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Subject:Re: My New OpenOffice.org tcolumn From:Solveig Haugland <solveig -at- techwriterstuff -dot- com> To:TECHWR-L <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Thu, 04 Mar 2004 09:26:04 -0700
Hi all,
These are definitely good ideas for articles. For anyone who's curious right now, here's some information I have on hand, on some of the topics raised.
Re how to handle a migration in general, here's an OpenOffice.org migration article I wrote for TechTarget.
Re people's attitudes about change, I've found when I do OpenOffice.org training that most people at the end say "oh--is that all there is to it?" Fear is worse than the real thing, so I recommend giving people at least some exposure to the software as early as possible.
>>Also, from the business point of view, the most frightening question is 'what if something goes wrong'?
I've found that the users -at- openoffice -dot- org mailing list is the most helpful and courteous list I've ever been on, by a long shot. Better than a lot of professional phone support. The list archives are chock full of information, from simple to the weirdest OS or networking freakout..
>>- Integration with database data
It pretty much covers the waterfront. Info on connecting to mySQL re the new data source connection type is in my 1.1 update here. http://www.informit.com/content/downloads/OpenOfficeUpdate.pdf It also connects to Access (through ADO), Oracle, plain spreadsheets, etc. Online help
gives the syntax.
>>1. Managing large documents in OOo. How large a file is practical? What
are the limitations? If a document gets too large, can you split it among
multiple files (a la Frame or Word's Master Document? How do you manage
that?
The problems you get with Word and large documents don't exist--at least I haven't come across them or heard of people having them. OpenOffice.org file sizes are tiny since the file format is compressed XML. I also think the master document feature in OpenOffice.org Writer is better
than Word's. More like Framemaker. You can use the master document to apply styles to all contained documents, create the TOC, etc.
>> - Details to watch out for when moving various kinds of files between
MS Office and OO.o (the imperfections in the overall compatibility, in
other words)
Re document conversion problems, in general if the document is good in Word it'll typically be good in OpenOffice.org. If there are Word documents chock full of tabs to make text indent and other formatting horrors, that'll be a problem in OOo. I've got some conversion tips on page 12
(page 22 or so of the PDF itself) here. http://www.getopenoffice.org/workbooks/essentials.pdf The batch converting tool can be useful too and is documented on page 11 of the same document. It creates an OpenOffice.org copy of all MS docs in the directory you point the converting tool to.
> Bruce,
> How about migrating to OO? Companies have lots of existing stuff and TWs are obviously interested in this process. What will get lost? Is it complicated? What's the pay-off, etc. Also, from the business point of view, the most frightening question is 'what if something goes wrong'?
> HTH
> Erika
