On Fri, 2003-01-31 at 12:10, Derek Neighbors wrote:
> I am about as ardent supporter of Free Software as there is, but I believe
> we can only overcome with full disclosure.  I think there are some
> half-truths below that may need debunking.
> 
> > OpenOffice Calc (spread sheet) reads and writes Excel spread sheets 100
> > percent. (per Others I know and respect highly)  (No doubt the Excel
> > Version Next will change this for a time till OpenOffice catches up)
> 
> The problem is that while OO has macros they are a different language than
> what Excel has, many power Excel users have existing workbooks with
> macro's and making them redo all their work is well frowned upon.
> 
> Currently the biggest drawback to OO is it doesnt support Lotus123
> commands and Microsoft does.  Almost every accountant started with 123 and
> continues to use its notation (which M$ happily accepts).
> 
> Example:
> 
> +A1+A2 is valid in Excel it is not in OO you must do
> =A1+A2
> 
> Retraining users is expensive.  Not overcomable, but expensive.  To tell
> them all their spreadsheets come over, but not inform them they have to
> relearn a product can cause problems.

I think this is a *much* bigger problem with OOcalc than the macros are.
Personally I think the macro language in OO is easier than VB and so far
the three docs I needed to have the macro working in took me less than
15mins to redo the macro in OO. (oddly, and I have *no* idea how this
works, when I sent these docs back to M$ users they reported no
problems). On the plus side my CPA reports that OOcalc actual has more
accounting functions than Excel and he reports that it seems to run
faster for big sheets. 


> 
> > OpenOffice Writer (word processor) reads and writes MS Word (latest and
> > greatest) documents with the exception of a very few (seldom used by
> > anyone) macros. (per Others and somewhat my experience)  (No doubt the
> > MS Version Next will change this for a time till OpenOffice catches up)
> 
> It totally chokes and misalign's almost any Word document that has tables,
> borders etc... Which is a big deal as most corporations use these things
> in mass when developing forms.  (As our own Michelle can attest to) ;)
> 
I haven't had any problems with my forms / tables in OO. In abiword yes.
In OO np. I go back and forth from StarOffice to Open Office so perhaps
its something in SO but really I get *lots* of forms written in MS Word
and I haven't had a *single* issue yet. 


> > OpenOffice Impress (presentation) reads and writes all MS Power Point
> > files. (per Others)  (No doubt the MS Version Next will change this for
> > a time till OpenOffice catches up)
> 
> As far as I can tell Impress is Impressive, it has features M$ lacks, like
> custom slideshow setups and such.  I can't speak to its import/export to
> powerpoint however.


I *love* Impress but here is where I think OO is the weakest (I'm not
even going to count SO database tool as an offering). I would say its
about at 70% I've imported / exported several powerpoint slides Bullet
charters seem to be different in each. If a images was set as the
background for a slide in PP it won't show up in OO. Font colors change
for some unknown reason. And special effects (sound effects and such)
may not work in OO. That said if I start the presentation out in OO
viewers have no way of knowing that its not PP. I am not by any means a
powerhouse PP user however I think Impress has more features. 


-- 
Carl Parrish (cparrish@carlparrish.com)
http://www.carlparrish.com
---
Registered Linux User #295761 http://counter.li.org