On Fri, 2010-02-12 at 16:03 -0500, Andrew Ballard wrote: > On Thu, Feb 11, 2010 at 5:18 AM, Ashley Sheridan > <ash@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > There's a good reason for OpenOffice having some difficulties with MS > > Office documents. Back when MS rushed through getting their document > > standard ratified by ISO (which itself is a whole other story) they > > didn't explain all the details quite as well as they might have. Later > > on, MS found they were having some difficulty following their own > > 'standard' and so altered it in various ways in Office2007. Needless to > > say, ISO weren't too happy when MS asked if they could just 'change the > > specs' for their file format, and quite rightly refused to do so. > > > > In short, this means that there is a MS ISO standard that MS is the only > > one not trying to follow, and software like OpenOffice is left to > > reverse engineering the format again. > > > > Thanks, > > Ash > > http://www.ashleysheridan.co.uk > > > > > > > > You may be right as far as standards of the file format are concerned, > but IMO OpenOffice.org just isn't quite where I'd like it compared to > Microsoft Office, at least up through 2003. (I really dislike the > whole reorganized interface they created for 2007.) Particularly there > are differences between Excel and Calc that really annoy me. I would > like to like OpenOffice.org, but I spend too much of the time I use it > being frustrated by it. > > (Wow, has this thread digressed!) > > Andrew > I must admit that Calc doesn't seem quite as fully featured, particularly with respect to macros. It does have other good features though that make it better, like native external database connectivity. Thanks, Ash http://www.ashleysheridan.co.uk
