Open Office

[Terrel L. Shields]

I have X5 and X4 versions of WP, but the reviewers of WP's claim that WP technology is "Ancient" not my copy of WP.

 

[gregb]

Classic, there is one brave Word Perfect user still in the Alamo. Good to know!

 

[RSW]

Classic, there is one brave Word Perfect user still in the Alamo. Good to know!

I have a copy of WP that was loaded from floppy disks. I converted it over to a cd and have it loaded on my Windows 7 virtual XP OS. My wife has her mailing labels in that format and doesn't want to change to MS word.

 

[jdbiggers]

Also be aware that about a year ago OpenOffice was split into 2 different organizations. There is now OpenOffice and LibreOffice ([url]http://www.libreoffice.org/[/URL]). Both are open source projects. OpenOffice as a name is owned by Oracle and I believe they are still controlling the office suite.

As found on LibreOffice's website "LibreOffice is community-driven and developed software which is a project of the not-for-profit organization, The Document Foundation. " However, they are still sponsored by companies such as Google, SUSE, Red Hat and others.

It's a bit more complicated than that. And, actually, between the two, OpenOffice is a bit more stable and featured. Some people were just upset that their code which caused more problems than enhancements was rejected and decided to leave the sandbox and go on their own. It is also largely a money thing: a couple people figured they can make millions with this split, so it isn't as altruistic as they would like it to appear. "Not for profit" does not mean "no income." At least Oracle gave anything above overhead to charity.

JD

 

[Sid Holderly]

I have used open office for several years for narrative work without any major problems. It has good recovery when windows flips out. I should take the time to do embedding of my spreadsheets and common narrative pages. I run the work processor on one monitor and the spreadsheet on the other now which makes building the report faster. When I need to share information or documents with other appraisers I same the OO pages in MS formats or convert them to PDF. I use chrome for the browser unless IE is required for the program. A couple of other handy programs are PIXresizer for downloading and resizing pictures from my camera and PicPick for grabbing segments from anything you can see on screen. NCV integration may be in the future.

 

[RSW]

I have used open office for several years for narrative work without any major problems. It has good recovery when windows flips out. I should take the time to do embedding of my spreadsheets and common narrative pages. I run the work processor on one monitor and the spreadsheet on the other now which makes building the report faster. When I need to share information or documents with other appraisers I same the OO pages in MS formats or convert them to PDF. I use chrome for the browser unless IE is required for the program. A couple of other handy programs are PIXresizer for downloading and resizing pictures from my camera and PicPick for grabbing segments from anything you can see on screen. NCV integration may be in the future.

Does the Pixresizer work with Windows 7? I have an add on for Windows XP.

 

[Sid Holderly]

Yes Pixresizer works with "7", features listed below off of their website.

Options/Features
Simple Four-Step Workflow
Easy 'Apply recommended' option to make it even more user friendly
Works with single files as well as with multiple files all at once
Option to convert between graphics formats (.bmp, .gif, .jpg, .png, and .tif)
Can be used to create thumbnails (takes one move on a slider)
Smart Ratio Calculation (image proportions can be overruled by the user)
EXIF support, JPEG compression, TIFF compression, DPI settings
Runs on Windows 98/ME/NT4/2k/2k3/2k8/XP/Vista/7

 

[stangtime]

I am using the "ancient" Word Perfect program, as one person described it. I do so because I can embed mini-spreadsheets in the templates, and those are far superior anything found in Word or Open source WPs.. It is quirky under Microsoft, but so superior to Microsoft Word, I like it very well.

Sadly, I also own 2003, 2007 and 2010 versions of Excel, Powerpoint, and Word. IMHO, the 2003 version is superior to the other. I absolutely hate programs that attempt to predict what you are about to say when you are doing technical writing.

I used to use WordPerfect when I was doing court depositions a couple of decades ago. Also remember using some little program that would let you build abbreviations so that, say, you could type, "t" and it would respond with "the" or "ts" would be "this." Cool little program. It made typing long depos and court hearings go really fast. The only problem was that when you got to a computer without it your brain was trained to use the short cuts. I fought going to Word back then but as the years have evolved it has taken over.

Never played with Open Office.

Dan

 

[RSW]

Does anyone remember a suite calle Geoworks? It was out about the time the Windows OS 3.1 came out. It was way ahead of its time.

 

[Terrel L. Shields]

WP is still the preferred mode for some legal secretaries. I think the court systems in places still will load WP files.

I wish MS had simply bought WP and kept the formats...Like you there are things I cannot figure out how to do with Word..and handling pictures is particularly awkward to me. I hate the terminology of Word "Frames" etc.