Re: [libreoffice-users] docx problems

Hi :)
The only way to ensure your DocX documents appear exactly the same on other
people's machines is to make sure you use the same OS and the same version
of MS Office as they are using.  If you deal with a lot of different people
and are not certain which versions each of them has then that means 3
different OSes (Xp, Win7 and Win8) and 4 different versions of MS Office
(2007, 2010, 2013 and 365).

If you only have 2007 and they use 2013 then they just see you as being too
cheap to get the newest version.  You can probably get a cheap version of
2010 (because most people are using that one right now) but that still wont
be quite good enough. In a few months you would still need to buy 2013
anyway because it's increasingly difficult to get any new machines with
anything other than 2013 or 365 on.


Editable formats look slightly different on different machines anyway.
 Different printers, different settings even if the same printer, and all
sort of petty details come into play.  Different versions of the same
fonts, or automatic substitutions for different fonts in the same family
and all sorts.

There are 2 sorts of Pdfs.  Nowadays we mostly use the semi-editable ones
File - "Export to Pdf"
which are more consistent between different machines, different OSes and
different programs but still suffer the issue about fonts.  The other way
of generating a Pdf is
File - Print - "Print to file"
and set it to Pdf rather than Ps.  Not all programs can do that and it also
depends on having printer-drivers that support it.  People will then
probably grumble that they can't add comments, do Pdf forms that way and
other 'problems'.  However sending that sort of Pdf along with an editable
format does ensure that people see the document exactly as intended AND get
to edit it.


So, there is a choice.  Stick with MS Office and ensure that files will
never look quite right and that you will always get the blame for not
having quite the right version on the right OS and be constantly pushed
into buying different versions and upgrading OS or accept that documents
need a little flexibility in them.

Regards from
Tom :)


On 27 October 2013 10:25, Gerald Pechoc <ubuntu@pechoc.eu> wrote:

> If I sum up the problems with docx documents and with LO in general,
> best solution is to have a pc with linux and virtual box for running
> WIN7 and original MS Office.
> (a dual core processor and 4GB Ram is enough).
>
> If you earn your money with these docx then its on your side to adopt your
> work flow .
> You can not tell your customer to change his workflow.
>
> You will see you have a lot of problems less, doing so.
>
> Gerald
>
>
> On 2013-10-27 01:23, e-letter wrote:
>
> > On 25/10/2013, baldwin linguas <baldwinlinguas@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > It's ruining my business.
> > > I'm losing clients, losing money, and I have a family to feed.
> > > And I don't know what to do about it.
> > > OpenOffice won't write to .docx, and LibreOffice messes them up.
> > Perhaps you should compare the editing process using m$. Explain to a
> > customer that you are going to send two versions of the document (the
> > m$ edit version with name file1.docx and the LO edit version
> > file2.docx; don't tell that LO is being used!) and ask for
> > confirmation which version is received in better condition.
> >
> > Hopefully both versions will have changed, in which case you now have
> > the opportunity to demonstrate to the customer that m$docx is a
> > dubious format to use.
> >
> > If format loss never occurred with m$doc, ask the customer to send
> > their documents to you in that format and presumably you can continue
> > to use LO. However, LO is not an m$ clone and long term, you should be
> > advising your customer to create odf documents using LO (additional
> > consulting opportunity for you?)
> >
> > Surely in business, you should be flexible in order to get paid? Would
> > you really refuse a € 1000 invoice because of the need to buy € 50
> > software? ;)
> >
> > Good luck.
> --
>
> ..............................**..............................**........
> Gerald Pechoc
> Fedora User
> email: fedora@pechoc.eu
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> To unsubscribe e-mail to: 
> users+unsubscribe@global.**libreoffice.org<users%2Bunsubscribe@global.libreoffice.org>
> Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/**get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-**
> unsubscribe/<http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/>
> Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.**documentfoundation.org/**
> Netiquette <http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette>
> List archive: 
> http://listarchives.**libreoffice.org/global/users/<http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/>
> All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be
> deleted

-- 
To unsubscribe e-mail to: users+unsubscribe@global.libreoffice.org
Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/
Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette
List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/
All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted