Re: [libreoffice-users] record changes weakness compared to m$

Hi :)
imo both, or all 3.  

A few people that i share documents with have been persuaded into installing or already have 
OpenOffice or LO.  I have installed LO on all the machines at work.  People generally remain MS 
users but every once in a while they find documents open in LO.  

My own documents on the office network are in ODF and when i get time to update internal documents 
i try to switch them to ODF if there is time and if the documents are likely to be used again soon. 
 It's usually best done by starting a fresh document and copy&pasting unformattted text in and then 
reformatting.  People often make a hopeless mess and do weird things quite erratically.  A fresh 
start helps normalise them and since they are done on LO less craziness jumps in randomly.  

When i need to share with people outside the office i use "Save As ..." to create a "98/2000/Xp" (= 
.doc) and if i have time i  create a Pdf for them.  It doesn't take long and often impresses 
people.  If they need a printable version i make the Pdf with lossless compression.  

The "track changes" thing is far too advanced for most office workers i know of.  When i tried to 
get people into it they complained that all the red crossings out and different colours was all 
toooo confusing.  

Generally i think bug-reports are worked on to make LO better in it's own right but that a LOT of 
effort goes into trying to pander to the needs of MS users that people share with.  Hopefully as LO 
usage continues to increase exponentially  it continues to become easier to share ODFs.  Then the 
need to try to follow MS's whims will decrease naturally.  

I still think it's more important to get LO out there first, or AOO or any other program that uses 
ODF as it's native format.  ODF uptake is 2nd, for me.  It seems to be working well  that way, for 
me.  

It would be interesting to hear other people's thoughts or experiences.  
Regards from
Tom :)  





> ________________________________
> From: e-letter <inpost@gmail.com>
> To: users@global.libreoffice.org 
> Sent: Wednesday, 19 December 2012, 8:26
> Subject: [libreoffice-users] record changes weakness compared to m$
>
> Readers,
>
> Have done a bug report on both LO and AOO, about the 'changes' feature
> of the word processor. (It's excellent that there are multiple
> products available to produce ODF files, but I digress). There are
> many bugs concerning this feature, which is surprising.
>
> In the typical collaborative environment, the superior functionality
> of m$ "track changes" makes the possibility to use LO unrealistic.
>
> Suppose LO is used to create an original odt document (the preferred
> option of course). When that file is distributed to m$ users, the
> functionality of 'changes' in LO will probably be considered to be
> weak and people will be justified to ask: "please send an m$ word
> document".
>
> What is the experience of others distributing odt documents to m$ users?
>
> Alternatively, the "realpolitik" option is to use LO to create an m$
> word document, but as commented before, such an option merely
> perpetuates the proliferation of m$ at the direct cost to odf.
>
> Which leads to the next question: is the priority to improve the
> feature of LO such that 'changes' in odt format is superior to 'track
> changes' in m$ and that when odt documents are distributed, m$ users
> can perform simple tasks such as recording document changes?
>
> Or is the priority for LO to be compatible with m$, so that m$ word
> continues to be the de facto standard?
>
> --
> LO35
>
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