MS Word, Open Office, or Libre Office?

On Tue, 19 Nov 2013 09:12:29 -0800, Todd wrote:

On 11/18/2013 10:44 AM, micky wrote:
1) In your personal opinions, which do you think is ibetter, MS Word,
Open Office, or Libre Office?

2) Which one of OO and LO seems more like one is actually using Word?
My brother is about to lose Starter Word, and I don't want him to have
to learn something new. (or spend 100 dollars for MSWord, either.)

2) There is a question sometimes about how well OO and LO will open an
actual Word document, but I never hear asked, How well will Word open
an OO or LO document. That is, will it look in Word like it looked
when it was written

If I install OO or LO on my brother's computer, and he sends a letter
or soemthing written with it to someone who paid the big bucks for
Word, will his document look amateurish and make him look bad?

Thanks a lot


Hi Micky,

I bristle over the cost of M$ Office, so I have never used
it.

LO recently redesigned their M$ converter from the ground up.
Haven't had any trouble since. I use LO in both Windows and
Linux.

I switched away from OO as they would never fix anything.
I had bugs open for over seven years. When LO started, I
imported them in to their bug tracker. All fixed within
a month. Created a lot of loyalty.

I can see why. That's pretty good that they took only a month and did
them all.

LO's only down side for me is that envelope printing
is a mess.

I tried envelope printing 18 years ago, when I was still using
PCWrite. IIRC I had a prototype? envelope and text file, all one
file, but something about that didn't work. Then I tried WordPerfect,
that I had about that time. And I gave up and now I write the name
myself.

I wish I had a business so I could buy more office equipment and have
more fun with it, but at my volume, writing envelopes by hand is less
fun but saves time.



-T

On 11/19/13 10:12 AM, Todd wrote:
On 11/18/2013 10:44 AM, micky wrote:
1) In your personal opinions, which do you think is ibetter, MS Word,
Open Office, or Libre Office?

2) Which one of OO and LO seems more like one is actually using Word?
My brother is about to lose Starter Word, and I don't want him to have
to learn something new. (or spend 100 dollars for MSWord, either.)

2) There is a question sometimes about how well OO and LO will open an
actual Word document, but I never hear asked, How well will Word open
an OO or LO document. That is, will it look in Word like it looked
when it was written

If I install OO or LO on my brother's computer, and he sends a letter
or soemthing written with it to someone who paid the big bucks for
Word, will his document look amateurish and make him look bad?

Thanks a lot


Hi Micky,

I bristle over the cost of M$ Office, so I have never used
it.

LO recently redesigned their M$ converter from the ground up.
Haven't had any trouble since. I use LO in both Windows and
Linux.

I switched away from OO as they would never fix anything.
I had bugs open for over seven years. When LO started, I
imported them in to their bug tracker. All fixed within
a month. Created a lot of loyalty.

You fared a lot better than I did. I filed two bugs about a year and a
half ago, never assigned nor fixed. And politely told they weren't
important enough to fix. So I've walked away from LO.

LO's only down side for me is that envelope printing
is a mess.

-T



--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 24.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.2.3

On Mon, 18 Nov 2013 13:44:55 -0500, micky
wrote:

1) In your personal opinions, which do you think is ibetter, MS Word,
Open Office, or Libre Office?


FTR, the reason for this whole thread is that my brother is out of
town from his home, and he's 100's of miles from me too, and his
laptop stopped working. One possible way of fixing it would mean
disabling or deleting his 2010 Word Starter, that he's used to.


So since his current problem might be hard for me to fix if I had the
computer in front of me, and would surely be beyond our patience, or
anyone's, if I tried to guide him through it over the phone, he's got
to take it to a repair man.

Because including travel he's been working up to 12 hour days, I'm
shopping by phone for a repair man near him. And I just called him to
see if he wanted me to find a shop with an address, that is open
business hours. Or one those guys, plentiful in this college town
where he's working, with no store address, but who will pick up his
computer at 9PM and return it also around 9.

But, I just called him and found out he's leaving there tomorrow. He
was with a patient so I won't know until he calls me back where he's
going. Not home, I think. So I can't call any repair shops until I
know where he's going.

Hmmm. The first guy (that Paul knows about) wanted, he estimated, 70
dollars to reinstall windows (and destroy Word Starter) , but if the
next guy wants 200 dollars, it might well be cheaper and better for
him to mail the computer to me and me to mail it back. It won't be
one-day service though. If he got overnight shipping both
directions, it would still be 3 day service, if I could fix it by the
day after i got it, which I probably can. . $77 each way to rural
Indiana, maybe more to Alabama, say. But I hate letting other people
touch my stuff, or even my brother's stuff.


He's been using the computer the motel has for guests, but he wants to
send out his resume which is trapped in his computer. I could get
that out in a few minutes and send it to his 13yo son. His wife might
have a computer too. But that wouldn't help because they can't
send it without him. He has to write a cover letter and the address
is also in the computer.

...... Just thinking out loud.

On Tue, 19 Nov 2013 09:54:21 -0700, Ken Springer
wrote:

On 11/18/13 11:44 AM, micky wrote:
1) In your personal opinions, which do you think is ibetter, MS Word,
Open Office, or Libre Office?

2) Which one of OO and LO seems more like one is actually using Word?
My brother is about to lose Starter Word, and I don't want him to have
to learn something new. (or spend 100 dollars for MSWord, either.)

2) There is a question sometimes about how well OO and LO will open an
actual Word document, but I never hear asked, How well will Word open
an OO or LO document. That is, will it look in Word like it looked
when it was written

If I install OO or LO on my brother's computer, and he sends a letter
or soemthing written with it to someone who paid the big bucks for
Word, will his document look amateurish and make him look bad?

Thanks a lot

It just dawned on me, Micky...

Since his needs are apparently really basic, what about WordPad, under
Accessories? Does that have everything he needs?

That's a good idea. Maybe it does. Frankly it's what I sometimes
use for the few things I write. Okay I tried it and here's a
problem. It will work for things to come, but when I open some
existing .doc and .docx files, there is loads of formatting stuff. If
were there, I could convert it all, but I'm sure he doesn't want to.

My older brother's not the easiest person to deal with, but I love
him.

On Tue, 19 Nov 2013 14:01:10 -0700, "Ken Springer"
wrote in article l6gjh3$m24$1
@speranza.aioe.org...
You fared a lot better than I did. I filed two bugs about a year and a
half ago, never assigned nor fixed. And politely told they weren't
important enough to fix. So I've walked away from LO.



What have you replaced it with? I ask because your sig still shows it:

Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 24.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.2.3

Or did you mean "walked away" in another way?

--
Zaphod

Vell, Zaphod's just zis guy, ya know? - Gag Halfrunt

On Tue, 19 Nov 2013 15:06:02 -0500, micky wrote:

Did I err or is google failing to archive alt.windows7.general?

IIRC, that problem has been mentioned in this NG. Usually with a
grumbling tone of voice :-)

--
Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)

On Tue, 19 Nov 2013 15:07:59 -0800, "Gene E. Bloch"
wrote:

On Tue, 19 Nov 2013 15:06:02 -0500, micky wrote:

Did I err or is google failing to archive alt.windows7.general?

IIRC, that problem has been mentioned in this NG. Usually with a
grumbling tone of voice :-)

Grumble, grumble, grumble.

Gene E. Bloch wrote:
On Tue, 19 Nov 2013 15:06:02 -0500, micky wrote:

Did I err or is google failing to archive alt.windows7.general?

IIRC, that problem has been mentioned in this NG. Usually with a
grumbling tone of voice :-)


But now that we know it's stored elsewhere, not a problem.

http://www.w7forums.com/search/19623...Bloch&o=date&c[node]=28

Using another (better) search engine, you could then try:

site:w7forums.com my technical problem

Paul

On Tue, 19 Nov 2013 18:52:19 -0500, Paul wrote:

Gene E. Bloch wrote:
On Tue, 19 Nov 2013 15:06:02 -0500, micky wrote:

Did I err or is google failing to archive alt.windows7.general?

IIRC, that problem has been mentioned in this NG. Usually with a
grumbling tone of voice :-)


But now that we know it's stored elsewhere, not a problem.

http://www.w7forums.com/search/19623...Bloch&o=date&c[node]=28

Using another (better) search engine, you could then try:

site:w7forums.com my technical problem

Paul

Thanks for the reminder. I had forgotten already :-)

Micky, you should take note of this too...

--
Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)

On 11/19/13 2:25 PM, Zaphod Beeblebrox wrote:
On Tue, 19 Nov 2013 14:01:10 -0700, "Ken Springer"
wrote in article l6gjh3$m24$1
@speranza.aioe.org...
You fared a lot better than I did. I filed two bugs about a year and a
half ago, never assigned nor fixed. And politely told they weren't
important enough to fix. So I've walked away from LO.



What have you replaced it with? I ask because your sig still shows it:

Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 24.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.2.3

Or did you mean "walked away" in another way?

I just forgot to take it out, thanks for the reminder.

Giving NeoOffice a try... again. Based on Office 3.4. Positioning
graphics frustrating, things are greyed out until you move the graphic
with the mouse, then you can manually type entries.

Not sure where I'll go next. I bought iWork 09 with this computer, it's
installed, so may give iPages another try.


--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 24.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8

On Tue, 19 Nov 2013 12:40:42 -0800, Igor
wrote:


Will a document in OO Writer format be readable by MsWord? I
don't know. But you do have the option to save an OOWriter document
in the *.doc format. If he needs something which can only be done in
MSWord, then it might be time for him to spend the money and buy Word.

Thanks a lot


Go here http://www.mskeyoffer.com/
Microsoft Office Standard $30

At this price, how can this be legal?

On Tue, 19 Nov 2013 12:40:42 -0800, Igor
wrote:


Will a document in OO Writer format be readable by MsWord? I
don't know. But you do have the option to save an OOWriter document
in the *.doc format. If he needs something which can only be done in
MSWord, then it might be time for him to spend the money and buy Word.

Thanks a lot


Go here http://www.mskeyoffer.com/
Microsoft Office Standard $30

I meant to say:

Thanks. At this price, how can this be legal?

On Tue, 19 Nov 2013 15:56:27 -0800, "Gene E. Bloch"
wrote:

On Tue, 19 Nov 2013 18:52:19 -0500, Paul wrote:

Gene E. Bloch wrote:
On Tue, 19 Nov 2013 15:06:02 -0500, micky wrote:

Did I err or is google failing to archive alt.windows7.general?

IIRC, that problem has been mentioned in this NG. Usually with a
grumbling tone of voice :-)


But now that we know it's stored elsewhere, not a problem.

http://www.w7forums.com/search/19623...Bloch&o=date&c[node]=28

Using another (better) search engine, you could then try:

site:w7forums.com my technical problem

Paul

Thanks for the reminder. I had forgotten already :-)

Micky, you should take note of this too...

Okay. Thanks. Wait. It's a web forum. I once made up a list of
about 20 reasons why they weren't as good as Usenet.

On 19/11/2013 20:08, Paul wrote:
Jeff Layman wrote:
On 19/11/2013 16:24, Ken Springer wrote:
On 11/19/13 3:53 AM, Jeff Layman wrote:

If LO are hoping to convert MS Word users to using LO Writer
instead, they need to have a table of equivalents for "This is what Word
calls it and how they do it" to "This is what LOW calls it and how we do
it".

your table of equivalents, a point of view where I expressed similar
feelings in LO's mailing list, and was on the losing side.

Well, that's the Devs for you. Whether Commercial or Open Sores, they
know best!


If you don't like it, gut feel isn't right, just
admit it.

No, I quite like it, but there are some things it could do better.

LO Writer comes with a 468 page manual. If you iterate
between Google searches for the feature you want, plus
reading the manual, you can actually figure it out. When
you said "text box", it took me all of five minutes to
figure it out. (A Google search told me how, manual
provides the back story.)

(Page 248 - T for text)
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/...terGuideLO.pdf

Out of interest, I just tried a search in StartPage . The first hit was
http://ask.libreoffice.org/en/questi...ert-a-textbox/

I could have written that question! Abstracted quote:

"I have read the Libreoffice instructions which appear to instruct me
to carry out the task in a similar way, but the TEXTBOX button and any
options regarding textboxes are no where to be seen!

I have read the Help areas on the web, but the button indicated to be
used for this task is not visible at all.

Can anyone help please? It's so infuriating, and is not helping me
migrate to this office suite."

The manual index is useless. There are only four entries under "text",
and they don't lead to page 248. There are no entries under "box".
Maybe it's MS's fault for spoon-feeding us and having a separate menu
entry called "Text box", and so making it easy to use. Many Word users
will have no idea that it's a graphic. It's a /text/ box, isn't it?
What has that to do with graphics (rhetorical question)?

So let's look at the "Ask LibreOffice" webpage answer. Talk about
patronising arrogance!
"Each Office suite has it's own characteristics but if you really would
like to migrate you need to accept these differences and take time to
learn. There will always be someone around to help if you can't find a
solution."

That guy had tried his best and "taken time to learn", but couldn't find
how to do it. He'd even RTFM! He obviously didn't try the inbuilt
"Help". He'd have wasted more time on that if he had looked, as he'd
probably have found himself using form controls, as amazingly enough
"Help" has an entry called "Text boxes", but it comes under "Form
Controls". The entry really confuses things:
"Creates a text box. Text boxes are fields in which the user can enter
text. In a form, text boxes display data or allow for new data input."
So it's a field and not a box. Or is it something to allow data input?
Most Word users will have little idea what a field is or how to use it.
It is, IMHO, crass stupidity for the LOWriter Devs to use the same term
for something which has been around for years in Word, and use it for
something different in LOWriter.
BTW, while we're on the subject, can you find "Text box" under "Form
controls" in the manual index? Actually, it's even worse than that,
because they use the term "text box" all over the place, to describe not
only a form control, but a sort of dialog box. For example, when adding
an image to the image gallery, part of the instructions continue "...You
can enter the path for the file’s directory in the Path text box, or you
can navigate to locate the file’s directory. ". So here, "text box"
means something else again.

OK, let's follow page 248 and see what happens. I click on the "T" and
drag he box to where I want it. I start typing and the words appear.
Great! But if I happen to click in the box before I start typing, and
don't notice the cursor is a cross and not and "I" bar, I lose the box.
Strange idea that. So I complete my typing, and want to continue
outside the box. As soon as I click outside the box disappears! Why?
Because the damn default is no lines. That's just crazy. If I want a
text *box*, I expect to get a box which stays there. So now I've got to
find out how to format the box.

You cannot expect to jump from program to program (Word to LO Writer
to WordPerfect), if the programs do not use the same
principles of operation. For example, FrameMaker and
FrameBuilder, use anchored frames and flows of various
sorts. I can sit you down in front of the interface,
which is very logical, but you'll never figure it out.

I was a long term user of Wordperfect (5.1 for Dos!) before the company
changed to Word for Windows. That /was/ different! But even the Word
Devs at MS had to accept that they really needed something like
Wordperfect's "Reveal Codes" to help out those migrating from WP (I've
no doubt it helped quite a lot of native Word users, too).

Don't get me started on The Ribbon! ;-)

You have to crack the manual in that case, and skim it, to
see what is the "key premise" to the product. If you'd skimmed
the LO Writer manual, you'd see a chapter on graphics primitives,
and the text box is one of those primitives.

Are you referring to something in Chapter 8?

To be fair to LO, the interface is better than a lot of
other programs I use here. Programs I've used for years,
that still drive me into the weeds when I go to do stuff.
To give a complex program a chance, at least skim read the
manual. Even checking the chapter headers is better than
nothing

I am not disagreeing, but if it you, and many others, can't find out how
to do something within a short time, then something is wrong with the
instructions, guidelines, or the manual.
..
I'd rate it "about as useful as my copy of WordPad" :-)
Meaning, it has its pluses and minuses.

Damning with faint praise, perhaps??!!

--

Jeff

micky wrote on 11/18/2013 13:44 ET :
1) In your personal opinions, which do you think is ibetter, MS Word,
Open Office, or Libre Office?

2) Which one of OO and LO seems more like one is actually using Word?
My brother is about to lose Starter Word, and I don't want him to have
to learn something new. (or spend 100 dollars for MSWord, either.)

2) There is a question sometimes about how well OO and LO will open an
actual Word document, but I never hear asked, How well will Word open
an OO or LO document. That is, will it look in Word like it looked
when it was written

If I install OO or LO on my brother's computer, and he sends a letter
or soemthing written with it to someone who paid the big bucks for
Word, will his document look amateurish and make him look bad?

Thanks a lot

1) MS Word is good, but you will have to buy the complete Microsoft Office
which
is very expensive. LibreOffice, and OpenOffice are free, but they have a bad
interoperability with Microsoft Office formats, which are still worldwide de
facto standard. FreeOffice is a free office suite with a very good
compatibility, and I also prefer its UI and scope of features compared to
OpenOffice/LibreOffice.
You can download it at freeoffice.com

2) Same recommendation: interface of FreeOffice is similar / familiar to that
of MS Office 2003 (no ribbons), with several modern extensions, so there's not
too much of a learning curve.

3) Opening a Word file (doc/docx) with LibreOffice, or OpenOffice, will lead to
formatting losses, and vice versa.

"If I install OO or LO on my brother's computer, and he sends a letter or
soemthing written with it to someone who paid the big bucks for Word, will his
document look amateurish and make him look bad?" It is very likely, by
using FreeOffice it should be fine.