[KLUG Members] Re: Calling all Linux novices: -- Mega-ignorance on MS Office!

[Bryan J. Smith]

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On Tue, 2003-01-14 at 19:55, Mike Williams wrote:
> I think StarOffice / OpenOffice with it's XML based OPEN file format has=20
> a chance at fighting the entrenched MS Office juggernaut, but it won't=20
> be soon and it's far from guaranteed.  What I don't understand is that=20
> these discussions (arguments?) seem to focus on the Word format.  Until=20
> you get to unnecessarily complicated documents full of tables and fancy=20
> formatting (which more people probably do than should, but that's a=20
> separate problem) reading and writing Word files in something else is=20
> easy enough that it works.

My bias is going to be towards large documentation projects that span
years.  In such cases, MS Word is intolerable and unmanageable, because
it _lacks_ an underlying documentation language.  You cannot assemble
documentation in MS Word -- it's the only, major documentation
application where you cannot.

Large enterprises and publications agree.  They simply cannot use MS
Word because of it.  For those of us that have been published, they
require you do use "markup" if you submit in MS Word.  Because they
eventually export to text, and do processing into a documentation
language.

> The problem is Excel.
> For one thing, and I truly hate to admit this, Excel is the best=20
> spreadsheet out there.  I've tried Quattro, I've tried Star / Open, none=20
> of them can touch it.

Er, um, my old 1-2-3 r4 still does formatting and formulas that Excel
2000 could not.

But I moved to Gnumeric in 1999 and never looked back.  To each his own,
for whatever they need.

> The most common application of a spreadsheet I've seen is taking a
> string of data, sometimes just text, and splitting it up into cells so
> you can work with it.

Have you tried Gnumeric?  It rules at this!!!

> Nothing else does this even close to as well as Excel.

Gnumeric???

> Until something gets it right, (and I haven't tried Ximian yet, so
> maybe it will save me) MS Excel will continue to dominate.  At least
> this time they're dominating because they actually have a better
> product.

Yes, for what you need.  Except you haven't tried Gnumeric.  ;-p

Gnumeric is the most mature Gnome app by far, always has been.  It was
around well before Evolution, or Ximian for that matter, even existed.

--=20
Bryan J. Smith, E.I. (BSECE)       Contact Info:  http://thebs.org
[ http://thebs.org/files/resume/BryanJonSmith_certifications.pdf ]
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