Re: [ros-dev] Microsoft Office files in the trunk

[Les Cooper]

Michael B. Trausch wrote:

>  Mike Swanson wrote:
> [snip]
>   
>
> > >  You do not
> > > need to feel strongarmed into using Impress' file format.
> > > You can save it in Impress' file format as well as exporting it to
> > > Microsoft's PowerPoint format.  Just an idea.
> > >       
> > >  
> > Just because Impress supports PowerPoint documents, doesn't meant it's
> > complete or perfect. Just like the DOC (Word) and XLS (Excel) formats,
> > it's secret and must be reverse engineered. And similar to DOC and
> > XLS, the non-Microsoft parsing of them changes between free software
> > programs. Sometimes better in some documents, sometimes worse in
> > other. Hell, sometimes it's impossible to see what the document was
> > even intended to look like (eg, the MS Word-created flyer I was trying
> > to see)
> >
> >     
> >  
> I understand.  Perhaps I didn't say what I was meaning to:  If OO.o is
> used to generate the document, OO.o will parse it the same way.  I was
> saying that if the proprietary formats are "needed," then OO.o can save
> them -- interoperability works nearly perfectly, IME, going from OO.o to
> Office, however, coming back from the other direction seems to break
> with documents with more advanced formatting.  While I'm sure they're
> working on it, I try to avoid them, anyway.  I hate proprietary stuff,
> and avoid whenever possible.  (And no:  I'm not quite as bad as some
> people on the subject, such as RMS.)
>   
>  
I only use OO.o but my default save format is as ms office formats. Such a small
percentage of (ordinary) people use OO.o, that to produce files in its own format is
pissing into the wind. However, I can tell people how the files were produced and
recommend OO.o to them. The important thing at the moment is not the use of open document
formats, it is persuading people to use OO.o so that the user base is broad enough for
them to used! 
Cheers
Les