Default file save format to MSOffice (doc, xls, ppt) etc..

users
#1

Hi,
    I am migrating my company's pc to libreoffice on windows, all my users
are using windows terminal services, now i want to set default file save
format to MS-Office i.e. .doc, .xls, .ppt to all users.

    I know how to do it manually, but i want to it to be applied to all
users using some registry entry or configuration file, is there any way to
do it, as i have 200+ pc's in my company and configuring each user is some
hectic job, let me know if solution if anybody have.

Thanks for the great job LibreOffice developers,

Vino

#2

Hi,

Hi,
    I am migrating my company's pc to libreoffice on windows, all my users
are using windows terminal services, now i want to set default file save
format to MS-Office i.e. .doc, .xls, .ppt to all users.

Bad idea. As MS-Office formats are foreign formats for LibreOffice, your
users wil have a less good user experience with LibO because you force
the software to make format conversions each time you open or save a
document.

I think other formats than ODF should be considered only as export
formats, like pdf is. Work in ODF, save in ODF and, if you have to send
your file, choose an export format accordingly to the usage of the file.
If receiver of the document does not need to modify the file, pdf is the
right format. If he needs to modify the document and is not able to work
with ODF (nobody is perfect), then you should export your document to
doc (MS-Office 97/2000/XP). But your ODF version should always be your
reference version.

JBF

#3

Jean-Baptiste Faure wrote:

Bad idea. As MS-Office formats are foreign formats for LibreOffice, your
users wil have a less good user experience with LibO because you force
the software to make format conversions each time you open or save a
document.

Yes, but that is what the user is asking for. Trying to convince people to
switch from Office suite AND file format seems to me the best way to repel
users...

Is there a way to do what he asked?

Jean-Baptiste Faure wrote:

Work in ODF, save in ODF and, if you have to send
your file, choose an export format accordingly to the usage of the file.
If receiver of the document does not need to modify the file, pdf is the
right format. If he needs to modify the document and is not able to work
with ODF (nobody is perfect), then you should export your document to
doc (MS-Office 97/2000/XP). But your ODF version should always be your
reference version.

That is IMO a bad idea. If you need to send an editable file and you work on
ODF, converting to Word at the last minute (i.e. before sending) is the
WORST option possible. It is almost 100% guaranteed that the document
(unless it's ONLY plain text) will NOT look the same.

So if you know that the person receiving it needs Doc, the best option is to
work on Doc from the start.

Jean-Baptiste Faure wrote:

Seuls des formats ouverts peuvent assurer la pérennité de vos documents.

I agree completely :wink:

#4

No, because you will have exactly the same problem: even if you save in
MS-Office formats, LibO use ODF as internal format, so you have a
conversion problem each time you save your file.

And it is not prohibited to be careful and check your converted file
before to send it.

On other hand if, during editing your document, you avoid the use of
manual formatting, use only predefined style (you can modify them
without problem) and do not use exotic fonts, then conversion problems
will be dramatically reduced.

JBF

#5

Why not using standardized file formats in MS Office?

#6

Jean-Baptiste Faure wrote:

No, because you will have exactly the same problem: even if you save in
MS-Office formats, LibO use ODF as internal format, so you have a
conversion problem each time you save your file.

That is a really interesting fact but also extremely worrying. I'm sure that
even with the warning most (all?) users assumed that if you stay within a
format (e.g. always doc) you wouldn't have problems when saving your
document.

What you are saying is that when you press the Save button in a doc file
(and you are not informed of this problem when you just Save it, only on
Save As) there is a conversion that causes the document NOT to be saved as
you are seeing it on-screen but could be something else completely
different...

Jean-Baptiste Faure wrote:

And it is not prohibited to be careful and check your converted file
before to send it.

That is true. But when you are working within the same format, you assume
that what is on screen is what is being saved!

Jean-Baptiste Faure wrote:

On other hand if, during editing your document, you avoid the use of
manual formatting, use only predefined style (you can modify them
without problem) and do not use exotic fonts, then conversion problems
will be dramatically reduced.

That is sound advice. But most users aren't that efficient with styles :wink:

#7

Am 02.10.2011 13:49, Pedro wrote:

That is true. But when you are working within the same format, you assume
that what is on screen is what is being saved!

If you want to save what you see on the screen you've got to save a screenshot.

#8

Hi

> [...]
> Jean-Baptiste Faure wrote:
>>
>> Work in ODF, save in ODF and, if you have to send
>> your file, choose an export format accordingly to the usage of the file.
>> If receiver of the document does not need to modify the file, pdf is the
>> right format. If he needs to modify the document and is not able to work
>> with ODF (nobody is perfect), then you should export your document to
>> doc (MS-Office 97/2000/XP). But your ODF version should always be your
>> reference version.
>
> That is IMO a bad idea. If you need to send an editable file and you work on
> ODF, converting to Word at the last minute (i.e. before sending) is the
> WORST option possible. It is almost 100% guaranteed that the document
> (unless it's ONLY plain text) will NOT look the same.
>
> So if you know that the person receiving it needs Doc, the best option is to
> work on Doc from the start.

No, because you will have exactly the same problem: even if you save in
MS-Office formats, LibO use ODF as internal format, so you have a
conversion problem each time you save your file.

And it is not prohibited to be careful and check your converted file
before to send it.

On other hand if, during editing your document, you avoid the use of
manual formatting, use only predefined style (you can modify them
without problem) and do not use exotic fonts, then conversion problems
will be

My experience is that using default settings for features, avoiding
macros, and otherwise not using the most advanced features in LO and MSO
will result in very few compatibility problems in both directions.

#9

Hi :slight_smile:

You could copy the config folder as that contains all the settings, templates, galleries and extensions/add-ons/plugins and so on.  This thread might help explain
http://user.services.openoffice.org/en/forum/viewtopic.php?f=74&t=12426

Somewhere in OpenOffice.org there were some excellent instrcutions for corporate deployments.
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

#10

With regard to customizing install settings for corporate
deployment, this thread is the closest I found in a search
of all OpenOffice.org:

< http://user.services.openoffice.org/en/forum/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=38097>

Read from the end toward the front to find the most promising solution
rather than all the ways that failed first.

- Dennis

#11

It should clear that this cannot be true. Much of the structure of a word processor document is not directly visible on the editing screen. (Consider, just as an example, paragraph breaks, line breaks, and line ends that occur dynamically as text flows within a passage - which all appear the same.) The saved document file contains a definition of the document, and what you see on the editing screen is merely a rendering - accurate or otherwise - of that definition. Even the same application software may render the document differently on different platforms, with different but identically named fonts or even substituted fonts, with different printers having different minimum margins, and so on. The differences between renderings by a different version of the same software or by different software will generally be greater.

It is an understandable and convenient idea that your correspondents will automatically see what you see when they open your word processor document files, but that is not so. But you need distribute such files only if you are co-operating with your correspondents in editing the material. In the majority of cases, recipients need only to display, read, and possibly print your work, so PDF documents are a better bet. As its name suggests, this format is designed to be more portable.

Brian Barker

#12

Hi,
    I am migrating my company's pc to libreoffice on windows, all my users
are using windows terminal services, now i want to set default file save
format to MS-Office i.e. .doc, .xls, .ppt to all users.

As previous stated by others, this is fundamentally wrong.

How does ODF benefit from you using LO to create m$ documents???

Your choice is simple: use LO to cread odf documents, or pay m$ and
continue to use m$ formats. If your business cannot afford m$...

Thanks for the great job LibreOffice developers,

What impudence; LO programmers should work for free to allow your
company to increase _private_ profits! To repeat, how does LO benefit?
Have you made a donation to ODF yet?

For those seeking to use LO as an m$ clone, either make a donation to
LO for the time you are wasting for LO compatibility with m$ or
preferably, pay m$ and continue to use m$ products. When you find m$
formats 2010, 2011, 95, rtf, pptx, ppty, pptz are incompatible, please
send your requests to m$, not here.

#13

I think other formats than ODF should be considered only as export
formats, like pdf is. Work in ODF, save in ODF and, if you have to send
your file, choose an export format accordingly to the usage of the file.
If receiver of the document does not need to modify the file, pdf is the
right format. If he needs to modify the document and is not able to work
with ODF (nobody is perfect), then you should export your document to
doc (MS-Office 97/2000/XP). But your ODF version should always be your
reference version.

By coincedence, was thinking about this whilst looking at the menu bar
'file'. There are 'save as' and 'export' options.

Wouldn't be better from a design perspective to use the 'save as'
option only for odf formats, and the option 'export' for non-odf (pdf,
png, html, etc.) formats?

#14

This is not the kind of attitude that will attract MS Office users to LibO/OOo or here to ask for advice.
Very smart of you.
Next time think twice before hitting "send", and ask yourself: will these insults help LibO/OOo ?

#15

Am 03.10.2011 11:34, e-letter wrote:

For those seeking to use LO as an m$ clone, either make a donation to
LO for the time you are wasting for LO compatibility with m$ or
preferably, pay m$ and continue to use m$ products. When you find m$
formats 2010, 2011, 95, rtf, pptx, ppty, pptz are incompatible, please
send your requests to m$, not here.

AMEN!
This should be emphasized over and over again. Importing MS Office formats reasonably well is just one extra to this office suite which is a completely different program that is entirely built around a completely free set of file formats.
Being the world-wide second best editor for doc/xls/ppt is a secondary aspect. It is required to do the transition away from those file formats which of course happens against the interest of Microsoft.

"Compatibility" of any kind can not be a one-way-street.
If MS realy wanted to support ODF perfectly, it would be a matter of weeks because their software is powerful enough to cover almost every single aspect of our file format. They could ask the OOo/LibO community for all kinds of help if they really wanted (no, they must not want this!). ODF is not designed for one particular office software. It is a file format which is not too complex and free of legal implications. ODF does not imply that the interpreting software works in the exact same ways as any other software.
All this is not true for MS Office formats which are built around one particular, very huge and most complex office suite. Any other program which wants to be 100% compatible needs to work exactly the same as that other suite which would be far beyond reasonable effort.
Just take the mere size of the multi-lingual download package from download.libreoffice.org and compare it with the smallest set of MS Office applications. The mere Microsoft document _viewers_ for doc(x)/xls(x)/ppt(x) [and nothing else] have the same download size as the full OpenOffice.org 3 suite.

You can turn MS Office into a perfect ODF application:

http://www.osor.eu/news/danish-hospital-hassle-free-use-of-odf-across-competing-office-suites
The Danish Århus University Hospital in Risskov, a long-time user of OpenOffice, says there are no problems at all exchanging ODF-based documents with other hospitals using Microsoft's proprietary Office 2003.

http://www.freeware-downloads.org/download/programm.php?pro=sun-odf-plugin

The sun-odf-plugin installs the most important parts of OOo 3.2 under the hood of MS Office.

#16

Am 03.10.2011 11:49, Marcello Romani wrote:

This is not the kind of attitude that will attract MS Office users to
LibO/OOo or here to ask for advice.
Very smart of you.
Next time think twice before hitting "send", and ask yourself: will
these insults help LibO/OOo ?

The myth of an MS Office clone is by far more frustrating because it waists a lot of time with very unproductive experiments. This is not a question of partisanship. People should use whatever software works for them.
There are many cases where they do not really want anything else but MS software and there are rare cases where LibreOffice will not work for them, so they should buy MSO and be happy with it.

#17

Andreas Säger wrote:

The myth of an MS Office clone is by far more frustrating because it
waists a lot of time with very unproductive experiments. This is not a
question of partisanship. People should use whatever software works for
them.

This is not a matter of being a clone. If a user or company wants to migrate
(and I believe that TDF and LO want that in spite of your personal opinion)
from MS Office to LO they need to be able to convert their existing
documents.

Companies and individuals using LO must be able to send documents to users
who can't (or do not want) to use LO.

I think that your comments and e-letter's were most unfortunate.

That is not the spirit of a Free (as in beer and in speech) software
project.

#18

Am 03.10.2011 11:38, e-letter wrote:

By coincedence, was thinking about this whilst looking at the menu bar
'file'. There are 'save as' and 'export' options.

Wouldn't be better from a design perspective to use the 'save as'
option only for odf formats, and the option 'export' for non-odf (pdf,
png, html, etc.) formats?

The logic behind the current behaviour is this:
There are file types we can read and write, others we can only read and a third category we can only write.

R/W types appear in File>Open and in File>SaveAs. When you save any type to another type you continue working with the new file and every save will convert the document model to the respective file type.

Read-only types open read-only and for editing you have to save them under a different name with a different type using the save-as dialog or pushing the edit button. The latter options produces a new unsaved instance of the document you can work with until you save it in a writable format.

Write-Only types are always exported as a file copy snapshot. You keep on working with the editable document since the exported file format is not editable anyway.

#19

El 03/10/11 11:38, e-letter escribi:On 02/10/2011, Jean-Baptiste Faurejbf.faure@orange.frwrote:I think other formats than ODF should be considered only as export
formats, like pdf is. Work in ODF, save in ODF and, if you have to send
your file, choose an export format accordingly to the usage of the file.
If receiver of the document does not need to modify the file, pdf is the
right format. If he needs to modify the document and is not able to work
with ODF (nobody is perfect), then you should export your document to
doc (MS-Office 97/2000/XP). But your ODF version should always be your
reference version.By coincedence, was thinking about this whilst looking at the menu bar
'file'. There are 'save as' and 'export' options.

Wouldn't be better from a design perspective to use the 'save as'
option only for odf formats, and the option 'export' for non-odf (pdf,
png, html, etc.) formats?JBF

#20

Am 03.10.2011 12:30, Pedro wrote:

This is not a matter of being a clone. If a user or company wants to migrate
(and I believe that TDF and LO want that in spite of your personal opinion)
from MS Office to LO they need to be able to convert their existing
documents.

But then you need a software which supports each and every aspect of the foreign file format in the same way. This comes very close to writing a clone of the other software. This is why the Sun ODF plug-in for MS Office amounts to 80+ MB. It produces perfect ODF because it basically installs a clone of OOo 3.2 under the hood of the other office suite.

The dilemma is perfect when the application's native file format provides only a sub-set of the attributes that can be stored in the foreign format. This is why life would be so much easier if MS would support ODF. Their "bigger" software could do this much easier than our software will ever support their formats, particularly when they constantly "extend" their own formats in order to be as incompatible as possible.