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Yes: apparently so. That was my point: the subterfuge does not work.
Brian Barker
You are implying that a file with a .docx extension but actually in .doc format will be happily opened by Microsoft Word - that Word will simply interpret the contents and ignore the inappropriate extension, that is. Sadly for your theory, that appears not to be the case.
Brian Barker
Hi 
Can we agree to disagree?
Jay's answer is imperfect but it gets LO out there. People see it working and see that they can read documents from him although he has to do a lot of work sometimes to tidy-up documents they give him.
Andreas' and e-letter's answer is to tell people that to use LO they must stop communicating with anyone that uses MS Office, so that is all their customers and clients, their colleagues, their boss and people that work for them, their family and friends.
Personally i prefer Jay's answer. If we can get LO, OOo and the rest out there to people then we will be able to choose formats later. If we can't then we will stay stuck with the wrong format.
Regards from
Tom
Hi
You have to use "Save As ..". Just renaming the file-extension probably wont work as they are 2 very different formats.
Regards from
Tom
Am 04.06.2012 00:59, Tom Davies wrote:
Andreas' and e-letter's answer is to tell people that to use LO they must stop communicating with anyone that uses MS Office, so that is all their customers and clients, their colleagues, their boss and people that work for them, their family and friends.
Are you going to start a flame war against me? Be careful, pal. Your assertion is without any substance.
Am 04.06.2012 00:50, Brian Barker wrote:
You are implying that a file with a .docx extension but actually in .doc
format will be happily opened by Microsoft Word - that Word will simply
interpret the contents and ignore the inappropriate extension, that is.
Sadly for your theory, that appears not to be the case.Brian Barker
Thank you for trying. I did not know how stupid that program is.
Dear you LibO folks,
I have now wasted a lot of time reading some 30 mails in this thread - it was of no use because most of them did not
handle neither give an answer to the original very relevant question: "Is 3.5.4 ready for business users?"
So, what is the conclusion - if there is any?
Is 3.5.4. ready for business use, or not -- if not, what version is then in every way at least as or more reliable as e.g. MSOffice& MSAccess?
> the MSO's license fees are peanuts compared with lost efficiency (and costs) if a company's office personnel must struggle with LibO's bugs and issues many hours many days per week per month -- and the company has to employ or buy some extra it-resources for that (and fixing new problems coming with new versions every 'second day')
> no company can afford bad quality or inflexibility in communication with customers caused by a not-working office program (LibO?)
> MSO is no doubt the 90% market leader and is most certainly used by any company's most important customers/contacts -- and the rest 10% will follow the majority every time they have to
Three weeks ago in another thread I put an similar question asking what is the best LibO version today for a private/home user -- a home user does not have it-experts or own skills in programming to rely on but has the same need of a troublefree program.
Thanks to Tom and Andreas for their kindness to answer; but neither of them gave me an exact recommendation: "that version is what you need"!
Perhaps that 'business ready version' of LibO could be the one for me too.
If there is no such a reliable version (not for business nor for home) then stop developing for a while and make one: better to have a perfectly well working program with less features than one with plenty of fantastic features that does not work and that produces problems already when being installed!
Please, start with fixing Base!
Regards
Pertti Rönnberg
Dear you LibO folks,
I have now wasted a lot of time reading some 30 mails in this thread -
it was of no use because most of them did not
handle neither give an answer to the original very relevant question:
"Is 3.5.4 ready for business users?"So, what is the conclusion - if there is any?
I don't know if you saw my reply to the question, but in my opinion it is not. And like you, I Iisted why I feel this way.
<snip>
Perhaps that 'business ready version' of LibO could be the one for me too.
If there is no such a reliable version (not for business nor for home)
then stop developing for a while and make one: better to have a
perfectly well working program with less features than one with plenty
of fantastic features that does not work and that produces problems
already when being installed!
*Exactly!* What ever features that are offered need to work, period!! Long before new features are offered.
Please, start with fixing Base!
It appears there's been a base problem for a long time.
I don't know which OS you are using, but if you don't wish to use MSO, and need something that works better for you than LO currently does, you might try the demo versions of Papyrus, a low cost office product available for Windows and Mac. http://rom-logicware.com/ I've not tried the product as it exists today, but many years ago I used it on my Atari computers and loved it. At that time it was just a word processing program.
<snip>
Hello Pertti,
As a long-time (now retired) IBM-Systems Engineer serving large customers
I can only agree with you completely.
I myself keep using the latest LO-versions - having used OO/LO for at least
6 to 7 years.
However, there are a couple of - to my mind VERY important - insufficiencies
which would prevent me from using LO in a "real" business environment, and
they mostly have to do with Base and its integration with the Writer. I have
worked in the database area during a lot of my professional life. Most
businesses store their mission-critical data in (mostly) relational DBs
(and NOT in spreadsheets or isolated files galore all over the place!).
Therefore, a solid connection/integration of DBs is paramount for business
usage of LO.
Now, when I try to create letters for - say 100 people in my MySQL-DB -
I have to do this one by one, since things like lines, pictures, and
sometimes whole frames (e.g. used for footings or addresses) are "forgotten"
otherwise.
I only look after a brass band, but - just imagine an insurance company with
millions of customers - definitely NO GO!
Of course I should get involved myself in helping to fix these shortcomings.
Alas, I honestly cannot spare the time!
Nevertheless, I will continue to use LO, I like it, the performance has
improved tremendously, and I am sure things are bound to converge!!!
Regards from Salzburg
Heinrich
Hi
Thanks for your kind words
Simplest answer is grab the 3.4.6 now if you don't already have LO on your system.
If you already have LO then wait 4 weeks until the release of 3.5.5 on the 8th July or else just test-drive 3.5.4 for yourself and decide for yourself.
Annoyingly there isn't really a simple Y/n type answer. It depends what you need it for, what functionality you want and all that sort of thing. Is a spoon better than a fork? That type of thing. It's a bit like watching tennis or going to a pantomime at the moment! ("Oh yes it is", "Oh no it isn't")
In both previous branches the .4 was when the branch suddenly settled down a LOT and became a LOT more stable. Unfortunately we wont know for certain until tons of people have been using it for a while. We can't read the future! Tons of people have been using the 3.4.6 for quite a few weeks with very few grumbles reaching this list.
I guess each "sub-point release" is kinda like half a "Service Pack". So, 3.5.4 is like saying 3.5 with SP2. Of course LO fans would say that each sub-point release is like a whole Service Pack so it's like 3.5 SP4 but in terms of comparing with other projects where SP2 is about where the project becomes stable i would say that it's the .4 in LO. But we haven't really quantified this objectively yet. It just seems to be the way it's playing out so far.
Base still doesn't seem to have many people working on it. TDF's BoD seem to have too many other issues to worry about and still haven't grabbed the steering-wheel and taken charge. They are still unwilling to put any resources or imagination into sorting it out. At the moment their plan for it is to sit&wait to see if one of our supporter companies (Redhat, Google, Canonical etc) magically becomes interested and starts sorting it.
Regards from
Tom
Am 04.06.2012 17:25, Tom Davies wrote:
Hi
Thanks for your kind wordsSimplest answer is grab the 3.4.6 now if you don't already have LO on your system.
*Why exactly?*
If you already have LO then wait 4 weeks until the release of 3.5.5 on the 8th July or else just test-drive 3.5.4 for yourself and decide for yourself.
Annoyingly there isn't really a simple Y/n type answer. It depends what you need it for, what functionality you want and all that sort of thing. Is a spoon better than a fork? That type of thing. It's a bit like watching tennis or going to a pantomime at the moment! ("Oh yes it is", "Oh no it isn't")
In both previous branches the .4 was when the branch suddenly settled down a LOT and became a LOT more stable. Unfortunately we wont know for certain until tons of people have been using it for a while. We can't read the future! Tons of people have been using the 3.4.6 for quite a few weeks with very few grumbles reaching this list.
I guess each "sub-point release" is kinda like half a "Service Pack". So, 3.5.4 is like saying 3.5 with SP2. Of course LO fans would say that each sub-point release is like a whole Service Pack so it's like 3.5 SP4 but in terms of comparing with other projects where SP2 is about where the project becomes stable i would say that it's the .4 in LO. But we haven't really quantified this objectively yet. It just seems to be the way it's playing out so far.
Again, you have no clue what you are writing about.
Shame on you!
Why don't you just download it and see if it does what you need? If
it works for your business needs it's ready! If not, don't use it
yet. I would NEVER depend on somebody else to determine whether
something is ready for me. Only I can determine that!
Am 04.06.2012 17:22, Heinrich Stoellinger wrote:
Hello Pertti,
As a long-time (now retired) IBM-Systems Engineer serving large customers
I can only agree with you completely.
I myself keep using the latest LO-versions - having used OO/LO for at least
6 to 7 years.
However, there are a couple of - to my mind VERY important -
insufficiencies
Do you know any LibreOffice specific issues? IMHO, the conceptual insufficiencies are not specific to LibreOffice. The whole thing went wrong with OOo 2.0 when the "Base document" appeared on the scene. Too many devevelopment hours had been wasted for dysfunctional eye candy and a container format with embedded HSQL that destroys all user data sooner or later. If time and energy had been invested in better drivers and document integration, database connectivity would be an amazing feature for admins who want to setup something really productive for the "normal" users.
Now, when I try to create letters for - say 100 people in my MySQL-DB -
I have to do this one by one, since things like lines, pictures, and
sometimes whole frames (e.g. used for footings or addresses) are "forgotten"
otherwise.
Things should work fairly well when you do not put the mail merge fields in a separate frame. I could fill 1200 addresses into a flat serial letter with page headers and footers. Of course, the extra frame should not matter at all.
We use LibreOffice in a small busines environment. I agree that the database component is a core component for administrated busines use. Most of our templates and documents are somehow connected to data sources. We do even use the Base component as a frontend for a stand-alone HSQLDB server which works very reliably and user friendly enough (no, it's not perfectly polished and a little bit clumsy to use but "the girls" love it anyway simply because it helps to get the daily work done).
Ken, Heinrich and Tom,
thank you for your kind replies.
(and Andreas, you seem to know a lot and do a good job helping us 'dummies' so please, try to not be so aggressive!)
Sorry - I'm getting old and forget easily the obvious:
> my systems are: LibO3.4.5 on a laptop Win7Prem.Home/64bit and LibO3.4.6 on a PC Win7Prof/32bit
> my LibO usage: most interested in Base (with embedded HSQL and/or connected to an external db), and then Calc (various economic, technical and other calcs) and to some extend Writer (together with MSWord; letters, protocols, memos, etc).
Tom, as you see, I have obeyed your advice last winter and installed Lib3.4.6 but am now curious on if there is something even better.
Sounds like there is wrong kind of people in BoD, to sit&wait is not the most effective way to get things done.
It is a shame to let Base not being completed, when there is so very little left to get it working as promised in the LibO's introductions; the same is for the LibO-Base's documentation (Dan' drafts 2010 for OO-Base!).
As it is now LibO and it's Base-module is only causing frustration -- it should be better to remove the module from the package until it has been completed and is working properly.
Best regards
Pertti Rönnberg
--
View this message in context: http://nabble.documentfoundation.org/Is-3-5-4-ready-for-business-users-tp3987579p3988098.html
Sent from the Users mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
It's crucial that people test each particular use of an application, and THEN
decide.
I've gone to using Apache OpenOffice V3.0, as LO seems to have "fallen over"
badly -- none of the responses I got in response to a problem I was
experiencing with using Zotero were even minimally useful to me, so I gave
up LO but still get the user help messages, still being subscribed to that
list.
Trying to get LO 3.5 (and now 3.5.4) to export a file with Zotero entries to
PDF causes LO to crash, it successfully saves the file, and I think that's
an advance on where it was before
but being able to use Zotero AND export to PDF are CRUCIAL for me, so, as I
said, it's back to AOO, I'm not even bothering with LO as I basically use
it, currently, as a wordprocessor only (with Zotero support).
so much for advances in the product -- depends on what "ready" means, I
guess, 3.5.4 is NOT ready for me, but still showing signs of some sort of
"reversion" (sorry I can't be more helpful in specifying -- as I've just
demonstrated, I'm not even au fait with using Nabble!)
I may have written the text, but Drew was the one that wrote the outline I used. Somehow, I think he should get the credit for what he accomplished.
--Dan
Pertti Rönnberg wrote:
Why don't you just download it and see if it does what you need? If
it works for your business needs it's ready! If not, don't use it
yet. I would NEVER depend on somebody else to determine whether
something is ready for me. Only I can determine that!
+1
<snip>
but being able to use Zotero AND export to PDF are CRUCIAL for me, so, as I
said, it's back to AOO, I'm not even bothering with LO as I basically use
it, currently, as a wordprocessor only (with Zotero support).
Just curious, have you tried IBM's Lotus Symphony version of Open Office?
<snip>
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I ask the users, is it ready to be deployed to my/our business users?
We really need to know.
It depends on how you use it. As with all releases, it has some bugs.
My office is not using any of the 3.5 line yet because of a persistent
bug related to Calc and importing data from databases (basically, you
can't filter the data being brought in from the data sources browser at
all). Since we use Calc to bring in data from a database to generate
invoices, do payroll, etc., this obviously means LibO 3.5.x is of no use
to us.
If all you are looking to do is use the word processor, however, 3.5.x
should be fine.
- --
Steven Shelton