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Re: [Fwd: Re: Writer Processor (was Re: Ubuntu vs. Debian ...)]

Greg Folkert wrote:

On Sun, 2007-02-11 at 15:39 -0500, Miles Fidelman wrote:
Just to add another voice. Some of us have to exchange documents with people who use Word - particularly in work settings, and features like change tracking, 

Change tracking in word is a horrible feature. It makes the documents
about 170% larger after each set of changes. You ever seen a 3 page
specification document 90MB+ in size? I have. It was horrible. Someone
could easily turn off revision control and you would lose eveyrthing
except the current revision when saved.

Change tracking should be done by a proper revision control program.
yeah - right - take something that's easy to do, and everybody I work with knows how to do, and make it complicated - disk space is dirt cheap, time is expensive 


Important, only to those that do not know better. Data Integration is
simple in OO.o, taking Calc into Writer is easy. Doing change
control/tracking, a word processor *IS NOT* the tool to use for this.
Never will be, and for those that DO use it for that... someday soon,
they ARE going to get bitten horribly. Legally Word's change
control/tracking is not binding. Which means it will bite one side or
the other in a contract/legal dispute.
let's see - 4 people collaborate on a proposal, I send out a draft, people comment, I accept some comments, reject others - lather, rinse, repeat - send out the final document on paper and/or as PDF -- it's easy, it works, it ain't broke, and there's no reason to fix it
There are lots of reasons to dislike Word - for example, the excreble HTML it generates when people insist on using it to prepare web pages - but for run-of-the-mill document preparation in a corporate setting, it's a pretty good tool. Practicality sometimes trumps religion.
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