[K12OSN] Setting Open Office 2.0 to save as a Doc by default.

Paul VanGundy vangundypw at sau14.k12.nh.us
Fri Dec 9 20:10:34 UTC 2005


Glenn,

We have had only 2 issues with converting documents made in Word to
OpenOffice 2.0. It was just tab and margin formatting. Only two
documents in the entire district. These "problems" were easily fixed as
the users just deleted where tabs were added and fixed the margins.
Besides those two documents everything else has been perfectly converted
and have been using OOo2.0 for quite some time now. Also worthy to note,
we have had no complaints of documents made in OOo2.0 losing format when
opened in MS Word. We are extremely happy we went with OOo2.0. Hope this
helps! :)

-Paul 

-- 
Paul VanGundy
Information Technology Director
Epping High School
Epping Middle School
P: 603.679.5472
F: 603.679.2966
vangundypw at sau14.k12.nh.us
Registered Linux User #398783


On Fri, 2005-12-09 at 14:15 -0500, Glenn Arnold wrote:
> Thanks Paul for some insight!  How often do you have issues with
> formatting or do you?  Is there occasional format issue or you have not
> had any issues.  My concern is that someone will create a complex
> document in OpenOffice and it will not save the formatting right as word
> document and cause a bunch of trouble tickets.  That is my biggest
> concern.
> 
> Thanks
> -Glenn
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Paul VanGundy [mailto:vangundypw at sau14.k12.nh.us] 
> Sent: Thursday, December 08, 2005 6:23 AM
> To: Support list for opensource software in schools.
> Subject: Re: [K12OSN] Setting Open Office 2.0 to save as a Doc by
> default.
> 
> Glenn,
> 
> In our district we have OpenOffice 2.0 save as .doc automatically. We
> really did this for two reasons.
> 
> 1. When we introduced OpenOffice staff were unsure of it. We had
> previously been using Office 2000 and 2003. If we were going to get
> staff to use it and like it we need to make it as simple and easy to use
> and compatible with what they already have at home. We are giving them
> OOo2.0 to use at home but that is there choice if they chose to use it.
> Other school districts in New Hampshire use the .doc format as does the
> State of New Hampshire DOE so when we send documents we need to ensure
> they are in the same format. Often times, users won't check what format
> they are saving in and if it's not automatically set to .doc they will
> send an .odt to the state and it will get sent back causing frustration.
> It's just easier to have it automatically set for the user.
> 
> 2. We tech people have other things we have to do then get
> troubleshooting calls on OpenOffice.org 2.0 and how it won't save
> in .doc and only saves in .odt (because they can't figure out how to).
> We also don't have much time to train the users how to use it so we set
> it up to automatically save documents in .doc, spreadsheets in .xls, and
> presentations in .ppt. 
> 
> Hope this helps.
> 
> -Paul
> 





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