On 22/07/2023 08:17, Andy Burns wrote:
>
> Ant wrote:
>
>> LO isn't perfect. Even can't format correctly from old MS Word docs.
>
>
> Conversely, I have used LO to open and re-save Word documents for
> colleagues that Word refused to open as "corrupt".
>
>
Indeed. I used it to open 'latest and greatest' MS word documents that
no one could read, not having latest Word software, and republish it as
a PDF.
Horses and courses....
--
The lifetime of any political organisation is about three years before
its been subverted by the people it tried to warn you about.

Anon.

Am 19.07.2023 um 23:52:15 Uhr schrieb 36J.956:

> On 7/19/23 1:36 AM, Marco Moock wrote:
> > Am 19.07.2023 um 00:18:38 Uhr schrieb pH:
> >
> >> It does not matter if I save the file for her in a MS format.
> >>
> >> I've poured through all the formatting menus and found nothing
> >> applicable.
> >>
> >> Anybody hear of this before or know the right newsgroup to ask?
> >
> > Libreoffice and MS Office are not 100% compatible when it comes to
> > formatting or special features.
>
> Wouldn't expect them to be. Indeed certain M$ features
> are probably patented - it'd be a big chore to emulate
> them with 'virgin' code. How often do YOU fill-in
> the "donate" pop-up for LO ???

I never did, although I donate to other projects like Pale Moon.

> LibreOffice is Pretty Damned Good - and the price is
> decidedly right. I never use Word or Excel (or Winders
> for that matter).

Full ack.

On Sat, 22 Jul 2023 09:20:17 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>
> On 22/07/2023 08:17, Andy Burns wrote:
>> Ant wrote:
>>
>>> LO isn't perfect. Even can't format correctly from old MS Word
>>> docs.
>> Conversely, I have used LO to open and re-save Word documents for
>> colleagues that Word refused to open as "corrupt".
>>
> Indeed. I used it to open 'latest and greatest' MS word documents that
> no one could read, not having latest Word software, and republish it
> as a PDF.
> Horses and courses....

Blast from the past: Was in a mall in a public WIFI and a woman's Windows
(I think it was Vista back then) wouldn't open MS-Office at all, just
kept crashing. She appeared to be desperate. I had an USB stick and
offered to boot a Live-Linux from her computer. Did, ran LibreOffice and
opened her doc.

She was happy and even said, the doc looks much better than in
MS-Office. But I suppose she was just overjoyed she got her doc back.

I recommended to save it somewhere in the internet after I explained,
Linux will be "gone" once she reboots. And let her the USB stick. No
idea, if she ever booted from it or what happened after.

Linux for the rescue. :-)

OK, LO in Windows would also had done the job...
--
Andreas

The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> On 22/07/2023 08:17, Andy Burns wrote:
> >
> > Ant wrote:
> >
> >> LO isn't perfect. Even can't format correctly from old MS Word docs.
> >
> >
> > Conversely, I have used LO to open and re-save Word documents for
> > colleagues that Word refused to open as "corrupt".
> >
> >
> Indeed. I used it to open 'latest and greatest' MS word documents that
> no one could read, not having latest Word software, and republish it as
> a PDF.
> Horses and courses....

Same here at my former job with my next cubicle neighbor couldn't open
an Office file. I couldn't open it in my Office too so I used
LibreOffice to open and resave it. We were happy. Yay!
--
"[The Lord, the everlasting God,] gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak." --Isaiah 40:29. Lots of humans outside after a BUSY very warmy outty worky Fri. 1883 ep. #6 was a meh.
Note: A fixed width font (Courier, Monospace, etc.) is required to see this signature correctly.
/\___/\ Ant(Dude) @ http://aqfl.net & http://antfarm.home.dhs.org.
/ /\ /\ \ Please nuke ANT if replying by e-mail.
| |o o| |
\ _ /
( )

Am 22.07.23 um 08:43 schrieb Ant:
> LO isn't perfect. Even can't format correctly from old MS Word docs.
> Also, try asking this in http://reddit.com/r/libreoffice and
> LibreOffice's forum and mailing list. :)

Nonsense. Why should LO be able to correct decade old mistakes and
design faults of a proprietary software?

LO is FOSS and adhering to all accepted standards. The problem is $MS$.
If they did the same there would be no such issues.

--
Prudentia potentia est

On 2023-07-23, Joerg Lorenz <hugybear@gmx.ch> wrote:

> Am 22.07.23 um 08:43 schrieb Ant:
>
>> LO isn't perfect. Even can't format correctly from old MS Word docs.
>> Also, try asking this in http://reddit.com/r/libreoffice and
>> LibreOffice's forum and mailing list. :)
>
> Nonsense. Why should LO be able to correct decade old mistakes and
> design faults of a proprietary software?

To make things work better. I've spent far too much of my programming
career working around boneheaded designs and outright bugs which M$
has inflicted on the world. But it sure cuts down on the number of
support calls.

> LO is FOSS and adhering to all accepted standards. The problem is $MS$.
> If they did the same there would be no such issues.

Perhaps. But as a dedicated monopolist, they have much more to gain
by breaking things.

--
/~\ Charlie Gibbs | You can't save the earth
\ / <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> | unless you're willing to
X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | make other people sacrifice.
/ \ if you read it the right way. | -- Dogbert the green consultant

On 23/07/2023 18:34, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
> On 2023-07-23, Joerg Lorenz <hugybear@gmx.ch> wrote:
>
>> Am 22.07.23 um 08:43 schrieb Ant:
>>
>>> LO isn't perfect. Even can't format correctly from old MS Word docs.
>>> Also, try asking this in http://reddit.com/r/libreoffice and
>>> LibreOffice's forum and mailing list. :)
>>
>> Nonsense. Why should LO be able to correct decade old mistakes and
>> design faults of a proprietary software?
>
> To make things work better. I've spent far too much of my programming
> career working around boneheaded designs and outright bugs which M$
> has inflicted on the world. But it sure cuts down on the number of
> support calls.
>
>> LO is FOSS and adhering to all accepted standards. The problem is $MS$.
>> If they did the same there would be no such issues.
>
> Perhaps. But as a dedicated monopolist, they have much more to gain
> by breaking things.
>
I accidentally typed a load of stuff on my laptop in upper case. Rather
than retyping it I cut and pasted it into LO...

....and spent ten minutes trying to find the 'toggle case' menu item.
Pressing help took me to MSWORD help!!!

--
You can get much farther with a kind word and a gun than you can with a
kind word alone.

Al Capone

The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> I accidentally typed a load of stuff on my laptop in upper case.
> Rather than retyping it I cut and pasted it into LO...
>
> ...and spent ten minutes trying to find the 'toggle case' menu item.
> Pressing help took me to MSWORD help!!!

For future reference, the shell 'tr' command will do case conversions
(at least for ASCII - I've never tried feeding it non-ASCII uppercase):

$ echo A LOAD OF STUFF IN UPPERCASE
A LOAD OF STUFF IN UPPERCASE
$ echo A LOAD OF STUFF IN UPPERCASE | tr '[:upper:]' '[:lower:]'
a load of stuff in uppercase

It does not, however, do 'sentence case'.

On 2023-07-24 15:34, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
> On 23/07/2023 18:34, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
>> On 2023-07-23, Joerg Lorenz <hugybear@gmx.ch> wrote:

> I accidentally typed a load of stuff on my laptop in upper case. Rather
> than retyping it I cut and pasted it into LO...
>
> ...and spent ten minutes trying to find the 'toggle case' menu item.
> Pressing help took me to MSWORD help!!!

I needed to do this the other day. Google found the feature for me in a
minute.

--
Cheers, Carlos.

not@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev) writes:

> Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk> wrote:
>> The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>>
>>> I'd completely forgotten RTF.
>>
>> I often use WordPad and save in .rtf when documenting installs, you can
>> type in notes and include screenshots for later tarting up.
>>
>>> I would have thought it wouldn't cope with a lot of advanced tabulations
>>> and formatting though
>>
>> Yes, I know that Word has numerous features that only a tiny fraction of
>> users ever use, but WordPad is pretty lacking.
>
> RTF supports a lot more than WordPad's feature-set. I haven't done
> much testing between WordPad and more capable RTF-writing word
> processors myself, but according to Wikipedia:
>
> "WordPad can read, render, and save many Rich
> Text Format (RTF) features that it cannot create, such as tables,
> strikeout, superscript, subscript, "extra" colors, text background
> colors, numbered lists, right and left indentation, quasi-hypertext
> and URL linking, and line-spacing greater than 1."
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WordPad
>
> If the Windows user opening the file has Word installed and opens
> it with that instead, then even better. Mind you, I didn't know
> that WordPad claims support for ODT format now, I don't think I've
> used it on Windows later than XP. This thread suggests that the ODT
> implementation probably isn't all that great though.
>
> Personally I like Ted (on Linux), which uses RTF as its default
> file format.

When I first installed OPENSTEP 4.2 Mach for Intel, I found that it used
RTF a fair bit. Even the e-mail program, Mail.app, used RTF natively. In
fact, when you first ran Mail.app, you had your first "email" from Steve
Jobs welcoming you and it was in RTF format. It even had his digitized
signature at the bottom.

Current macOS still has good support for RTF. I tend to use RTF when I'm
going to need to share formatted documents across platforms.

Someone once told me that you could even take an RTF document
(example.rtf) and change the extension (to example.doc) and Word would
open it normally. That avoided users asking questions about what .rtf
was.

I also stick with plain text for a lot of things. That makes it even
easier to work on files whether I'm on Linux or a Mac. My co-workers
tell me I'm old-fashioned for using plain text so much though. :-) I
figure that, if I could get my point across with plain text in 1980, I
can still get my point across in plain text today.

Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> writes:

> On 2023-07-23, Joerg Lorenz <hugybear@gmx.ch> wrote:
>
>> Am 22.07.23 um 08:43 schrieb Ant:
>>
>>> LO isn't perfect. Even can't format correctly from old MS Word docs.
>>> Also, try asking this in http://reddit.com/r/libreoffice and
>>> LibreOffice's forum and mailing list. :)
>>
>> Nonsense. Why should LO be able to correct decade old mistakes and
>> design faults of a proprietary software?
>
> To make things work better. I've spent far too much of my programming
> career working around boneheaded designs and outright bugs which M$
> has inflicted on the world. But it sure cuts down on the number of
> support calls.
>

Like slush on the sidewalk during winter, in some places MS software is
just a fact of life. I avoid it when I can, like I avoid stepping in
slush, and otherwise just deal with it.

Rich <rich@example.invalid> writes:

> The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>> I accidentally typed a load of stuff on my laptop in upper case.
>> Rather than retyping it I cut and pasted it into LO...
>>
>> ...and spent ten minutes trying to find the 'toggle case' menu item.
>> Pressing help took me to MSWORD help!!!
>
> For future reference, the shell 'tr' command will do case conversions
> (at least for ASCII - I've never tried feeding it non-ASCII uppercase):
>
> $ echo A LOAD OF STUFF IN UPPERCASE
> A LOAD OF STUFF IN UPPERCASE
> $ echo A LOAD OF STUFF IN UPPERCASE | tr '[:upper:]' '[:lower:]'
> a load of stuff in uppercase
>
> It does not, however, do 'sentence case'.

>>> text = "A LOAD OF STUFF IN UPPERCASE"
>>> print(text.lower())
a load of stuff in uppercase

>>> print(text.title())
A Load Of Stuff In Uppercase

>>> print(text.capitalize())
A load of stuff in uppercase

Am 20.10.23 um 12:34 schrieb Bud Frede:
> Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> writes:
>> To make things work better. I've spent far too much of my programming
>> career working around boneheaded designs and outright bugs which M$
>> has inflicted on the world. But it sure cuts down on the number of
>> support calls.
>>
>
> Like slush on the sidewalk during winter, in some places MS software is
> just a fact of life. I avoid it when I can, like I avoid stepping in
> slush, and otherwise just deal with it.

In a private environment not really necessary. I don't.
$MS$ does not set standards. Nowhere.

--
De gustibus non est disputandum

Bud Frede <frede@mouse-potato.com> writes:

> Rich <rich@example.invalid> writes:
>
>> The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>>> I accidentally typed a load of stuff on my laptop in upper case.
>>> Rather than retyping it I cut and pasted it into LO...
>>>
>>> ...and spent ten minutes trying to find the 'toggle case' menu item.
>>> Pressing help took me to MSWORD help!!!
>>
>> For future reference, the shell 'tr' command will do case conversions
>> (at least for ASCII - I've never tried feeding it non-ASCII uppercase):
>>
>> $ echo A LOAD OF STUFF IN UPPERCASE
>> A LOAD OF STUFF IN UPPERCASE
>> $ echo A LOAD OF STUFF IN UPPERCASE | tr '[:upper:]' '[:lower:]'
>> a load of stuff in uppercase
>>
>> It does not, however, do 'sentence case'.
>
>>>> text = "A LOAD OF STUFF IN UPPERCASE"
>>>> print(text.lower())
> a load of stuff in uppercase
>
>>>> print(text.title())
> A Load Of Stuff In Uppercase
>
>>>> print(text.capitalize())
> A load of stuff in uppercase

Python string methods:
https://www.w3schools.com/python/python_ref_string.asp

At Fri, 20 Oct 2023 06:30:09 -0400 Bud Frede <frede@mouse-potato.com> wrote:

>
> not@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev) writes:
>
> > Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk> wrote:
> >> The Natural Philosopher wrote:
> >>
> >>> I'd completely forgotten RTF.
> >>
> >> I often use WordPad and save in .rtf when documenting installs, you can
> >> type in notes and include screenshots for later tarting up.
> >>
> >>> I would have thought it wouldn't cope with a lot of advanced tabulations
> >>> and formatting though
> >>
> >> Yes, I know that Word has numerous features that only a tiny fraction of
> >> users ever use, but WordPad is pretty lacking.
> >
> > RTF supports a lot more than WordPad's feature-set. I haven't done
> > much testing between WordPad and more capable RTF-writing word
> > processors myself, but according to Wikipedia:
> >
> > "WordPad can read, render, and save many Rich
> > Text Format (RTF) features that it cannot create, such as tables,
> > strikeout, superscript, subscript, "extra" colors, text background
> > colors, numbered lists, right and left indentation, quasi-hypertext
> > and URL linking, and line-spacing greater than 1."
> > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WordPad
> >
> > If the Windows user opening the file has Word installed and opens
> > it with that instead, then even better. Mind you, I didn't know
> > that WordPad claims support for ODT format now, I don't think I've
> > used it on Windows later than XP. This thread suggests that the ODT
> > implementation probably isn't all that great though.
> >
> > Personally I like Ted (on Linux), which uses RTF as its default
> > file format.
>
> When I first installed OPENSTEP 4.2 Mach for Intel, I found that it used
> RTF a fair bit. Even the e-mail program, Mail.app, used RTF natively. In
> fact, when you first ran Mail.app, you had your first "email" from Steve
> Jobs welcoming you and it was in RTF format. It even had his digitized
> signature at the bottom.
>
> Current macOS still has good support for RTF. I tend to use RTF when I'm
> going to need to share formatted documents across platforms.
>
> Someone once told me that you could even take an RTF document
> (example.rtf) and change the extension (to example.doc) and Word would
> open it normally. That avoided users asking questions about what .rtf
> was.
>
> I also stick with plain text for a lot of things. That makes it even
> easier to work on files whether I'm on Linux or a Mac. My co-workers
> tell me I'm old-fashioned for using plain text so much though. :-) I
> figure that, if I could get my point across with plain text in 1980, I
> can still get my point across in plain text today.

+1

I have found that a lot of people when given access to a Word Processor,
revert to a 3-year old composing a "letter" to his grandmother -- eg takes out
is box of 128 crayons, jar of glitter, pile of animal stickers, etc. and
proceeds to create a "work of art", suitable for sticking on his grandmother's
'fridge. Seriously, many *adults* make excessive use of colors, fonts, and
other [unnecessary] typographical "magic" when using a Word Processor to
create "documents".

>
>

--
Robert Heller -- Cell: 413-658-7953 GV: 978-633-5364
Deepwoods Software -- Custom Software Services
http://www.deepsoft.com/ -- Linux Administration Services
heller@deepsoft.com -- Webhosting Services

At Fri, 20 Oct 2023 06:40:26 -0400 Bud Frede <frede@mouse-potato.com> wrote:

>
> Rich <rich@example.invalid> writes:
>
> > The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> >> I accidentally typed a load of stuff on my laptop in upper case.
> >> Rather than retyping it I cut and pasted it into LO...
> >>
> >> ...and spent ten minutes trying to find the 'toggle case' menu item.
> >> Pressing help took me to MSWORD help!!!

Ha. Emacs can do that with a couple of keystrokes.

(I use Jasspa Micro Emacs and always have a window available with Micro Emacs
running.)

> >
> > For future reference, the shell 'tr' command will do case conversions
> > (at least for ASCII - I've never tried feeding it non-ASCII uppercase):
> >
> > $ echo A LOAD OF STUFF IN UPPERCASE
> > A LOAD OF STUFF IN UPPERCASE
> > $ echo A LOAD OF STUFF IN UPPERCASE | tr '[:upper:]' '[:lower:]'
> > a load of stuff in uppercase
> >
> > It does not, however, do 'sentence case'.
>
> >>> text = "A LOAD OF STUFF IN UPPERCASE"
> >>> print(text.lower())
> a load of stuff in uppercase
>
> >>> print(text.title())
> A Load Of Stuff In Uppercase
>
> >>> print(text.capitalize())
> A load of stuff in uppercase
>
>
>
>
>

--
Robert Heller -- Cell: 413-658-7953 GV: 978-633-5364
Deepwoods Software -- Custom Software Services
http://www.deepsoft.com/ -- Linux Administration Services
heller@deepsoft.com -- Webhosting Services

Robert Heller <heller@deepsoft.com> writes:

> At Fri, 20 Oct 2023 06:40:26 -0400 Bud Frede <frede@mouse-potato.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> Rich <rich@example.invalid> writes:
>>
>> > The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>> >> I accidentally typed a load of stuff on my laptop in upper case.
>> >> Rather than retyping it I cut and pasted it into LO...
>> >>
>> >> ...and spent ten minutes trying to find the 'toggle case' menu item.
>> >> Pressing help took me to MSWORD help!!!
>
> Ha. Emacs can do that with a couple of keystrokes.
>
> (I use Jasspa Micro Emacs and always have a window available with Micro Emacs
> running.)
>

I typically only use Emacs for Gnus. I use vim for most editing.

In vim, you can convert a bunch of text from uppercase to lower with
"ggVGu"

>> >
>> > For future reference, the shell 'tr' command will do case conversions
>> > (at least for ASCII - I've never tried feeding it non-ASCII uppercase):
>> >
>> > $ echo A LOAD OF STUFF IN UPPERCASE
>> > A LOAD OF STUFF IN UPPERCASE
>> > $ echo A LOAD OF STUFF IN UPPERCASE | tr '[:upper:]' '[:lower:]'
>> > a load of stuff in uppercase
>> >
>> > It does not, however, do 'sentence case'.
>>
>> >>> text = "A LOAD OF STUFF IN UPPERCASE"
>> >>> print(text.lower())
>> a load of stuff in uppercase
>>
>> >>> print(text.title())
>> A Load Of Stuff In Uppercase
>>
>> >>> print(text.capitalize())
>> A load of stuff in uppercase
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>

On 10/20/23 08:28, Bud Frede wrote:
> I typically only use Emacs for Gnus. I use vim for most editing.
>
> In vim, you can convert a bunch of text from uppercase to lower with
> "ggVGu"

I learn more about vim every day.
--
user <candycane> is generated from /dev/urandom

On 10/20/23 07:10, Robert Heller wrote:
> I have found that a lot of people when given access to a Word Processor,
> revert to a 3-year old composing a "letter" to his grandmother -- eg takes out
> is box of 128 crayons, jar of glitter, pile of animal stickers, etc. and
> proceeds to create a "work of art", suitable for sticking on his grandmother's
> 'fridge. Seriously, many *adults* make excessive use of colors, fonts, and
> other [unnecessary] typographical "magic" when using a Word Processor to
> create "documents".

Just because you can use 10 different fonts, doesn't mean you should.
Highlighting and text color, I'm usually fine with if there's an actual
point.
--
user <candycane> is generated from /dev/urandom

At Fri, 20 Oct 2023 10:03:29 -0500 candycanearter07 <no@thanks.net> wrote:

>
> On 10/20/23 07:10, Robert Heller wrote:
> > I have found that a lot of people when given access to a Word Processor,
> > revert to a 3-year old composing a "letter" to his grandmother -- eg takes out
> > is box of 128 crayons, jar of glitter, pile of animal stickers, etc. and
> > proceeds to create a "work of art", suitable for sticking on his grandmother's
> > 'fridge. Seriously, many *adults* make excessive use of colors, fonts, and
> > other [unnecessary] typographical "magic" when using a Word Processor to
> > create "documents".
>
> Just because you can use 10 different fonts, doesn't mean you should.
> Highlighting and text color, I'm usually fine with if there's an actual
> point.

*Most* of the time there is no good reason for coloring text (unless you are a
3-year old). *I* find colored text very hard to read (esp. if every other word
is in a different neon color). I *refuse* to use "modern" terminal programs
and use old-school monochrome xterms only. Black text on a light background.
(I've had more then enough of light colored text on a black (dark) background
back in the day when I used glass-ttys.)

--
Robert Heller -- Cell: 413-658-7953 GV: 978-633-5364
Deepwoods Software -- Custom Software Services
http://www.deepsoft.com/ -- Linux Administration Services
heller@deepsoft.com -- Webhosting Services

On 10/20/23 03:30, Bud Frede wrote:
> not@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev) writes:
>
>> Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk> wrote:
>>> The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>>>
>>>> I'd completely forgotten RTF.
>>>
>>> I often use WordPad and save in .rtf when documenting installs, you can
>>> type in notes and include screenshots for later tarting up.
>>>
>>>> I would have thought it wouldn't cope with a lot of advanced tabulations
>>>> and formatting though
>>>
>>> Yes, I know that Word has numerous features that only a tiny fraction of
>>> users ever use, but WordPad is pretty lacking.
>>
>> RTF supports a lot more than WordPad's feature-set. I haven't done
>> much testing between WordPad and more capable RTF-writing word
>> processors myself, but according to Wikipedia:
>>
>> "WordPad can read, render, and save many Rich
>> Text Format (RTF) features that it cannot create, such as tables,
>> strikeout, superscript, subscript, "extra" colors, text background
>> colors, numbered lists, right and left indentation, quasi-hypertext
>> and URL linking, and line-spacing greater than 1."
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WordPad
>>
>> If the Windows user opening the file has Word installed and opens
>> it with that instead, then even better. Mind you, I didn't know
>> that WordPad claims support for ODT format now, I don't think I've
>> used it on Windows later than XP. This thread suggests that the ODT
>> implementation probably isn't all that great though.
>>
>> Personally I like Ted (on Linux), which uses RTF as its default
>> file format.
>
> When I first installed OPENSTEP 4.2 Mach for Intel, I found that it used
> RTF a fair bit. Even the e-mail program, Mail.app, used RTF natively. In
> fact, when you first ran Mail.app, you had your first "email" from Steve
> Jobs welcoming you and it was in RTF format. It even had his digitized
> signature at the bottom.
>
> Current macOS still has good support for RTF. I tend to use RTF when I'm
> going to need to share formatted documents across platforms.
>
> Someone once told me that you could even take an RTF document
> (example.rtf) and change the extension (to example.doc) and Word would
> open it normally. That avoided users asking questions about what .rtf
> was.
>
> I also stick with plain text for a lot of things. That makes it even
> easier to work on files whether I'm on Linux or a Mac. My co-workers
> tell me I'm old-fashioned for using plain text so much though. :-) I
> figure that, if I could get my point across with plain text in 1980, I
> can still get my point across in plain text today.

Does not LibreOffice have a Windows version? I suffer under that
(mis?)apprehension and fail to understand why the inferior MS product is
in use even on a Windows machine unless of course it is
a condition of remuneration.

bliss- Dell Precision E7730- PCLinuxOS 64- Linux 6.5.7- Plasma 5.27.8

--
bliss dash SF 4 ever at dslextreme dot com

On 2023-10-20, Robert Heller <heller@deepsoft.com> wrote:

> At Fri, 20 Oct 2023 06:30:09 -0400 Bud Frede <frede@mouse-potato.com> wrote:
>
>> I also stick with plain text for a lot of things. That makes it even
>> easier to work on files whether I'm on Linux or a Mac. My co-workers
>> tell me I'm old-fashioned for using plain text so much though. :-) I
>> figure that, if I could get my point across with plain text in 1980, I
>> can still get my point across in plain text today.
>
> +1

+1 right back at ya, good buddy.

> I have found that a lot of people when given access to a Word Processor,
> revert to a 3-year old composing a "letter" to his grandmother -- eg takes
> out his box of 128 crayons, jar of glitter, pile of animal stickers, etc.
> and proceeds to create a "work of art", suitable for sticking on his
> grandmother's 'fridge. Seriously, many *adults* make excessive use of
> colors, fonts, and other [unnecessary] typographical "magic" when using
> a Word Processor to create "documents".

And that's how a simple shopping list turns into a coffee table book.
It reminds me of that post-apocalyptic monk in Walter M. Miller's
_A Canticle for Leibowitz_, who spends 20 years turning a schematic
of a simple transistorized gadget into a magnificent illuminated
document with gold leaf and all sorts of filigree.

This goes in spades when creating web pages.

Long ago I had an epiphany in a book store. I found myself standing
next to a rack of children's books, and I noticed common factors:
bright colours, large fonts, few words, and lots of pictures.
I contrasted that with "grownup books", like the Linux reference
I was shopping for: page after page of dense black text on a white
background, and few or no pictures (except for the occasional table
or line drawing) - but lots of useful information.

To me, the ideal "user experience" is being able to quickly and easily
find the information I'm looking for, and to use it in an efficient
manner. I believe that computer systems should be ugly and boring:
ugly as in lacking the bells and whistles that just get in the way,
and boring as in Just Working without unpleasant surprises.

Someone once described VMS as an operating system that does what
you want, then gets out of the way. If only more people wanted this...

--
/~\ Charlie Gibbs | The Internet is like a big city:
\ / <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> | it has plenty of bright lights and
X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | excitement, but also dark alleys
/ \ if you read it the right way. | down which the unwary get mugged.

At Fri, 20 Oct 2023 09:20:58 -0700 Bobbie Sellers <bliss@mouse-potato.com> wrote:

>
> On 10/20/23 03:30, Bud Frede wrote:
> > not@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev) writes:
> >
> >> Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk> wrote:
> >>> The Natural Philosopher wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> I'd completely forgotten RTF.
> >>>
> >>> I often use WordPad and save in .rtf when documenting installs, you can
> >>> type in notes and include screenshots for later tarting up.
> >>>
> >>>> I would have thought it wouldn't cope with a lot of advanced tabulations
> >>>> and formatting though
> >>>
> >>> Yes, I know that Word has numerous features that only a tiny fraction of
> >>> users ever use, but WordPad is pretty lacking.
> >>
> >> RTF supports a lot more than WordPad's feature-set. I haven't done
> >> much testing between WordPad and more capable RTF-writing word
> >> processors myself, but according to Wikipedia:
> >>
> >> "WordPad can read, render, and save many Rich
> >> Text Format (RTF) features that it cannot create, such as tables,
> >> strikeout, superscript, subscript, "extra" colors, text background
> >> colors, numbered lists, right and left indentation, quasi-hypertext
> >> and URL linking, and line-spacing greater than 1."
> >> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WordPad
> >>
> >> If the Windows user opening the file has Word installed and opens
> >> it with that instead, then even better. Mind you, I didn't know
> >> that WordPad claims support for ODT format now, I don't think I've
> >> used it on Windows later than XP. This thread suggests that the ODT
> >> implementation probably isn't all that great though.
> >>
> >> Personally I like Ted (on Linux), which uses RTF as its default
> >> file format.
> >
> > When I first installed OPENSTEP 4.2 Mach for Intel, I found that it used
> > RTF a fair bit. Even the e-mail program, Mail.app, used RTF natively. In
> > fact, when you first ran Mail.app, you had your first "email" from Steve
> > Jobs welcoming you and it was in RTF format. It even had his digitized
> > signature at the bottom.
> >
> > Current macOS still has good support for RTF. I tend to use RTF when I'm
> > going to need to share formatted documents across platforms.
> >
> > Someone once told me that you could even take an RTF document
> > (example.rtf) and change the extension (to example.doc) and Word would
> > open it normally. That avoided users asking questions about what .rtf
> > was.
> >
> > I also stick with plain text for a lot of things. That makes it even
> > easier to work on files whether I'm on Linux or a Mac. My co-workers
> > tell me I'm old-fashioned for using plain text so much though. :-) I
> > figure that, if I could get my point across with plain text in 1980, I
> > can still get my point across in plain text today.
>
> Does not LibreOffice have a Windows version? I suffer under that
> (mis?)apprehension and fail to understand why the inferior MS product is
> in use even on a Windows machine unless of course it is
> a condition of remuneration.

Yes, there are MS-Windows and MacOS versions of LibreOffice. It is just that
MS-Windows users sometimes have a one-stop-shopping mentality or are simply
not aware that there is a *free* alternitive to MS-Office (well duh, they are
obvious unaware that there is a *free* alternitive to MS-Windows).

>
> bliss- Dell Precision E7730- PCLinuxOS 64- Linux 6.5.7- Plasma 5.27.8
>

--
Robert Heller -- Cell: 413-658-7953 GV: 978-633-5364
Deepwoods Software -- Custom Software Services
http://www.deepsoft.com/ -- Linux Administration Services
heller@deepsoft.com -- Webhosting Services

In article <ugu9da$16ff0$1@dont-email.me>, bliss@mouse-potato.com (Bobbie
Sellers) wrote:

> Does not LibreOffice have a Windows version?

It does, and its popularity is growing quite nicely. Its UI is much
closer to "classic" Word than the modern MS offerings.

John

At Fri, 20 Oct 2023 17:48:16 GMT Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> wrote:

>
> On 2023-10-20, Robert Heller <heller@deepsoft.com> wrote:
>
> > At Fri, 20 Oct 2023 06:30:09 -0400 Bud Frede <frede@mouse-potato.com> wrote:
> >
> >> I also stick with plain text for a lot of things. That makes it even
> >> easier to work on files whether I'm on Linux or a Mac. My co-workers
> >> tell me I'm old-fashioned for using plain text so much though. :-) I
> >> figure that, if I could get my point across with plain text in 1980, I
> >> can still get my point across in plain text today.
> >
> > +1
>
> +1 right back at ya, good buddy.
>
> > I have found that a lot of people when given access to a Word Processor,
> > revert to a 3-year old composing a "letter" to his grandmother -- eg takes
> > out his box of 128 crayons, jar of glitter, pile of animal stickers, etc.
> > and proceeds to create a "work of art", suitable for sticking on his
> > grandmother's 'fridge. Seriously, many *adults* make excessive use of
> > colors, fonts, and other [unnecessary] typographical "magic" when using
> > a Word Processor to create "documents".
>
> And that's how a simple shopping list turns into a coffee table book.
> It reminds me of that post-apocalyptic monk in Walter M. Miller's
> _A Canticle for Leibowitz_, who spends 20 years turning a schematic
> of a simple transistorized gadget into a magnificent illuminated
> document with gold leaf and all sorts of filigree.
>
> This goes in spades when creating web pages.
>
> Long ago I had an epiphany in a book store. I found myself standing
> next to a rack of children's books, and I noticed common factors:
> bright colours, large fonts, few words, and lots of pictures.
> I contrasted that with "grownup books", like the Linux reference
> I was shopping for: page after page of dense black text on a white
> background, and few or no pictures (except for the occasional table
> or line drawing) - but lots of useful information.
>
> To me, the ideal "user experience" is being able to quickly and easily
> find the information I'm looking for, and to use it in an efficient
> manner. I believe that computer systems should be ugly and boring:
> ugly as in lacking the bells and whistles that just get in the way,
> and boring as in Just Working without unpleasant surprises.
>
> Someone once described VMS as an operating system that does what
> you want, then gets out of the way. If only more people wanted this...

UNIX and Linux are also operating systems that do what you you want, then gets
out of the way. At least once you get rid of the "eye candy" (read: gnome,
etc.).

>

--
Robert Heller -- Cell: 413-658-7953 GV: 978-633-5364
Deepwoods Software -- Custom Software Services
http://www.deepsoft.com/ -- Linux Administration Services
heller@deepsoft.com -- Webhosting Services