LO does a better job, ime, than trying to shift complex documents between versions of MS Word itself.
Formatting issues are usually due to font substitution because of differing available fonts.
That makes it more likely, not less.
or because the margins on the receiving machine are set differently to those on the sending one.
The margins are part of the document settings, Shirley? Or is it the case that if you don't explicitly set the margins to something, you get the site defaults?
yeah, and when a PR professional tells you that 'PDFS are not a universal format' .DOCX (Microsoft office 2014 is)' you spend a happy hour showing why the government specifies all documents for distribution should be in PDF format, and the first few hundred instances of incompatible docx formats you can find on a rapid google.
The ONLY way to guarantee format, and that is why printers now universally accept it as the primary way to receive digital copy, is a PDF with the correct fonts embedded.
PDF can and does specify each letter to a microinch, what exact font is to be used and what color it should be.
Prior to that you had to specify the program (quark Xpress usually) and send a complete 'collection - all the fonts and images to be used.
There can be no guarantee that a given Word document will look the same on two machines since it doesn't do microinch spec and it doesn't embed fonts.
At best it works on two identical operating system equipped machines with exactly the same version of Word and exactly the same font set.
I expect that if I get a WORD document it wont be correctly formatted. Tex overflowing text boxes, and pagebreaks in illogical places, usually because some 'artistic' genius has selected some weird font that's only available on their machine. And instead of setting up style sheets has done it all with a space bar.
Pretty much my experience.
Latest version of LO seems to be able to read latest MSwank format, and is not overly burdened with ridiculous facilities that render it inoperable.
Its still s**te and Word in many respects though.
Next time I write a paper I might well use Scribus instead.
+10^9
That is supposed to be encoded in the document.
You might be amazed at the impact of changing the default printer has on the appearance of a Word document. Even if you never have nor ever will use that printer to actually print the document.
It tends not to be as bad these days as most printers can have a stab at printing most fonts and minimum margins are much narrower than they used to be. But try installing a printer which resolutely has wide margins and has limited font capability, set it to be your default printer, and open a Word document.
I have at times done things like install CutePDF as the default printer in order to avoid the impact of someone who genuinely has no acceptable printer installed/configured. E.g. a workstation used for printing labels or one which never needs to print anything but does need to view Word documents.
The big problem is when you get people using the various versioning, tracking, master document and such like facilities under different Office programs. Or macros.
Well these were from more than the one establishment, and some of them were from people in IT and software..
The margins are encoded in the document. But Word takes the "margins this document wants" and tries to shoehorn that requirement into the default printer's capabilities, or rather the capabilities that the printer driver lets Word know about. You end up with a very uneasy mashup of the two.
Many is the time we have ended up only being able to get the upper-hand on Word printing by printing to PDF then printing the PDF, as an image if necessary. Which process itself sometimes needed the PDF to be copied from the machine it was created on to the one that has a suitable printer attached.
Meant to say, it can be amusing that the self-same physical printer can have different capabilities depending on printer language - i.e. the PostScript driver manages to do things the PCL can't or vice versa.
In message , Adrian writes
I have been using ordinary Open Office for years. Would changing to LibreOffice be worthwhile?
I've not used OOo for a few years, since The Great Schism, so can't say how they've diverged. But, politically, I find LO preferable - and I don't find any issues with the software, so've had no cause to investigate.
Yes. It's faster, more developed and isn't ORACLE.
Yes, both because of what TNO said, but because it's claimed that all the good programmers moved over to maintaining LO.
LO is currently the better program of the two for usability and compatibility with various strange formats, if you need that.
In message , John Williamson writes
Excellent. Thanks all, for the comments.
If Tim wants a better machine I am sure I have some cast off Core2Duo E7xxx class machines going spare* for the cost of delivery. (you will need to add your own OS) and possibly HD (although I can lob one of those in if you want)
I have been considering this
Bit nervous about the DVD rw. I need to read CDs for the photo album:-) Ignorance on display!
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