In message , Mark writes
Presumably not.
It arrives as a free download offer with the routine Firefox upgrades.
My business does not normally involve inter office communications and I am not conversant with later versions of MS Office.
regards
It really isn't just down to MS. If they had their way, do you not think they would have wanted to retain their MS-proprietary formats? This article is interesting:
Just because someone is a volunteer doesn't mean they can never be taught better ways to do things.
When are Microsoft switching off the old DOC format?
Look - put simply, it seems like you are the central point of a lot of non-techie users. And therefore, the way I see it, you have a business requirement to be able to open lots of different formats. The world moves on. No-one ever says you have to move with it.
So who upgraded to using docx without considering the consequences? Surely it's their fault or their management/IT dept.
So how do you deal with those formats? Are they all MS's fault? Why can't you deal with docx the same way?
MBQ
Hard to say for sure. There was a time when bill was in charge the answer would certainly be yes. He saw a lack of MS specific formats scattered over the web as a MS failing, and equated adoption of "your" format as a form of control and "winning" (this is all documented stuff).
Later, getting your format as "the" standard allows one of their other favourite activities - "embrace and extend". Put people's mind at rest since you are just sticking to a open standard, but then start "extending" the standard with useful new stuff that you hope people will use. Next thing you know, there is an "open" standard with non open bits it it that others can't interoperate with any more.
They *might* not be intending to do that now - but folks still don't trust them based on years of past experience.
Moving to docx for example has legitimate good reasons for being done. However from many end users perspective it appears no different from the many other occations they have released new software, with a new non back compatible default format, and as a result it has spread a wave of upgrading just to interoperate with the early adopters. (yes you can save in the old format, but in most organisations it seems to be the lest technically clued up management that get the new versions first - and they are unable to save it in a different format, and people are unwilling to ask).
True, but see the comment above regarding who is sending out emails with odd format docs attached. Its often "the boss" or their boss etc, and some folks feel less inclined to highlight their failings to them! ;-)
There will probably come a time you need open office to open them ;-) (same as for the MS Works version of .doc that none of the current MS packages seem to be able to cope with anymore)
Who knows? There are far too many people in the group to ask them all. Often the problem comes from someone outside the main group (consultant, government official etc) and we have even less control of this.
Personally I can open .docx files. The problem is that others can't and haven't read them before a relevant meeting. This wastes time.
That's exactly what they did here in parts of Cumbria. We were one of the _last_ regions to get digital TV and the _first_ to have analogue turned off. The first batch of channels changed from analogue digital overnight with _no_ overlap, the rest followed a few weeks later in the same way.
Anyone with half an ounce of common sense who was distributing complex documents for others to read on screen or print (and not edit) would use pdf. Anything simple should use plain text and not HTML. Unfortunately Microsoft have spawned a generation of fuckwits.
There is also huge potential with all Microsoft formats for the document to be displayed or printed in a completely different manner than that of the original author when the version numbers don't match or conversions are done with other programs.
All closed formats are like that, total s**te.
In message , The Other Mike writes
Ah well! You have pointed up the differences between us users and the adepts:-)
Am I likely to have a facility on this m/c to create pdf files?
AFAIK Adobe 8 is limited to reading only.
regards
Hmm...
Installs. Works on XP SP3, fully updated.
Produces printable pdf files.
Thanks for that, I needed a PDF creator.
Plenty of free PDF converters around, e.g. PDFCreator for Windows . It installs as a printer driver but outputs to a file instead of a printer so you can get PDF output from any application that can print.
Oh!
I'm not sure that works on XP but I'm sure something will.
Ta.
regards
>
A warning: I recently tried to install PDFCreator on my Windows XP box (SP3) and it appeared to work, but brought up a huge number of MSI installer popup windows concerning Micsosoft Office components every time I tried to print something; these were very hard to cancel. There is an entry in their FAQ referring to this problem, and pointing victims to a Microsoft page supposedly containing a fix. On this page Microsoft actually says there *was* a fix but they have withdrawn it because of damage to other Windows components. It seems very unsatisfactory that a sourceforge project is messing with such intimate parts of Windows, when comparable products do not. I uninstalled PDFCreator and as far as I can tell nothing else on my system has been damaged. Based on my experience I cannot recommend it on Win XP.
I have used PDF995 for some time, and although it has two annoying popups trying to persuade you to pay for the popup-free version, it works well. It also produces smaller files than PDFCreator. YMMV of course.
Not tried pdfforge, but freepdf (was freepdfxp) served me well and works in XP & 7, needs ghostscript installed too. The pdf is produced as an image so you cannot search which can be a pain.
Open Office runs on Windows, can open MS Office documents and can create PDFs directly ...
No, Macs come with the ability to create and manipulate PDF documents built in (and to script the manipulation of those files) but heck you buy inferior, you get inferior.
If you want to create PDF documents for free on Windows I suggest Cute PDF. It's free, easy to use and produces better output than the Adobe Distiller.
Office 2007 can create PDFs directly!
Word 2007 onwards can be configured to save as PDF.
I bet I can but a decent PC, and the poshest version of acrobat for good deal less than even a crap mac.
Cutepdf for windows or Openoffice for most. The latest openoffice opens docx text files ok but fancy graphics in them don't come through.
generation issue:-)
I have book marked both above recommendations. Ta. If I ever need Docx or pdf I'll know where to go:-)
regards
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