Ars Technica reports that a free ODF converter for MS Word is now available for download via SourceForge. ODF is the file standard used by default in OpenOffice. Other open source office productivity applications have moved to ODF. Goodle Docs provides it as well.
As a WordPerfect user I was forced to share files in .doc format. The formatting eventually broke once converted back and forth a few times between Word and WordPerfect. A few years ago, I swicthed to OpenOffice, and the .doc conversion worked so much better.
Now Word users can use ODF, an open XML format for saving files. I think it's time for OpenOffice users to refuse to use the proprietary file format imposed on us by an office productivity monopoly (which, by the way, is the reason that the monopoly has continued) and the willingness of everyone else to follow along like sheep. Let's promote opportunity for innovation and choice in office productivity software instead of supporting MS. Let's make it even easier for our students to download and use OO and other word processing software in their classes rather than forcing them to buy Word if it did not come on their computer.
So just say no to the Microsoft tax on word processing. This may all seem over the top, but it really makes no sense to support MS's monopoly. How much money each year is spent in education by students, faculty, and institutions, not to mention the rest of the world? Millions. For word processing. It's like a form of graft. This is just silly.
Just say no. Use ODF.
For more information about ODF, see OpenDocument and the Office Experience: What's Inside?
The new docx format posses
The new docx format posses some significant problems, especially for Mac users who are going to have trouble reading this format without shelling out some extra money. I had a couple of professors already ask me about this, since they received a .docx and couldn't open it. Anyway I did a run-down if people are having techincal difficulties you can see it here. Basically .docx is a zip file so you can crack it open and get the info out (ruining the format) if you need to.
NeoOffice
You could always switch to NeoOffice and join the ODF revolution :-)
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Charlie | cyberdash
Vista
I have to admit, I just got Vista Ultimate running on my home PC, and boy, is it sweet! Of course, they've ripped everything off of Mac OS (I wouldn't be surprised if Apple doesn't take them back to court over some of it), but the performance is much better than XP. I just can't wait for the new Office to come out! These chains never looked so sleek!
;-)
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Check out Barton's gaming blog at Armchair Arcade. If you want to make Matt very happy, buy him a gift from his
While I support Neo-Office,
While I support Neo-Office, I find much to admire in the open-source movement, it simply is not as high powered as I want a word processor to be. And frankly it is a bit on the slow side. I prefer Mellel, but honestly to each their own. The problem is that Word doesn't make it very easy to let everyone use their own.
. . . not as high powered as
That's interesting. What is the advantage of Mellel?
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Charlie | cyberdash
The advantages as I see
The advantages as I see them-and again this is just a matter of preference, I realize others might choose other software for other reasons: 1. Mellel is fast, it loads quick, doesn't take a great deal of CPU (NeoOffice on the Mac is a CPU hog. I have used Open Office on a PC and it didn't have this problem.) and handles long documents better than any other app. I have worked with. 2. Format text left to right and right to left in the same document easily. (This is crucial when working in languages that write right to left. As a side note I think this was the reason Mellel was written.) 3. It separates form from content. It is akin to writing in XHMTL and CSS. You can swap out styles on the document easily. This makes changing format superbly fast. I know people who spend hours trying to get a work to format within parameters, in Mellel not a problem. 4. Handles multiple footnote and endnote streams. 5. Handles bibliography data, sinks with Sente and Bookends. 6. Rendering of text, in my experience, on the screen is crisper and cleaner. In the end I don't mind paying $30-$50 for a program that I use hours each day. I should add that I dont always write in Mellel. If something is going to be on the web first I usually write in a different program, or if I am just trying to get Text to paper-idea collecting I will use something else. It is a matter of finding the right tool for the job for me.
Mellel
Thanks for sharing. It sounds like Mellel has some serious benefits, and the cost is still much less than Word :-)
And too bad about NeoOffice. There is no way around that since they are using Java to make it run. It's never going to be as fast as the regular OO version that runs on the PC and/or the one which runs in X11 on the Mac.
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Charlie | cyberdash
Another hidden problem in docx files . . .
I just ran into another strange consequence of the docx format. I was commenting on a student essay that had been produced in Word 2007 in the docx format, then converted to a PDF file. When using Acrobat's annotation tools, I discovered that the resultant file is corrupted in some what that won't allow you to copy individual lines, highlight, or use text-edit tools (try highlighting a word or line and you'll see that Acrobat will only grab a whole paragraph). Very odd.
So, docx isn't even renderable as a clean PDF file. I've never seen this happen with any other file conversion to PDF. Just one other consequence of the attempt to subvert ODF . . .
Dave
OOXML is awful
I know you are interested in XML, so you might be interested in this technical white paper on OOXML vs ODF that was published at Free Software Magazine last spring. The example code comparisons (e.g., page 2 of the text) show that OOXML is really awful stuff. If we could teach class in XML, the stuff that Microsoft has produced would earn a C--if not a failing grade--at best. It's no wonder that Adobe has problems translating it.
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Charlie | cyberdash
The new DOCX format has no backward compatibility
Apart from being too heavy for a P4 based PC, the new DOCX format does not even has the provision for backward compatibility, which appears to be a punishment for those loyal users who still are relying on the old Office version. You can't open a docx file on the old office versions like Office XP & office 2003, which is very rude on the part of microsoft. I would definitely try this new open source word processor & hopefully it will replace the monopolist docx, atleast in my pc..:).I am not aware of office version for MAC but an Adobe Acrobat Macintosh version surely do exists which further increases the scope of use of this great software unlike MS Office's versions which don't even have the backward compatibility.