RTF support

users
#41

I don't (entirely) disagree with you on the dirty trick front.
But what an interesting world we live in when an unpleasantly dirty
trick like that is seen as a legitimate tool...

Mark Stanton
One small step for mankind...

#42

Part of the "dirty tricks" come from not understanding your customers'
needs. Most office suite users are only interested in file formats so
they share documents with others. In fact they would rather have on
"default" format. They do not care if the "default" format is an open
standard or a proprietary format.

MS has changed the doc(x) format several time which leaves users of the
older format out of luck.

#43

I hope Miklos Vajna and all the specification implementors (including
all developers) reads this post :slight_smile:

MS devs can then tweak just 1 or 2 tiny things quite quickly and leave
it to other people to guess at what's changed.

This is not the issue.

Our devs pour a ton of work into finding out what is really being used
perhaps by reverse engineering (?) and then developing an answer.

If this is really true, then this is where the problem is and where the
developers have failed the Users regarding the RTF and any other
specification.
Not just Libre Office, but msWord, WordPerftect, and all others
specification driven application developers.

I continue to get replies claiming that RTF is bad bad bad bad bad and
will never be acceptable because all the problems people currently have
with RTF.

If an application claims to support a file format, then the #1 priority
is and should be to correctly implement the file format specification
(whether it be HTML, Java, RTF, docX, or any other truly implementable
standard).
If the RTF developers would do this, then virtually all the complaints
about RTF would (go away/disappear).
And this is true for any/all format specification.

After that, then and only then add various implementations(tweaks, etc.)
if you so choose.

I am so glad that Miklos Vajna has decided to "fix" the Libre Office
implementation of RTF.
Thanks, Tracey

Tom Davies [via Document Foundation Mail Archive] wrote:

Hi :slight_smile:
Yes, Rtf is an excellent format. It would be more useful tho if MS
Office
followed their own specs but then we wouldn't be having this
discussion. At the
rate things are going the only organisation that doesn't follow MS
specs for rtf
and docX will be MS themselves.

Our devs pour a ton of work into finding out what is really being used
perhaps
by reverse engineering (?) and then developing an answer. MS devs can
then
tweak just 1 or 2 tiny things quite quickly and leave it to other
people to
guess at what's changed. It's not really a "dirty trick" it's a
legitimate
business strategy.

Proprietary formats are about being secretive, hiding behind intellectual
copyright, hiding corporate secrets to help keep the competitive
advantage.

Open Document Formats are about being honest and open about what the
formats are
so that everyone can incorporate them easily and be certain that
everyone else
can easily follow the standard.

MS has chosen to ignore the new Open Document Formats (version 1.2)
and use the
old formats (versions 1.0 or 1.1). So they appear to be following ODF
and can
legitimately publicly state that. But of course they have carefully
made sure
that newer odfs still get a little messed up in MSO. Everyone else
apps can
read them perfectly. Again, it's not a "dirty trick" but does make a
lot of
sense as a legitimate business strategy.

Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

________________________________
From: planas <[hidden email]
</user/SendEmail.jtp?type=node&node=3128731&i=0>>
To: [hidden email] </user/SendEmail.jtp?type=node&node=3128731&i=1>
Sent: Thu, 30 June, 2011 15:22:32
Subject: Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: RTF support

Hi

> Johnny Rosenberg wrote:
> > Since then I always make sure no RTF files comes near me ever.
>
> I have all due respect for your opinion and choice and I am glad you
have
> the option to do that.
>
> I had never thought of saving all documents in RTF (maybe not a bad
idea),
> but I do find RTF very useful for the purpose for which it was
designed:
> portability.
> I have used RTF to send Documents and Data/Reports to recipients with
> diverse Office-Applications that did NOT have a choice with the
> Office-Application they were using (so I have successfully used RTF for
> portability).
>
>
> Sean Burke in RTF Pocket Guide wrote:
> > For no really good reason, support for these RTF character sets is
> > perfiect in some word processors, almost perfect in others..., and
shoddy
> > in others...
>
> The capability of applications that state or imply RTF functionality
is not
> a reflection of RTF, but on the competence (hence professionalism)
of the
> developers that implement the Open/Import and Save-As/Export routines.
>
> This is true of *all* software: that includes the Microsoft Word
Veiwer 2003
> that has problems correctly displaying the Word2002RTFSpec.doc.
>
> Just FYI, Tracey
> I normally do NOT use a screw driver as a substitute for a hammer,
but I
> have used a heavy duty screw driver to pound the lid back on a paint
can.
> I am not upset that screwdrivers are not hammers.
>
>
> --
> View this message in context:
>http://nabble.documentfoundation.org/RTF-support-tp3114703p3121621.html
> Sent from the Users mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
>

One problem with RTF is MS has different versions of the specification,
generally released when a new version of MSO comes out. If your software
does not read the newer versions, which I believe is the default for the
latest MSO version you may get garbled importing on occasion.

--
Jay Lozier
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#44

Hi :slight_smile:
Sorry, it's late here. Have you fixed the problem?
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

#45

Hi :slight_smile:
Ahh, i found this and something about using Ubuntu. I'm not sure how to help
tho!
Apols and regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

#46

They do not care if the "default" format is an open standard or a
proprietary format.
MS has changed the doc(x) format several time which leaves users of
the older format out of luck.

You are right: User A just wants to send a document to User B without an
hassle (and vise versa).

Which is a good reason for Libre Office to do a better job at handling
MS docs than MS does.
It would be noteworthy if the folks at MS Office Applications starting
to get concerned about the developments at Libre Office.
Tracey

Jay Lozier [via Document Foundation Mail Archive] wrote:

> I don't (entirely) disagree with you on the dirty trick front.
> But what an interesting world we live in when an unpleasantly dirty
> trick like that is seen as a legitimate tool...
>
> Mark Stanton
> One small step for mankind...
>
>
>

Part of the "dirty tricks" come from not understanding your customers'
needs. Most office suite users are only interested in file formats so
they share documents with others. In fact they would rather have on
"default" format. They do not care if the "default" format is an open
standard or a proprietary format.

MS has changed the doc(x) format several time which leaves users of the
older format out of luck.

--
Jay Lozier
[hidden email] </user/SendEmail.jtp?type=node&node=3129937&i=0>

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All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be
deleted

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#47

Hi :slight_smile:
Since we have no control over how MS mishandles their implementation of MS
formats it would surely be better to convince people to switch to ODF formats.

People are happy to download pdfs and then click on the button to download the
latest pdf reader from Adobe. We could be pushing the ODF formats in the same
way and for very similar reasons, ie that documents don't get screwed-up when
everyone uses ODF.
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

#48

Tom tom tom tom tom....

The ODF spec is non-robust. In truth, it is much like the current EPUB
spec, pathetic. No two platforms have the same font set, nor do they
render them the same way. WordPerfect fixed this years ago by expanding
their format to include full font information. They had the same
rendering engine on multiple platforms, and yes, it actually rendered
the same way, not like that pathetic thing IBM is using for Symphony
now, which only works on Windows.

Until the ODF spec includes support for embedding all fonts used in the
document, AND A SINGLE RENDERING ENGINE WHICH WORKS THE SAME ON ALL
PLATFORMS COMPLETELY DIVORCED FROM CURRENT/LOCAL PRINTER SETTINGS, it's
not portable.

During the days of DOS, most fonts were provided by printers, not the OS
or the application. Word processors like WordPerfect had to be tightly
coupled to the printer, especially the 24-pin dot matrix printers, in
order to create documents for lawyers (still WP's primary market.) Once
networks were introduced things got hinky, but, most word processors
still have some switch somewhere, usually more than one, which turns on
enhanced screen formatting based upon current default printer.

I haven't went and looked for these switches in Libre Office, but will
be my last Mt. Dew they are there in the code. I've seen the physical
evidence. When I'm writing one of my geek books
(http://www.theminimumyouneedtoknow.com) and decided to print out a
single page/chart to keep beside me while working, I print it on the old
T65 clunker on my desk. The capabilities of this tiny HP OfficeJet are
no where near my default Optra S 1855 tank that I use for full book
printing. All I have to do is print one page to this T65 and Libre
Office halts for a while, then you notice the text shift on the page and
that your page count is different.

It's just &(^)(&)(8ing lovely.

There is nothing I would rather do in life than spend days fixing page
breaks I've already fixed N times before.

#49

Hi :slight_smile:
The MS formats; docX, doc and rtf are no better on any of those counts. Plus,
since MS are so secretive about the was they mis-handle them there is no way to
implement them the same in non-MS software. Stuff written in older versions of
MS get messed up when read in newer versions. There is no way that the
situation will ever improve since it's one of the ways MS convinces people to
buy their newer products.

ODF is a complete contrast. It's not used as a marketing ploy to increase
profits. It is comparatively easy for people to find the specs that are being
used and implement it properly. It is easy to file bug-reports and make
complaints or feature requests or get involved with developments.

Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

#50

Hi Ian,

I want to 'link' to the photos, (2 for each record), in place of the
default embedding to help reduce the size of the DB and for this I need
a path to be specified in each record for each photo. In place of typing
in the full path every time I would like to have a fixed "Path to Photo
Folder" field and just put the "Photo's File Name" under each photo. No
problem with this.

BUT the next step has me fooled!! I created another field called"Full
Path To Photo" and need this field to automatically concatenate the
first two values ie "Path to Photo Folder" + "Photo's File Name".

Is this possible and how can I do this?

AFAIK, this is not possible via the Table definition UI. What might be
possible is the use of a combo box on a Form, where the combo box would
combine the data from the string corresponding to the path and the data
corresponding to the image file name and then presenting the combined
value to the user. I do not think, however, that it is possible to
present the user with a clickable link in that case, other than by
writing a macro that would do that for you e.g. via a button.

Alternatively, you could always try a form based on a query, where the
query would concatenate the two fields and present the combined value to
the user.

You might want to look at Roberto Benitez's book on Programming OOo Base
using OOoBasic. Also look at Andrew Pitonyak's guide (the name of which
I've forgotten for the moment).

Alex