![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Evil Empire-- Awwww, shaddup!
Oct. 23rd, 2007 09:33 pm
I use two computers at the moment. Both run Windows XP. The one application on my computers that I really need is Microsoft Word.
Every so often I think about trying to switch to Linux. You know, go over to the superior operating system, fight the Evil M$ Empire, that kind of stuff? I'd be running faster, my computers would be more stable, I'd have strong white teeth and fresh minty breath and all would be right with the world.
But I need Microsoft Word. I don't see that it runs under Linux, reliably anyway. If I can't keep Word, I can't go to Linux.
Of course, the same propellerheads that are telling me how great Linux is are also telling me how superior the Open Office suite is to M$ Word. It's superior because its master documents don't crash and corrupt all subdocuments. It's superior because it uses the open ODT format instead of the proprietary DOC format. It's superior because it truly implements style sheets and on and on and on.
My experience is that Open Office installs stuff all over the place where I don't want it, including its so-called Quick Launcher, which takes up permanent residence in the icon tray and in computer memory. With or without the Quick Launcher, it takes for-bloody-ever to start. Reviewers rave about how easy it is to set up headers and footers in Open Office, but the fact remains that I could do it for Hilltown, in Word, in about half an hour, while two solid weeks of futzing around with Open Office could never get it right.
The worst thing is that Open Office claims to handle Word documents and doesn't. Reading a Word document into Open Office, then writing it out again, will trash the formatting every single time.
Yes, I know the .doc format is evil and I should go to the Open Document format, and there would be unicorns and butterflies and rainbows and sweet little birdies twittering in all the trees. Then the business types I sent the .odt files to wouldn't be able to read them because the files aren't .docs, but I could really impress them by telling them how morally backward they are by insisting on the .doc format, and how brilliant my writing is, which they could clearly see if I had sent it to them in a format they could actually read.
And that's ignoring the fact that Lulu, where I sent Hilltown for printing and distribution, has automagic conversion of .doc files into .pdf, ready to print files. Which Lulu can then print.
"But Open Office can output .pdf files directly." Yes, it can, and the format of the .pdf file it prints is such that it won't work in the high speed printers that the publish on demand industry uses. Yet another case where Open Office claims to handle a file format that it really doesn't. That's worse than not handling it at all, far worse.
I'll fight the Evil Empire some other day. For now, I have work to do. Far-fetched, imaginary technical advantages that don't work won't do it for me.
Every so often I think about trying to switch to Linux. You know, go over to the superior operating system, fight the Evil M$ Empire, that kind of stuff? I'd be running faster, my computers would be more stable, I'd have strong white teeth and fresh minty breath and all would be right with the world.
But I need Microsoft Word. I don't see that it runs under Linux, reliably anyway. If I can't keep Word, I can't go to Linux.
Of course, the same propellerheads that are telling me how great Linux is are also telling me how superior the Open Office suite is to M$ Word. It's superior because its master documents don't crash and corrupt all subdocuments. It's superior because it uses the open ODT format instead of the proprietary DOC format. It's superior because it truly implements style sheets and on and on and on.
My experience is that Open Office installs stuff all over the place where I don't want it, including its so-called Quick Launcher, which takes up permanent residence in the icon tray and in computer memory. With or without the Quick Launcher, it takes for-bloody-ever to start. Reviewers rave about how easy it is to set up headers and footers in Open Office, but the fact remains that I could do it for Hilltown, in Word, in about half an hour, while two solid weeks of futzing around with Open Office could never get it right.
The worst thing is that Open Office claims to handle Word documents and doesn't. Reading a Word document into Open Office, then writing it out again, will trash the formatting every single time.
Yes, I know the .doc format is evil and I should go to the Open Document format, and there would be unicorns and butterflies and rainbows and sweet little birdies twittering in all the trees. Then the business types I sent the .odt files to wouldn't be able to read them because the files aren't .docs, but I could really impress them by telling them how morally backward they are by insisting on the .doc format, and how brilliant my writing is, which they could clearly see if I had sent it to them in a format they could actually read.
And that's ignoring the fact that Lulu, where I sent Hilltown for printing and distribution, has automagic conversion of .doc files into .pdf, ready to print files. Which Lulu can then print.
"But Open Office can output .pdf files directly." Yes, it can, and the format of the .pdf file it prints is such that it won't work in the high speed printers that the publish on demand industry uses. Yet another case where Open Office claims to handle a file format that it really doesn't. That's worse than not handling it at all, far worse.
I'll fight the Evil Empire some other day. For now, I have work to do. Far-fetched, imaginary technical advantages that don't work won't do it for me.
