Prev: Which is the best port of Gnu Emacs to Mac OSX?
Next: Showing line numbers in TextEdit.app
From: BreadWithSpam on 10 Aug 2010 14:43
isw <isw(a)witzend.com> writes:

> Again, what I object to is a requirement that somebody *must* spend
> hundreds of dollars simply to read documents produced by others.

It depends how badly one wants to work with those others, and how likely
it is that those others will change their practices to suit one.

While I find it seriously unfortunate when private businesses or
enterprises (like universities) demand the use of MS formats, I usually
have a choice as to whether to work with them or not. I can voice my
opinion, ask them to behave better, but ultimately, I may usually choose
to work with them or not and I have to decide whether my desire to work
with them is stronger or less strong than my desire not to buy or use MS
products.

On the other hand, if a government organization starts doing the same
thing, then we have a serious problem.

As far as students go, the schools may require that they buy certain
textbooks to participate fully in a given class. How is the requirement
that they buy or use some certain software any different?

That all said, if they say you must submit your work in MS Word DOC
format, it's easy enough using open source or free tools to generate DOC
formatted files. It may be more difficult if they send you files in DOC
format which use features that you don't have available in the
third-party tools.

So if they want you to submit a paper in DOC format, go ahead and write
it in textedit or Pages or OpenOffice. All of them can export in
several fairly standard (now) flavors of Word format. TextEdit can save
in Word97 (.doc), Word2003 (.xml), and Word2007 (.docx) formats.

--
Plain Bread alone for e-mail, thanks. The rest gets trashed.
From: AES on 10 Aug 2010 14:48
In article <4c617260$0$4802$ba624c82(a)nntp02.dk.telia.net>,
Erik Richard S�rensen <NOSPAM(a)NOSPAM.dk> wrote:

> > Right, but notice that Bean is not an office app and won't include
> graphics in a RTF file opened on any other platform than OS X, and RTFD
> is a Mac only format. - Here you need to save into .doc (DOC with
> graphics) instead. - Also handling DOCX files could be better, but it is
> acceptable, though most formatting get lost...
>
> As others already have written, I'd prefer either OpenOffice 3.2.x or
> even the pro version from SUN Micro Systems - StarOffice 9 for Mac...


All very true, and it's not my intention to make assertions as to
whether Bean or one of the OpenOffice implementations are "better" or
more to be preferred. And, as it says explicitly on the Beam website

"Bean is not a [full] replacement for MS Word. It doesn't do
footnotes or use stylesheets and is only partially compatible
with Word's file formats."

At the same time, what I can say from direct experience is that Bean is
a very nicely done app with a very nice interface, easily installed and
very well supported, which seems to be able to open, read and/or create
enough Word formats to meet all the needs I've encountered.

As to the RTFD format, what it seems to do is to wrap into an openable
folder an RTF file for the text of the document in question, plus
separate files for all the graphics elements you add to the document, in
such a way that Bean can (on a Mac) display the full document on screen
with all the graphics elements properly positioned and formatted in the
document (and ready to be printed in that way to a PDF document).

At the same time, you can if you want open just the text of the document
as an RTF file; pull the graphics files out of the folder; and so on.

So, it's a very, very nice app, and may be the simplest way to meet all
the needs of many users, even for a lot of interaction with Word users.
From: Matthew Lybanon on 10 Aug 2010 16:49
In article <isw-1B7AEE.22282409082010@[216.168.3.50]>,
isw <isw(a)witzend.com> wrote:

> In article <090820101615408571%star(a)sky.net>, Davoud <star(a)sky.net>
> wrote:
>
> > isw:
> >
> > > Complain to the school. They should not be requiring students to spend
> > > hundreds of dollars for proprietary software
> >
> > $109.
> >
> >
> > > when there are perfectly
> > > acceptable non-proprietary substitutes such as OpenOffice.
> >
> > Bzzzzt! Wrong answer. There are acceptable substitutes such as
> > OpenOffice for those who work independently and who do not require full
> > compatibility with others in their circle who are using Microsoft
> > Office.
>
> Make the incompatibility the problem of the "Office" users: "Sorry,
> Charlie, but I can't read your file. You'll have to provide it in some
> *non-proprietary* format; try PDF."
>
> Isaac

Good advice, and perfectly reasonable. The only trouble is that many of
those Office users will have no idea what you are talking about. I've
been through that many times. In one case, a friend who distributed
information for a club in the form of M$ Word documents was stunned when
several people told her they couldn't open (the general-purpose word
used by semi-[computer-]literate Windows folks for what happens when you
double-click on a file icon--the only possible way to gain access to the
file's contents) the documents, even though they were using Word. It
took a long time for me to get her to understand why.
From: AES on 10 Aug 2010 17:12
In article <yobr5i6nw9o.fsf(a)panix2.panix.com>,
BreadWithSpam(a)fractious.net wrote:

> As far as students go, the schools may require that they buy certain
> textbooks to participate fully in a given class. How is the requirement
> that they buy or use some certain software any different?

Requiring that they purchase certain software that they will really need
to use in connection with the _intellectual_ or _academic_ content and
objectives of the class -- e.g., some technical computation software --
is one thing.

Requiring them to do routine communications in some proprietary format,
when equally good or better open and non-proprietary formats are readily
and freely available, is another matter.
From: Erik Richard Sørensen on 10 Aug 2010 17:54


AES wrote:
> In article <4c617260$0$4802$ba624c82(a)nntp02.dk.telia.net>,
> Erik Richard Sørensen <NOSPAM(a)NOSPAM.dk> wrote:
>
>>> Right, but notice that Bean is not an office app and won't include
>> graphics in a RTF file opened on any other platform than OS X, and RTFD
>> is a Mac only format. - Here you need to save into .doc (DOC with
>> graphics) instead. - Also handling DOCX files could be better, but it is
>> acceptable, though most formatting get lost...
>>
>> As others already have written, I'd prefer either OpenOffice 3.2.x or
>> even the pro version from SUN Micro Systems - StarOffice 9 for Mac...
>
>
> All very true, and it's not my intention to make assertions as to
> whether Bean or one of the OpenOffice implementations are "better" or
> more to be preferred. And, as it says explicitly on the Beam website
>
> "Bean is not a [full] replacement for MS Word. It doesn't do
> footnotes or use stylesheets and is only partially compatible
> with Word's file formats."
>
> At the same time, what I can say from direct experience is that Bean is
> a very nicely done app with a very nice interface, easily installed and
> very well supported, which seems to be able to open, read and/or create
> enough Word formats to meet all the needs I've encountered.
>
> As to the RTFD format, what it seems to do is to wrap into an openable
> folder an RTF file for the text of the document in question, plus
> separate files for all the graphics elements you add to the document, in
> such a way that Bean can (on a Mac) display the full document on screen
> with all the graphics elements properly positioned and formatted in the
> document (and ready to be printed in that way to a PDF document).
>
> At the same time, you can if you want open just the text of the document
> as an RTF file; pull the graphics files out of the folder; and so on.
>
> So, it's a very, very nice app, and may be the simplest way to meet all
> the needs of many users, even for a lot of interaction with Word users.

Right so. The problems will not be on any Mac, but when files are
transfered onto a Windows based computer. I like Bean too as one of the
fastest made small textprocessors for the Mac, and I use it quite a lot
for common and smaller workflows... - Infact I know it quite well right
into the heart, since it's me, who make the Danish translation of
Bean.:-) - And according to the developer, James Hoover, Bean wasn't
even originally meant as a textprocessor, but only as a better
replacement for TextEdit... The only thing I can say is that he has made
a real good and rather enhanced textprocessor that is far much better
than any other smaller textprocessor for OS X.

When I at first stumbled upon Bean - something ver. 0,xxbeta - I only
used it as a better replacement for TextEdit. - Alone the better
handling of ODF files is where it ranks highly over TextEdit. I also
recommend it along with (very) few other textprocessors to visually
impaired, because another thing that Bean can is to be fully supported
by the Apple Speech Recognition, which for example no of the MS
applications are. MS dropped TTS/SR support way back with the MSOffice
X, which I therefore recommends visually impaired to keep, if they are
relaying on the SR facilities on Mac OS X.

Regarding RTF/RTFD, yes, you can do it this way, but here I certainly
prefer one single file containg everything - especially when you send
such files to Window users... I also use Win XPPro and have tested
various the methods there with both OpenOffice 3.x for Windows,
StarOffice for Windows and MSO2003 and 2007. Most of the time MSO
versions lose contact to the 'internal links' for graphics, while both
OOo and SO normally will recognize them fully and just open as a single
file.

A little tip... If you work in RTF as default, just keep on doing so.
Write, insert, format anything and save as RTF as normally. If you then
need to hand the file to a Windows user, just change suffix to .doc
instead and nearly any Windows textprocessor way back from WordPerfect
6.x and Word 95/97 will just open and show full content, and most
formatting will also be kept as it should be. - I tried this many years
ago on my now passed away wife's PC with WordPerfect 6.x for Windows
with a file that I at that time brought to her PC (before we went to
live together) on a floppy disk - forgetting everything about that it
wouldn't open RTF files made with NisusWriter 4.x.:-) - I just tried to
change the suffix to .doc instead of .rtf, and voila! WordPerfect opened
the file

- This is btw. also the method that James Hoover recommends in the
Bean Help files...

Cheers, Erik Richard

--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Erik Richard Sørensen, Member of ADC, <mac-manNOSP(a)Mstofanet.dk>
NisusWriter - The Future In Multilingual Text Processing - www.nisus.com
OpenOffice.org - The Modern Productivity Solution - www.openoffice.org
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
First  |  Prev  | 
Pages: 1 2 3 4 5
Prev: Which is the best port of Gnu Emacs to Mac OSX?
Next: Showing line numbers in TextEdit.app