On Oct 16, 7:57 am, William Poaster <w...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On Tue, 14 Oct 2008 13:54:37 -0700, ness...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> > <Quote>
> > The final version of OpenOffice 3 is out today, and if you're looking
> > to save yourself plenty of money, download it instead of buying
> > Microsoft Office --- you could save yourself hundreds of dollars, and
> > not lose out on many features.
>
> > Given that the full suite is free, this is one of the best deals
> > you'll find in all of computing. It'll do just about anything you
> > expect from an office suite, whether creating documents, spreadsheets,
> > or presentations. You'll find solid formatting tools, as well as
> > extras including mail merge, macros, charting capabilities, and more.
>
> > OpenOffice works with an extremely wide variety of formats, including
> > the OpenDocument Format (ODF) 1.2 standard, as well as documents
> > created in Microsoft Office 2007 and Office 2008 for the Mac. You can
> > even export files to PDF.
>
> > It won't, however, work with the newest Office 2007 formats such
> > as .docx....
>
> > Is the suite perfect? Of course not. The overall interface is just
> > plain dull, and is not nearly as useful as the Microsoft Office 2007
> > ribbon. It also doesn't have the high-end features of Office 2007,
> > such as QuickParts. You also won't find many templates.
>
> > Still, if you're looking for a suite to use at home or a small
> > business -- or if your enteprise hasn't standardized on Office -- you
> > should give this suite a try. It'll save you hundreds of dollars. And
> > in today's economic times, that's a very big deal.
> > </Quote>
>
> >http://blogs.computerworld.com/review_of_final_openoffice_3_why_buy_m...
>
> Here's something I've discovered about M$ Office 2007. Nearly all Office
> 2007 users make the *same* mistake of just saving their files, which (as
> you point out above) the application saves as .docx Never mind that OO.o
> can't read them, NO other M$ Office application can!
> It seems that quite a few people who've done this, when they bought a new
> PC & had the *trial* M$ Office 2007. When the trial period ran out, they
> were screwed they couldn't access their work. Furthermore, you can't
> change the default format it saves in.
> So, no one except another 2007 user could read them - & they can't
> without the proper converters, which they have to go get from M$.
> Talk about stupid.
I wouldn't call it stupid, it was a deliberate tactic by Microsoft to
force everyone to "upgrade" to their new incompatible-with-everything
format. This was hit upon when Vista first came out, and of course
all the trolls jumped up and down, saying, oh, but there *is* a way to
save in the old formats!! Seems to be true, but the point is that
many (most) users don't know about it, and get screwed with their
"trial" version of Office 2007. For Microsoft, it has the desired
effect: Lock-in.
Gee, you'd think a company with such good products wouldn't have to
resort to tactics like this to keep people using them. If all the
alternatives like Linux are so crappy as DFS says, why don't they just
let people judge products on their merits?
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