[LMB] OT: AKICOL PDF transformerbot

[Mark Allums]

Francis Turner wrote:
> On Tue, May 20, 2008 at 4:51 PM, Terra <howtoparent at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Another big thumbs up for Open Office.  I haven't bothered to put MS
>> Office on my computer for 2 installations of Windows :)  And OO saving
>> to PDF is one of my favorite features.  I've designed nice looking
>> powerpoint presentations in OO, I use the spreadsheet function regularly
>> and of course use the "Word" program to write anything I write.  OO is
>> really nice for not sludging up the works and slowing your computer down
>> compared to Ms office.  OpenOffice functions so similarly to MS Office
>> that making the transition is a breeze (looks almost identical) and you
>> have the warm fuzzy feeling one gets when supporting an opensource
>> software project :)
>>
> 
> I have to note that while I use OO all the time it isn't a 100%
> perfect MS Oriface replacement. For example I have noted that it
> occasionally takes nice powerpoint diagrams and pocks with them (it
> also crashes when given an embedded visio object but I don't totally
> blame it for that trick). In fact OO write also occasionally plays
> silly buggers with complex word docs too.
> 
> In general it all goes horribly wrong when you have something complex
> with (inter alia) multiple change bars, complex graphics with bits
> joined together or 5001 different footnotes and endnotes. Having said
> that MS Oriface for Apple and older versions of MS Oriface (Oriface 97
> e.g.) also show issues with the same sorts of document - although it
> has been my observation that they show (irritatingly) different
> quirks. Taking a doc created in Word 2003, edited by person 1 in open
> office, then peron 2 in Apple word then person 1 again, then person 4
> in office XP and then person 2 in OO, all with the show changes
> options enable is guaranteed to produce a horrible mess. It is unclear
> whether removing the OO factor from the list makes things much
> better...
> 

FYI for everyone, OpenOffice is at version 2.4.0 right now, those with 
earlier versions may want to update.

Version 3.0 is due later this year, it is supposed to be more tolerant 
of MS Word docs, and more compatible, but I haven't researched this 
myself.

The web site is http://www.openoffice.org/ , of course.  Requires Java 
for all the features to work, it will install it automatically, can be 
downloaded with or without a recent version of Java included.  With Java 
included, it weighs in at 100+ megs, so people on dialup will want to 
use a download manager or bitTorrent.  GetRight works, as I recall.

It's generally worth the trouble.

--Mark Allums




-- 
Mark Allums