Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Crossover Office and Word 2007

[Paul Hartman]

On Tue, Jan 27, 2009 at 9:46 AM, Grant Edwards <grante@××××.com> wrote:
> On 2009-01-27, Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@×××××.com> wrote:
>> On Tuesday 27 January 2009 06:29:55 Grant Edwards wrote:
>>> On 2009-01-26, Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@×××××.com> wrote:
>>> > These are shared documents. I can't just change what they are
>>> > based on my own preferences.
>>> >
>>> > I need an app that WRITES .docx. If Office 2007 is the only
>>> > one that does it, so be it. But a workaround or another way to
>>> > skin this cat is not what I need here.
>>>
>>> In my experience, finding an app that writes .docx isn't going
>>> to be good enough if the documents are shared.  If you're
>>> exporting or importing something just one time, you can get
>>> usually away with it after some minor fixing afterwards.
>>>
>>> But if it's a shared document and needs to be edited multiple
>>> times by multiple people, you just can't get away with using
>>> two different apps -- hell, not even two different versions of
>>> MSWord. If you go back and forth many times, the document will
>>> steadily "deteriorate" with each transition from one app to
>>> another.  At least that's my experience.
>>
>> That's pretty much the conclusion I came to as well. Thanks
>> for sharing though :-)
>
> I realize I'm arguing a moot point, but using something like
> .docx for shared documents that need to be maintained by
> multiple people for a long time (more than a month or two) is a
> dead awful choice.
>
> A plain ascii text file is probably the best choice for
> portability and longevity.  However, that suggestion's probably
> not going to fly because it severly limits the amount of time
> you can waste picking out eye-shatteringly ugly font
> combinations and f*&king up margins, gutters, leading, and all
> the other things people like to mess up rather than doing real
> work.
>
> My next choice would probably be something like RTF.  If you
> get into a jam it's mostly-human-readible. If you limit
> yourself to simple formatting features it's about as portable
> and robust as anything you can find that allows the inclusion
> of graphics.  The support for vector graphics (e.g. SVG) is
> pretty slim, but bit-mapped graphics support works pretty well.
>
> HTML would seem to be a good choice as well, but even more than
> RTF you've got to limit what features you use. The only way to
> keep the file from deteriorating into a mess is to avoid any of
> "WYSIWYG" HTML editors.

Google Apps is great for sharing documents.. You can even have
multiple people editing in real-time and see each other's work. It's
kind of fun, and all you need is a web browser.

Again, irrelevant to the OP since he can't change his company's
policy... but good to keep in mind for anyone who can :)

Paul