pm, Jon Carnes wrote:
> On Wed, 2003-05-14 at 12:15, Chris Hedemark wrote:
> > On Wednesday, May 14, 2003, at 12:05 PM, Michael Thompson wrote:
> > > In most of the places I've worked or consulted for, Word was 'standard'
> > > format that could be shared.  My 'non-standard' software would be the
> > > oddity, so why should everyone change to accommodate me?
> >
> > RTF is not non-standard.  Word will use it happily, as will many other
> > apps.  I've had luck getting Windoze users to export to RTF.
> >
> > Plain text works too and everyone can handle it.
>
> Word is fine as a standard, but you can save from word in a variety of
> formats.  If you're looking for compatibility with others then txt, htm,
> and rtf are three big ones that work fine.
>
> The users do *not* have to save in a bloated proprietary file format
> that is hard for others to read.  Simply set the standard based on your
> companies need and then if others don't comply (and you have problems
> with the document), ask them to please resubmit using your company
> standards.
>
> I've worked for awhile in Open Office and never had a problem with a
> document that a client sent.  If I did, I would ask them to please
> resubmit it in rtf or txt.  But, as I said, I haven't had problems with
> any of the doc's.
>
> I'm sure that 99% of the doc created in most organizations will work
> fine in Open Office.  I suspect that the 1% that don't are being created
> by folks who are more in love with form than function (and maybe that is
> their job: web-designer or marka-droid).
>
> Also, folks continue to ignore the fact that older versions of Office
> have the exact same problem!  Incompatibility with over formated
> documents stored in a proprietary format.
>
> > > Most people just don't care. They just want to get their jobs done
> > > efficiently (the way they know how) and go home.  (and have pretty
> > > documents)  :)  I can actually relate to this, as I will be as stubborn
> > > about my Macromedia apps (Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Flash) until
> > > something
> > > comparable (that is reliable) is available for Linux.
>
> You are dealing with inter-organizational cultural momentum, and not
> looking at what happens if you *change* the standard.  If your argument
> is really that Open Office is not a drop-and-insert replacement at all
> organizations, then you are right!  At some organizations it's going to
> require a change in their culture.
>
> If you are arguing that Open Office can't fulfill the function of an
> Office suite at an organization, then you are 100% wrong.  Open Office
> works just fine and saves organizations a lot of money.  Some
> organizations do need some retraining and modifications of their
> standards before they can function as easily with Open Office as they
> did with MS office.
>
> Open Office does not have to *become* MS Office before it can easily
> replace it.  It just has to interact with it reasonably, and it does
> that NOW.
>
> > > They would argue that they lost several hours making their text look so
> > > 'professional'...
> >
> > It's a futile argument.  All time is lost, and none can be gained.  You
> > can use it effectively as it passes by, or you can waste the
> > opportunity.
>
> <Chris, I love your poetic response!>
>
> Jon Carnes
>
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-- 
Maria Winslow
919.968.7802

Open Source Migrations
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