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A while ago I remember a thread abour the $ subscriptions. There seemed to
be some excitement that LO could indeed take advantage of this if it could
gain 120% compatibility with M$ Office97 (MSO97)
My question is, is LO 4.0 suppose to be the release that supports 120% of
MSO97.
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"Chad Homan" <choman@gmail.com>:
My question is, is LO 4.0 suppose to be the release that supports 120% of
MSO97.
Not yet, it does not support 100% of MS Word 2.0 (from 1992) yet.
Of course it has some bells and whistles and even a couple of useful features, but still no cigar.
Hi 
On the other hand MS Office still does not support many features of LibreOffice yet either. Plus a LOT of the functionality of MS Office depends on you buying the 'right' bundle and then buying extra apps on top of whatever is included in the bundle. For example the Student's version of MSO doesn't include Publisher or Access. Plus their default formats rely on everyone using the same version and the same OS as the person that created the document and only really works on desktop machines. Plus all the security issues that MS documents and the app has suffered from over the years are almost entirely avoided by Libreoffice and all the other OpenSource office programs. Will MSO ever catch up on security or cross-platform compatibility?
Regards from
Tom
<snip>
Will MSO ever catch up on security or cross-platform compatibility?
Regards from
Tom
Hmmm - tough one that! I'd have to say "no" and "no"
"Tom Davies":
On the other hand MS Office still does not support many features of LibreOffice yet either.
Like custom toolbar backgrounds? I think people can live without those.
For example the Student's version of MSO doesn't include Publisher or Access.
Why does a student need Publisher? Why does they need Access when they can have the real SQL server for free?
Plus their default formats ... only really work on desktop machines.
Both BIFF and RTF are trivially parsed and can be used on servers as well.
Will MSO ever catch up on security or cross-platform compatibility?
There are third-party solutions which handle Office documents on mobile devices. The two only desktop platforms, Windows and MacOSX are both using MSO. What compatibility?
"Tom Davies":
On the other hand MS Office still does not support many features of LibreOffice yet either.
Like custom toolbar backgrounds? I think people can live without those.
For example the Student's version of MSO doesn't include Publisher or Access.
Why does a student need Publisher? Why does they need Access when they can have the real SQL server for free?
Because many people prefer to use GUI front-ends, and why hobble a suite just for a different market?
Plus their default formats ... only really work on desktop machines.
Both BIFF and RTF are trivially parsed and can be used on servers as well.
Except the most recent versions of MSO claim to use the pseudo-Open document format (which isn't actually compatible with odf standards) and default to the non-backwards compatible *.docx
Will MSO ever catch up on security or cross-platform compatibility?
There are third-party solutions which handle Office documents on mobile devices. The two only desktop platforms, Windows and MacOSX are both using MSO. What compatibility?
And the other desktop platforms (such as all of the *nixes and *BSDs) don't and MS ensures that they keep their APIs a trade secret and continually code these so that they aren't even backwards compatible with their own products! Moreover, the number of cracks and security leaks associated with MSO are legendary.
But, this list is not about MSO, nor even MSO bashing - which is almost too easy - so back to LibO stuff, eh?
Hi
Only MS Office 2007 and 2010 are available on Mac. They are re-named as 2008 and 2011 but basically are pretty much the same. However there are compatibility issues with documents produced on one platform and then viewed on the other. Documents produced with 2007 don't always look at all right on 2010 let alone 2011. If produced in 2010 on Win Xp then even MS admits they wont look right on 2010 on Win7, nor Win8. Their idea of 'compatibility' is that everyone must be using the same version on the same OS.
Also while a student may not be considered to need various different parts of MSO it is still often claimed that moving away from MSO might be a bad idea for them because it means doing without those apps that are not even included in their version of MSO. Then there are tons of other bundles that each lack different parts of the whole suite. Again the missing parts are used as reasons why people can't migrate away from MSO.
I have just been helping 2 students on courses that are allegedly trying to teach about computers and the Access module parts were particularly tricky as they didn't have Access at home despite having bought the version of MSO that the colleges recommended. So many different bundles = so much confusion.
Rtf is no longer being actively developed. Also, as is typical of MS formats, it fails to be compatible between different programs or even same programs on different OSes, let alone different platforms. I've never yet met any office worker using Biff.
Almost all serious servers run non-MS platforms. Somewhere around 1%. Mostly it's small company servers but again they tend to go with unix-based platforms because of security issues.
Mobile devices seem to almost entirely run non-MS. The Slate's sales have been appallingly lower than estimated. The only person i know of that has run a Windows phone found it started crashing after just 2 weeks and at best is suffering slowdowns already.
All the 3rd party tools for reading documents that are in MS formats tend to be better at displaying LibreOffice documents because it's usually their native format too.
Regards from
Tom
Many months ago, there was a notification that MSO2013 changed their XML formatting from a "loose" to a "strict" version of the format. I do not remember the exact wording but they stated that MSO2010 may not read MSO2013 files correctly. So that makes 3 releases of MSO on Windows that are not compatible with MS's own XML based formats. EVERY time they release a new version, since 2007, they require the user to buy the new version to be compatible. They there is the big hike in buying their office suite, since renting will give MS more income from the same user. You get a lower up-front cost but a higher total cost when you rent MSO. All this incompatibility is just a scheme to increase their income.
As for rendering differences between different versions of Windows, XP through Win7, yes MS admits that as well. Between different font bundles and differences in how the OS does it rendering, I do not know what the differences are, but I have seen the differences myself sometimes. I ran XP/pro and Vista. Now I have XP/pro and Win7/pro. Yes, sometimes documents look a little different between the two MS OSs. Since I use Ubuntu/Linux for my main desktop, and I have not bought a MSO package since 2003, I rarely have to deal with working with MSO myself, which I enjoy.
On Tue, 05 Feb 2013 09:57:05 -0500, webmaster-Kracked_P_P
<webmaster@krackedpress.com> wrote Re Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: Re:
LibreOffice 4.0:
EVERY time
they release a new version, since 2007, they require the user to buy the
new version to be compatible. They there is the big hike in buying
their office suite, since renting will give MS more income from the same
user. You get a lower up-front cost but a higher total cost when you
rent MSO. All this incompatibility is just a scheme to increase their
income.
Exactly so, with both MSO and Windows.
and that's the reason I've been praising LO
as well as Gizmo's site - verified, tested programs for any
computer.
The best publishing programs, ... can be acquired through Gizmo's -
and no worry re. having to re-purchase if the HD should die 
these in combination with LO is all any laptop needs ...
and many folks have switched from the desktop PC to the
laptops;
actually many of these are now switching to the even
smaller hand-held devices -
[ I'm so far not interested in swapping from the
lap-top ]
Hi
The precise situation is as follows:
Office 2007 (SP2 I think) through Office 2013 *all* accept and produce
OOXML Transitional. This is also true of the compatibility pack that
provides OOXML support in Office 2003. These products also have
compatibility modes that will preserve compatibility (unless changed at user
option) of edited documents that originated from down-level versions. The
OOXML format has this kind of support available as part of special
compatibility and extension provisions. (There are similar provisions in
the Office 97-2000 format and RTF, but the technique is more refined in
OOXML.)
Office 2010 and Office 2013 *also* accept OOXML Strict. These are the first
versions that can accept Strict. They are the first versions produced after
Strict was fully specified. (There was a major change in Strict at the ISO
level and I don't know how that has been smoothed over between Office 2010
and 2013.)
Office 2013 is the first version that can *produce* OOXML Strict. The
default is still OOXML Transitional. One has to specifically request Strict
in the Save As dialog, at least on my installation of Office 2013 Preview.
I don't know when the default will ever flip over and I haven't checked for
configuration options that change the default preference.
This is all done to smooth the readiness and preparation for migration to
Strict. It was not Microsoft's idea to create such a hard line in the sand.
It came from the ISO/IEC committee that is maintaining the OOXML
specification and from the ballot resolution meeting that had OOXML approved
as an International Standard. The Transitional OOXML support in Office 2007
and back to Office 2003 (by compatibility pack) was all done based on the
original ECMA standard, which had no Strict separation.
What is being done to smooth the transition makes perfect sense to me.
Presumably the people who want to use strict understand that there is no
down-level compatibility, and strict will not happen by accidental default.
This consideration of migration and up-/down-level preservation would be an
useful lesson for actions taken on the ODF TC and in OpenOffice-legacy
implementations that provide breaking changes to default behavior. There
are more of those on their way. The sudden change of Save As Password to
use different encryption methods not known down-level was just a first
taste. Breaking changes with regard to SVG compatibility will be more
noticeable. And the new change-tracking that may emerge in ODF 1.3 will go
farther still.
- Dennis
And such as the dropping of StarOffice binary format support for the older binary formats mentioned by Alex a few weeks ago.
Steve
Hi
On the other hand MS Office still does not support many features of LibreOffice yet either. Plus a LOT of the functionality of MS Office depends on you buying the 'right' bundle and then buying extra apps on top of whatever is included in the bundle. For example the Student's version of MSO doesn't include Publisher or Access. Plus their default formats rely on everyone using the same version and the same OS as the person that created the document and only really works on desktop machines. Plus all the security issues that MS documents and the app has suffered from over the years are almost entirely avoided by Libreoffice and all the other OpenSource office programs. Will MSO ever catch up on security or cross-platform compatibility?
Regards from
Tom
Microsoft may catch up on cross platform compatibility if they release Office for Linux as has been rumored, plus the fact that they have their development fingers in the Linux Kernel and KDE should assist with that, particularly if Microsoft want to realize their dream of taking over the world.
As far as security is concerned, that will never happen. They don't have the reputation of "Microsoft and Security don't go together" for nothing, plus they continually demonstrate that they don't understand the basics of security.
regards,
Steve
That's very funny. What particular "basics of security" do you have in
mind? And how would you say LibreOffice 4.0 will demonstrate superiority in
that regard?
Hi
security maybe (but it is not on the ms's vip list), but not cross-platform... can you imagine ms dealing with linux (as many public administrations un europe are doing) ?
Cross-platform: Don't forget that they do make a Mac version, at different
release schedules to Windows (Most recent version was 2011) and AFAIK, it
has full compatibility with MSO 2010. (Don't take that last bit as truth,
that was my guess and you never know what's coming next with MS)
ops... sorry, i heard ms is working through novell on linux versions of ms office mainly for android... though it is not certainly free software based on partecipation....
Hi
I think recent word from MS is that they are not even going to do a version of MSO 2013 for Mac let alone for Gnu&Linux. I'm not sure why Ballmer would make such a claim and i'm not sure i would trust it either. There is bound to be a Mac version in about a year. Perhaps they are trying to push people into using their equivalent of google-docs.
Regards from
Tom