Do You Share ODF Documents With MS Office Users?

users
#1

I would like to take something of a straw poll, if that's ok. I simply
want to know whether any of you have shared documents using the ODF format
with MS Office users (preferably in a business environment), and what was
the reaction? What problems

I am not seeking advice on how to share documents with MS Office users.
Nor am I interested in an in-depth analysis of why one might experience
problems in sharing such documents. I simply want to know your experience.

I have been sharing a simple spreadsheet document between LO (at home) and
MSO (at work) in the OD format. The experience has been interesting on the
MS Office side of it. I get error messages (that don't seem to be real
errors), and if I choose the "repair" option, it claims to fix the errors,
and even gives me a link to click to see the list of alleged corrections.
The list is just a near-empty XML document. And to save a document in ODF
raises a warning *every single time*, with no opportunity to say "stop
warning me".

I know most of us still have to deal with both suites. I just wonder if
anyone else (how many???) has experienced similar issues.

Thanks,
Don

#2

I have a comment on the error dialogue.
I once got into a heated debate with my ICT teacher earlier on this year
and in the debate the comment was made by her that: "Microsoft with that
error dialogue are really just trying to insinuate that their products
are superior to others"

I in a way kind of agree with her because Microsoft have always insisted
that the MO range of extensions should be the industry standard. Due to
this sort of approach I find roadblocks when trying to submit work in
.ODT format to institutions such as NZQA (New Zealand Qualifications
Association). they keep getting angry at me for using a so called "UN
recognized file format". I have now managed to persuade my school and
some other institutions that for a truly open submission and form of
collaboration that the use of ODF standards should be encouraged. the
major problem with persuasion is that people are not willing to make the
change is due to the lack of knowledge of understanding of opensource
and how it can really become better than commercial counterparts.

With education there can be a global revolution in the sense that open
source programs such as LO will become commonplace and the illegal act
of actions such as piracy (search on youtube "crack microsoft offfice
2010" to see what I mean!) will almost cease,

Regards
Anthony Easthope

#3

Whenever I share office files (mostly spreadsheets) with people I
export them to PDF first. People are not supposed to edit my files
(besides, the next version of MS Office seems to be able to open PDF
files and edit them as if they were MS Office documents). Most of the
people I know have LibreOffice or OpenOffice.org installed, so it
could happen that I share an ODS file or two… I rarely use Writer.
When I write something, it's often things that I need to remember,
small notes of different kinds, and then I find things like Tomboy
Notes (GNote if Mono is not an option) more intuitive. I have never
used Impress, and I never will. Just hate when people use presentation
software.

Kind regards

Johnny Rosenberg
ジョニー・ローゼンバーグ

#4

I have a comment on the error dialogue.
I once got into a heated debate with my ICT teacher earlier on this year
and in the debate the comment was made by her that: "Microsoft with that
error dialogue are really just trying to insinuate that their products
are superior to others"

I in a way kind of agree with her because Microsoft have always insisted
that the MO range of extensions should be the industry standard. Due to
this sort of approach I find roadblocks when trying to submit work in
.ODT format to institutions such as NZQA (New Zealand Qualifications
Association). they keep getting angry at me for using a so called "UN
recognized file format". I have now managed to persuade my school and
some other institutions that for a truly open submission and form of
collaboration that the use of ODF standards should be encouraged. the
major problem with persuasion is that people are not willing to make the
change is due to the lack of knowledge of understanding of opensource
and how it can really become better than commercial counterparts.

IMHO most people use the default settings of the software they are provided and do not make an effort to learn much about the software's capabilities. So if support for a set of file formats is not transparent they will probably panic if they see an "error" message when opening a file.

Another problem for FOSS is that our marketing budget is nil and depends on word of mouth almost exclusively. IMHO most people do not understand the motivation of the FOSS community of developing and supporting useful software for all users. Thus, FUD is often used to scare them away claiming that many projects become abandonware without mentioning that commercial abandonware is also a major problem (any still use Ami-pro?).

#5

To answer your question: Yes, I send *.odf files to others in a
business setting. When they tell me they can't open the file I
instruct them to upgrade their office suite to a more modern version
(i.e. buy new licenses) or, alternatively, obtain a (free) copy of
OOo. I told our accounting firm if they wanted to do our work they
would upgrade to read *.odf files -- and they did. Cost them some
money for new licenses but they upgraded their MS licenses to read my
files.

#6

Thanks Chuck! That's pretty helpful.

Thanks to the others as well. Again, my focus is more on whether and how
people share their documents than on the intricacies of advocacy. :slight_smile:

Regards,
Don

#7

You need to be aware that MS Office 2010, while it will read ods files, strips out ALL the formulae - just leaving the last value. Yeah, sure, MS Office "reads" odf format.....seems like a deliberate ploy to me.

#8

No, it was a mistake.

The ODF 1.0 and ODF 1.1 standards did not provide a specification for spreadsheet formulas, so what OpenOffice implemented was implementation-specific and the Office team decided, with some public consultation, to not attempt to match OpenOffice, but to work within the ODF Standard. Hence the formula support was also implementation-specific (they used a namespace that defined Excel formulas) and there was no interop between Office and OpenOffice.

However, now that there is ODF 1.2 and OpenFormula, you'll be happy to know that Office 2013 Preview supports OpenFormula in reading and saving ODS in Excel. You can test this by using SkyDrive with the Office Preview Web Apps.

- Dennis

#9

...

Whenever I share office files (mostly spreadsheets) with people I
export them to PDF first. People are not supposed to edit my files

PDF is not always the panacea some purport it to be... Just a few recent
samples:

<https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/cups-pdf/+bug/793360>
[Text in PDF created by cups-pdf not visible when open in LIbreOffice
Draw] - not an LO issue.

<https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/poppler/+bug/897322>
[PDF saved forms are not compatible with Adobe Reader] - not LO related
at all, but can be quite devistating if you're passing along PDF's
expecting them to be "Adobe" readable.

While I think that LO does a remarkable job (waves to the devs) in PDF
export, be aware that there are issues:

<https://bugs.freedesktop.org/buglist.cgi?order=Importance&short_desc=PDF&query_format=advanced&bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&short_desc_type=allwordssubstr&component=Libreoffice&product=LibreOffice>

(besides, the next version of MS Office seems to be able to open PDF
files and edit them as if they were MS Office documents). Most of the

MS Office 2012?

<https://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word-help/edit-or-make-changes-to-a-pdf-file-HA010275433.aspx>
<quote>
To add or edit text in a PDF, you must have the original file from which
the PDF has been made. You can also use a PDF converter, which can be
purchased through the Office Marketplace File Converters.

To change the PDF file, do one of the following:

    Open the original Office file in your Office program, make your
changes, and then save the file in PDF format again.
    Use a third-party PDF converter tool to import your PDF into an
Office file format, make your changes, and then save the file in PDF
format again.
    Use Adobe Acrobat. For more information, see Adobe Acrobat.
</quote>

people I know have LibreOffice or OpenOffice.org installed, so it
could happen that I share an ODS file or two… I rarely use Writer.
When I write something, it's often things that I need to remember,
small notes of different kinds, and then I find things like Tomboy
Notes (GNote if Mono is not an option) more intuitive. I have never
used Impress, and I never will. Just hate when people use presentation
software.

...

#10

I just used Office Word 2013 Preview to open a PDF that I saved from LibreOffice Writer. It opened in Word (with conversion) and edited just like a Word document. I was able to save it as a .docx (the default suggestion). I couldn't save as PDF though. That appears to be a glitch in the Preview, because Save As ... PDF is enabled.

- Dennis

#11

Since most people don't use OO/LO, I've converted documents as well
as PPs to MSFT's Office -
           while with OO, many times, there was garbage in the documents
and missing bits in the PPs;
           I have not noticed this since changing to LO.

       One reason I'm hesitant to upgrade to the .5 version; still using
MSFT Open Office '03

I would like to take something of a straw poll, if that's ok. I simply

#12

I agree with what you're saying; and would like to add what must be
happening in the schools here in the U.S. -
            for some reason kids are coming out of school thinking that
MSFT is the only reliable system; & believing that only MSFT will protect
their machines from hackers. As well, companies use only MSFT products on
their machines.

I have a comment on the error dialogue.

#13

        Since most people don't use OO/LO,

Many people DO use OO/LO - and it's increasing. Particularly with the complexity of each new version of MS Office....

  still using
MSFT Open Office '03

Is that a typo or did you deliberately write that? (There IS no "MSFT *Open* *Office* '03....)

#14

Hi :slight_smile:
Ahh fantastic!  It's good to see people starting to make the mistake that way around.  I catch myself refering to LibreOffice as "Office" and that klunky bloated other one as "MS Office".  AOO rarely crops up, except as that older version of "Office" ;))
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

#15

Hi :slight_smile:
It is possible to install another version of LO alongside the main one so that you can test-drive the newer one without committing to it.  It's not easy so there is a wiki-page to help.  The main thing is to avoid using the QuickStarter in either of them as you cant really have things open in both at the same time.  QuickStarter uis like having one open all the time (in a fairly minimal way but just enough to confuse them)
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

#16

yes, many do, but most do not;
           and I do have MSFT [the proper abbreviation for the company]
Office '03 [that's 2003].

#17

ok, got that;

           but when and if I decide to upgrade, I'll be keeping the older
version in the download file so I can delete all then re-open the older
version :wink:

       Still a follower of the KeepItSimpleS method :wink:

Hi :slight_smile:

#18

I have MS Office 2000, 2003, 2007 and 2010 - but none of those are OPEN Office....as you posted...
And BTW MSFT is the stock name, not the trading name....

#19

Am 24.07.2012 03:03, Don Parris wrote:

I would like to take something of a straw poll, if that's ok. I simply
want to know whether any of you have shared documents using the ODF format
with MS Office users (preferably in a business environment), and what was
the reaction? What problems

-- I rarely share any office documents with users of MS Office. I open MS Office documents in MS Office software (free MS viewers for Word and Excel). If there is no Windows box at hand, I can always read the document content in either one of Libre/OpenOffice or AbiWord or Gnumeric.
-- I send printable documents in PDF format.
-- I send emails in plain text.
-- In very rare cases I've got to co-edit the same document with a remote user of MS Office. I consequently reject OOXML (docx, xlsx). Every MS Office user can save the much more compatible doc and xls easily. They have zero trouble with doc/xls but we have lots of trouble with this pestilence of a file format called "office open xml".
Then I invest some time to clean up most of the hard formatting. They always keep my version of formatting and structure.

I am not seeking advice on how to share documents with MS Office users.
  Nor am I interested in an in-depth analysis of why one might experience
problems in sharing such documents. I simply want to know your experience.

I have been sharing a simple spreadsheet document between LO (at home) and
MSO (at work) in the OD format. The experience has been interesting on the
MS Office side of it. I get error messages (that don't seem to be real
errors), and if I choose the "repair" option, it claims to fix the errors,
and even gives me a link to click to see the list of alleged corrections.
  The list is just a near-empty XML document. And to save a document in ODF
raises a warning *every single time*, with no opportunity to say "stop
warning me".

It is not in the interest of Microsoft to support our document format. The half-hearted support they added in tiny steps since 2007 was due to political pressure. They would not do this deliberately.
I do not believe in their ODF support until I see some non-trivial documents made by MS Office.

I know most of us still have to deal with both suites. I just wonder if
anyone else (how many???) has experienced similar issues.

No, I do not deal with MS Office since 2002. I've never used any version newer than the version of 2000.

#20

One of the major problems with Windows 7 (and possibly Vista - I can't remember) is that the "Show file extensions for known file types" is switched OFF by default (God knows why) so the user may not even KNOW they are working with docx or xlsx instead of .doc or .xls...