Problem with formatted text

users
#46

I share documents with people all the time because a couple of committees I've been on had me as the 'master of documents', that is, I would take other people's work and bundle it together, edit and produce drafts for them to work on, then I would do up the final report. they almost always are using some version of Word.

But surely that's different? You've been appointed to "do up the final report", so you can do what you like with the final text - even just taking it out as plain text and reformatting from scratch. The earlier conversations where about situations where all members of a collaboration had equal rights to impose formatting - and where the formatting itself was perhaps a relevant point of discussion and agreement.

I am confused. Wolfgang spoke of two users. but granted that would also be a problem if each user claims the prerogative to determine formatting. most occasions I encounter no one claims such a prerogative, each goes their own way, but also most people I deal with don't do any significant formatting to start with.

so what is the context of discussion?

a) several individuals passing documents to and fro and
b) each with a lot of formatting and
c) each preferring their own formatting to others'?

this indeed is a 'war of all against all' but then it's less a matter of word-processor vs latex or something but a problem of organization and coordination.

Where it is appropriate, what you describe is indeed the way to go: to develop and agree on the content separately from the format. The format is either locked down from the start or imposed separately at the end. That's what intelligent web authoring arrangements use, of course.

sorry if I was off topic.

F.

#47

I tend to agree with Wolfgang on this one.

I think the difference for Felmon is that you are the "master of documents." Sounds like its your job to clean up everyone's mess and you seem to get the final say on how the document will be structured. In the legal arena, it's rare that one person will be the "master." Rather, you have a bunch of individuals, plus their administrative assistants all adding to the confusion. The "master" is the person who performs the final edit.

The obvious "problem" is that there are simply too many different ways of accomplishing a task with our "one size fits all" office suites. Want it to work like a typewriter? You can do that. Want it to work like a typesetting printing press? You can do that, too.

In the world of DOS, we all had to learn how our programs worked. Then as GUIs became popular, programs expanded to allow many different ways of working. In 2007, MS added yet another method with the Ribbon.

It would be great to use a more structured environment like LyX/LaTeX. But, the learning curve there is so steep that I can't imagine any business professional having the patience to learn it.

Virgil

#48

I am confused.

Oh, don't be!

so what is the context of discussion?

a) several individuals passing documents to and fro and
b) each with a lot of formatting and
c) each preferring their own formatting to others'?

this indeed is a 'war of all against all' but then it's less a matter of word-processor vs latex or something but a problem of organization and coordination.

Yes: that's indeed probably where word processors are less than up to the task.

sorry if I was off topic.

Not at all: you weren't. It's just that there is less of a problem if the last person is permitted to do whatever s/he wishes.

Brian Barker

#49

Hi, Virgil,

I've just read this entire thread start to finish.

If I'm correct, you're looking for a way to encourage/convince/cajole/ (name your poison here! LOL) to use styles and formatting.

No one has suggested an economic argument. <grin>

Give them a hypothetical scenario of some kind, possibly like this...

Ask them if anyone is interested in doing some typing and/or document formatting on the side? Tell them they will be paid "by the piece", not "by the hour". They will be paid $25 per finished document.

Now ask them, would they be happy with doing 2 documents an hour and make $50? My guess is, most will say yes. Now propose this... "What if I showed you a way to do 4 documents an hour and make $100?"

I'll bet no one says no, and hopefully you've got them hooked. :slight_smile:

#50

Great idea as long as I'm not the one paying the $25 per document. :slight_smile:

Virgil

#51

Hi :slight_smile:
At my work place they have just run a 3 month training course in MS Office 2010.  We are 2 months in and people still don't know how to select a printer or turn the machine on or off.  The tutor has to do all that.  I was also expecting a few to teach me how to place images to get the flexibility that LibreOffice gives me but they don't know how to get an imagine in let alone how to set it up or move it around.

One or 2 do have skills and 1 of those has talked about going on the course himself but for the most part people just don't know and have trouble learning.

If only the course had been about LibreOffice they would all be so much more skilled and flexible.  As it is they are stumped if facing something as different as MSO 2007.

Regards from

Tom :slight_smile:

#52

Hi :slight_smile:
In MS Office styles are an excessive waste of time. You just have to accept
that documents will have changing fonts, bullet-point sizes, misnumbering

> in lists and even changes in language used by spell checkers.

Are you saying the styles area a waste of time, or Office? LOL

When I first got started with Office, and got into styles, the program was a total mess. Often I couldn't even save a doc without Word crashing, and way too many times, I would lose half of a document. Sometimes, I even had to start over.

Then a new version came out, and things worked pretty good, and once I got a handle on styles and formatting there, I can't say I had any problems. I'm talking about writing various in house plans. It was also an Office only environment.

LO, on the other hand, baffles me more than Word ever did. I have to own up to not working very hard with styles and formatting yet. Have no reason to learn it, and haven't taken the time to just sit down with it.

But, just last night, found an issue with outlines in the current version. And it's a situation that should never have happened, and should have been fixed long ago. I've seen enough of these recurring things that I've started looking at alternatives, including commercial suites.

As I noted in private email, LO still has not assigned two bugs I filed to anyone yet. They are classified a low priority. As I mentioned, the issues are *not* low priority to me, so if they don't want to fix them, I'll pay for a program where the developers do care to fix the low priority issues.

In LibreOffice just start by using the default ones. Don't even set-up new ones. Instantly

> you see a rise in quality and productivity. Then show how changing the defaults ripples
> through the whole document but keeps it looking very high quality.>

The problem is that people have become so accustomed to the poor quality of documents

> that anyone insisting on higher quality is seen as a fuddy-duddy, someone to ignore and
> ridicule even if that person is in authority.

+1

<snip>

#53

Hi :slight_smile:
At my work place they have just run a 3 month training course in MS Office

> 2010. We are 2 months in and people still don't know how to select a printer
> or turn the machine on or off. The tutor has to do all that. I was also
> expecting a few to teach me how to place images to get the flexibility that
> LibreOffice gives me but they don't know how to get an imagine in let alone
> how to set it up or move it around.

This sounds to me like you have a class of students who need to be taught computer basics before being sent to an Office class.

One of my other personal gripes about today's computer users and some employers.

<snip>

#54

Hi,

I use styles as much as I can, just to achieve consistent formatting, to say nothing of time saving.

I find that most people I know who use word processors as a (barely glorified) typewriter are those who are most resistant to using styles.

Andrew

#55

IMO, this is a long time marketting motto which I try to fight: IT is *not* easy and IT is *not* intuitive. Unfortunately, for more than 30 years, the powers-that-be believe marketters.

#56

Hi,

I find that most people I know who use word processors as a (barely
glorified) typewriter are those who are most resistant to using
styles.

They are not resistant: they have never been seriously told about styles and their bosses believe software marketting (IT is supposed to be easy and intuitive, which it is *not*).

#57

Dear Ken,

could you please post numbers of these bugs here? The topic sounds to be interesting
Thanks
Milos

Dňa 05.05.2013 00:32, Ken Springer wrote / napísal(a):

#58

This is how open source works.
There are some companies (in LO: mainly RedHat and Novell) that hire full-time
developers. They work on anything that helps reaching companies goals.
Also, there is bunch of guys who just hack in their spare time. They work on
anything they find interesting or solve their own problems.

If your issues does not fall to interest of any of above groups, there is
still chance to get it solved: hire a freelance developer who will get thing
done.

Because LO is open source, you are not on the mercy of some company. You can
take matters into your own hands and do something.

Or you can buy some other software. You don't have to use LibreOffice.

#59

Hello Jean-Francois,

I didn't know that you know the same people I know.

#60

Hello Adrew,

I didn't know that you know the same people I know.

Typewriter users are still alive and well. This is just because *noone* (myself to begin with) never told them in time that a computer is no typewriter. The secret is well kept and trainers' first job should be to reveal it.

#61

A program is intuitive if it matches something in our previous experience. Before computers, business professionals used typewriters. If you want a computer to be intuitive, you need to make it work as much like a typewriter as possible. (I'm still amazed that, after 30+ years, the typewriter remains the model of the word processing user interface, even for those who have never touched a typewriter.)

But, by making it intuitive, you lose the power of the computer. To gain the power of the computer, old dogs need to learn new tricks, like paragraph styles, which isn't intuitive.

Virgil

#62

https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=44871
https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=46986

Will wonders never cease... The first one has been assigned to someone. <grin>

Maybe there's hope after all, as I've got a list from long ago that I never bothered to file as these were never addressed and assigned, so I never bothered.

#63

Hi, Mirosław,

Interspersed reply below.

As I noted in private email, LO still has not assigned two bugs I filed
to anyone yet. They are classified a low priority. As I mentioned, the
issues are not low priority to me, so if they don't want to fix them,
I'll pay for a program where the developers do care to fix the low
priority issues.

This is how open source works.
There are some companies (in LO: mainly RedHat and Novell) that hire full-time
developers. They work on anything that helps reaching companies goals.
Also, there is bunch of guys who just hack in their spare time. They work on
anything they find interesting or solve their own problems.

I've known that for a long time, but others reading this may not.

But the company's goals should be to meet the user's goals first. If you don't meet your users goals, your level of success will never reach the top. You'll have a group of people bad mouthing your product, regardless of the product. People saying the product doesn't do what you want is OK, but people saying your product is broken is not.

If your issues does not fall to interest of any of above groups, there is
still chance to get it solved: hire a freelance developer who will get thing
done.

Simply for the sake of discussion... We should be talking about the average user of LO, not the those users that are capable of programming the changes, or knowing how go about hiring someone to do the job. If LO or any product, open source, commercial, bucket making, is to increase the number of users, you've got to pay attention to the users that can not make the changes on their own.

Because LO is open source, you are not on the mercy of some company. You can
take matters into your own hands and do something.

And I'm one of those users that possesses neither the time, money, nor interest in creating a change. A change that may not be compatible with any other LO produced file.

Or you can buy some other software. You don't have to use LibreOffice.

Exactly. For open source, I could try Open Office and Lotus Symphony. And there are 3 commercial products I'm going to look at, one of which may possibly be a better match for me than LO. I did not know of this product when I started with LO.

I first started with 8-bit computers, and would buy every new word processor that came out until I finally found one that worked for me. I never said the others were "crap", just that they didn't do what I wanted to do. :slight_smile:

#64

I totally agree, especially for the technical side of things.

But it would be so much easier if people would just read the manual.

OH!! Wait! No one makes manuals for their products any more! LOL

LO is to be commended for bucking the trend in this area.

#65

I'm not so sure that by making it intuitive, you lose the power of the computer. And I will stipulate that what is intuitive to one user is not to another. My Mac drove me up the wall sometimes, in this area. Windows? Not a problem. But I've got a friend that is the exact opposite. OS X not a problem for her, but never did understand Windows.

What needs to be stressed/taught, is "try something". Be inquisitive about the computer. "What happens if I do X?"

I often try to mix features between Win and OS X, so it does what I wish and makes sense to me. Right now, I'm trying to get OS X's sidebar view in Finder to be similar to the Win Explorer's Navigation Pane. So far, with no success. :frowning: So, if anyone knows of a way... LOL