[KLUG Members] OO.o's handling of Word documents

[Adam Tauno Williams]

> > > Then to check I forwarded it to Windows and opened and printed it in Word. When
> > > I opened it in Word I discovered that there was a full page flow chart
> > > (looked like it was created in Word, not imported from something like
> > > Visio) that simply disappeared from the document when opened in
> > > OpenOffice, with no indication even that something was missing.
> > Not all features of OO2 Writer and m$ word are translated when
> > converting document formats -- this can happen in either direction (word
> > -> OO and OO to word)
> This is the point. 
> BUT OO CANNOT BE SOLD AS A GOOD SUBSTITUTE FOR MS WORD AS LONG AS THESE
> PROBLEMS CONTINUE.

There is an issue of semantics here.  OOo is a very suitable alternative
to M$-Office.  I wouldn't call it a substitute.  The feature set is not
1:1 (going the other way either),  I've got lots of documents that
basically die if I save them into M$-Office format.  

My solution is usually to send someone an OOo CD (if working with
someone who doesn't already use it).  Of course this isn't an option for
lots of people.  I have a single copy of M$-Office that I run in VMware
to check out anything weird,  but I get *DOZENS* of M$-Office documents
a day and very rarely have a problem.  Word documents are, however, the
most dicey.  Powerpoints and Excel documents seem much easier for OOo to
digest.  Partly because, I suspect, they are inherently more formatted,
while a word processor document can be any old thing any old way
(enhanced by the fact that most people don't actually know how to use a
word processor).

> One may not like French, but in Quebec one had better be able to speak
> French; one may not like English, but in the US one had better be able
> to speak English. One may not like MS Word, but given the way the world
> is, one needs to be able to communicate with it.

Yep.

> > > When sent to Linux and opened in Writer (OO.o2.0),
> > > --the solid square bullets became hollow, vertical rectangular bullets
> > > --line spacing was increased (single spacing) from ca 3/16" to ca 1/4",
> > > resulting in 7 1/9 pp becoming a bit over 8 1/2 pages.
> > This sounds like a font problem?  Just a wild guess -- did the font
> > change or just the "sizes".  There could be default document settings at
> > work here.

I don't think so.  Character spacing is handled differently between OOo
and Office.

> > > --the quality of the printed page in Linux was significantly worse (same
> > > laser printer). 
> > Does the quality of the printed image in Linux *always* look much worse?
> >  Or just for that particular document?  Or only for specific applications?
> I don't know

There are so many factors involved in produced print quality it is hard
to say why this happened.  It certainly is not generally true,  most
times it is very hard to tell what platform produced a document as the
rendering (on 'real' [PCL/PS] printers, anyway) is all done in the
printer itself.

> > > --When the document was saved (in Windows) as rtf and sent back to Linux
> > > and OO.o, the flowchart still disappeared
> > Did the flowchart disappear in rtf format?  Or can you open the "Save
> > As" rtf document in windows and still see the flow-chow chart?
> Yes

Did you close the document and reopen the RTF?  I'd be suprised if the
flowchart was preserved in the RTF.  Is the flowchart a graphic pasted
into the document or some type of vector drawing created with Office's
inline drawing tools.
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