Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: MS raised prices so people will now start renting their office products instead

Hi :)
I agree that Base seems a bit of a mess but if you follow Andreas' guidance then it hopefully works 
better.  There are other people on this list that are great at helping with Base but he seems 
better at giving a better over-view of Base.  Most of the problems appear to be with wizards and 
stuff.  Also it's a very different thing than Access so trying to wrap your head around the basic 
concept is a major Pita.  I wouldn't migrate your databases from Access to Base just yet.  Just 
settle in with the rest of LO first.  Base doesn't seem to have so many devs working on it as the 
other apps but it may gain a few in a month or so.  The docs team are working on an excellent 
handbook for Base which may help people understand it better and once you understand the basic 
ideas it's really quite exciting (imo).  Tons of potential but needs a good pruning before it can 
really grow.  

Impress is also not so great at the moment but at least it's easier to understand what you want 
from it and it kinda makes sense.  Again, seems to have less devs than Writer or Calc.  Draw seems 
to be more popular and seems to gain more attention for the increases in it's functionality.  


Generally i would avoid the early release in any branch.  I like to try them but only on one of my 
own systems, not on any of my colleagues.  It's good to try the x.x.0 - x.x.3 but just for your own 
benefit, to post bug-reports against and hopefully catch the interest of the most possible devs 
before they move on to other things (such as the next branch).  Each branch becomes much more 
stable by the x.x.4 and from then on just increases in stability without gaining much extra 
functionality.  Better stability means you are less likely to find something that needs to have a 
bug-report posted.  The x.x.6 tends to be very solid.  Think of that 3rd number as a "Service Pack" 
but divide by 2 because MS only goes up to Sp3.  


I suspect the recalculation in Calc might be a memory issue?  Perhaps try
Tools - Options - Memory
and bump a lot of those values up.  Also look in 
Tools - Options - Calc
to see if something weird is in there.  There is a key that forces recalculation but i don't know 
it.  


The in-built help files are not as useful as the official documentation.  You can get the latest 
and even pre-release guides from
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Documentation/Publications
Some of the 3.3.x guides have been translated into a few other languages but not many.  To get the 
in-built help you have to download it and then install after installing the main part of LO.  For 
example the 2nd 'button' on 
http://www.libreoffice.org/download/?type=win-x86&lang=en-GB&version=3.5.6
Note that you can choose from many other languages.  That link is for English (Gb/Uk) but for my 
colleagues i have added Gujaratii, Italian, Japanese and more so that different logins on those 
machines can have different languages.   


I definitely agree that LO needs to far exceed MS Office in order to even get looked at.  In many 
ways i think it is far better but i can admit that it does have apparent weaknesses that are more 
likely to be noticed than the good stuff.  It's the same for people from any minority group.  If 
you are 10 times better but they notice 1 thing they think is odd then they focus on the 1 thing.  
However, as Gandhi said "First they ignore you.  Then they laugh at you.  Then they fight you.  
Then you win" so don't be discouraged.  I think LO has pushed things from a decade of being stifled 
in step 1 into somewhere between 2 & 3 and in some places (such as Brasil) step 4 already!  


When migrating away from MSO it's usually better to keep using it but gradually use LO more but at 
the start only for a few things or even just one or two things until you get more familiar with the 
difference.  
Regards from
Tom :)  






> ________________________________
> From: Pertti Rönnberg <ptjr@elisanet.fi>
> To: Tom Davies <tomdavies04@yahoo.co.uk> 
> Cc: "users@global.libreoffice.org" <users@global.libreoffice.org> 
> Sent: Thursday, 27 September 2012, 18:27
> Subject: Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: MS raised prices so people will now start renting their 
> office products instead
>
>
> Hi Tom,
> Thank you for a very informative answer - it is bad that all this
      is not mentioned as a basic info about LibO.
> I am prepared to trust it as true but honestly I have to rely on
      my own experiences both regarding Win/MSO and LibO.
> I have been using Windows and many of MS programs since early
      1980:  all of the modules in the MSO suite, Access, Publisher,
      Visio, Project, etc
> > >     never any problems with installing
> > >     never need to send any kind of bug reports
> > >     never any need to contact any community/list for help
> > >    cannot remember not one machine crash when using
      Windows-MS-programs
> > >     no courses, no teachers in using Windows/MS programs
      -- I had no problems to learn all by my self mostly thanks to a
      good help function;  when I was working as IT-help/help desk I
      could even tutor my colleagues in Word, Excel, PP, Access how to
      use the special features and functions
> > >     made a lot of Access-dbs, learned to complete them
      with VBA and got macros work 
> Some facts about LibO (first 3.4.5, then 3.4.6 -- I didn't dare to install later versions, so now 
> back to OO)
> > >     in January this year after downloading LibO I had big
      problems/crashes with getting Base ("similar" to MSAccess) working
      - reason: JRE and bad guidings
> > >     some basic features/functions in Base does not work --
      no help from "LibO help" nor "Base Guide"
> > >     I have some rather big (heavy) applications in Calc
      (several sheets, 200 rows&15-30 cols/sheet, remote references
      between sheets) - I've noticed (when tracking why results are
      wrong) that Calc in some situations does not have "power" enough
      to do the automatic recalc through all the rows/cols/pages: there
      is nothing wrong, it just does not do the recalc -- which means
      that I cannot trust the calcs to be 100% correct;  this is not
      only inconvenient but can be fatal in economical calcs   (my
      computers do most certainly have all the power needed)
> > >     the button "LibreOffice Help" does not directly lead
      to any kind of help -- the function is totally of no use until you
      first learn it's logic (if any) -- to find any help can take hours
      of digging
> I should very much like to use LibO only (not only because of
      costs) but cannot afford wasting time and nerves on all the
      problems.
> According to this list there are -- in my opinion -- too many
      others having problems already from the very beginning, with
      installing.
> For me -- I represent the ordinary non-LibO-expert user -- it is
      obvious why not only companies rely on Windows/MSO.
> I can not see that this is anything to argue about: LibO must be
      easy-to-use, stable and free from any basic problems if it wants
      to be really accepted.
> Note: I am talking about ordinary people and ordinary companies,
      who value their time.  
> Pertti Rönnberg
>
>
>
> On 27.9.2012 17:07, Tom Davies wrote:
>
> Hi :)
> > On the contrary. MS do not fix their problems quickly at all. 
        Even known malware threats remain for months and even years. 
        Their strategy is to blame the users.  A typical one being to
        tell users they shouldn't be using macros because of the
        likelihood of getting an infected or corrupted one.  Read "The
        Emperor’s New Clothes".  People are told that MS Office is the
        best and so when they find problems with it they tend to blame
        themselves rather than the software.  
> > For example when using non-MS software someone would quite
        happily slate the product with this sort of thing "I opened my
        document and deleted tons of stuff and saved it using the same
        name.  now when i open the document it has all that stuff
        missing!  The stupid program can't even find the stuff that i
        deleted.  No, of course i don't have a back-up of the file
        before my deletions"
> > One problem that has never been solved is that when creating an
        MS document the style keeps randomly changing without the user
        doing anything noticeable.  So, the language keeps switching to
        US.  Bullet-points and numbering styles keep changing.  So in a
        bulleted list the points keep changing shape, size and amount
        they are indented by.  Numbered lists may well miss a few
        numbers or repeat a few or suddenly change from i), ii) to c),
        d) or other weirdness.  
> > People have learned to accept all this shoddiness from Word
        because it happens to so many people.  Really advanced users
        have learned to re-impose formatting after completing a document
        or just accept it.  
> > Spelling has gone out the window not just because of the MTV
        generation but also because MS's spell-checker keeps switching
        languages back into American (US) so things that are correct are
        sometimes given a red-wriggle and sometimes blatantly incorrect
        spellings are not found.  
> > LibreOffice tends to stick to the same style throughout, unless
        the user has deliberately changed styles and is aware of having
        done so.  So, bullet-points line-up and retain the same size. 
        Likewise with numbered lists.  
> > Another problem is the way Word can't handle images with much
        sophistication.  MS produce a different product for people to
        buy.  Publisher.  Most of the functionality of publisher
        wouldn't be needed if Word wasn't such a Pos.  Writer handles
        most things that Publisher does with more elegance and
        sophistication.  
> > Another problem is the limited choices when exporting to Pdf.  I
        often get posters and stuff from Word users that probably looked
        quite good at their end but the jpg compression has made a mad
        swirly mess of it.  LibreOffice allows you to set the type of
        compression and even allows people to create uncompressed Pdfs. 
        Pdfs can be created with various levels of integration with
        screen-readers for blind-users.  MS Word has limited options.  
> > So, LO already is a far better product in many, many ways but
        people have learned to accept problems with MS stuff and are
        even happy when their machine is heavily infected with malware
        that results from using MS junk.  
> > Just my opinion and doubtless many people, especially the BoD
        disagree.  
> > Regards from
> > Tom :)
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > > ________________________________
> > > From: Pertti Rönnberg <ptjr@elisanet.fi>
> > > To: users@global.libreoffice.org 
> > > Sent: Thursday, 27 September 2012, 14:04
> > > Subject: Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: MS raised prices so people will now start renting their 
> > > office products instead
> > >
> > > All the best LibO folks,
> > > This discussion about calendars etc. may be interesting
                perhaps also useful -- but back to the basic question!
> > > Microsoft is going to change their behavior.
> > >
> > > Let us remember that MS is the absolute market leader --
                they can't be totally wrong when having 95% and people
                accept paying.
> > > It is no use blaming MS for success -- it is only waste
                of energy and expresses your foolishness.  LibO only
                have to accept it.
> > > Whether you like it or not MS's programs use to work
                without remarkable problems - and if such happens MS
                fixes them rather quickly.
> > > That is why people and especially companies seem to be
                prepaired to pay what ever the cost.
> > > What I have tried to say is that if LibO wants to get a
                reasonable share oh this cake -- free of charge or not
                -- then LibO must offer and also deliver something
                better than the MS's Office suit it's Access included --
                equal is far away from enough.
> > > Some of you said that ordinary users -- and even more
                experienced - seldom use more than a 2-5%  of the LibO's
                (MSO's) features.
> > > Why not then identify the 30% of all most used features
                and make sure that at least these work properly -- Base
                included.
> > > If LibO cannot be made at least as stable, free of bugs
                and easy to use -- and especially it's help function
                understandable for every new user -- then there is no
                larger future for LibO except for a small group of
                idealists and enthusiasts in their own little
                kindergarten.
> > > I see this as a question of defining priorities - and a
                strategy.
> > > If the goal seems clear and clever then then the
                resources will at least not disappear.
> > > Pertti Rönnberg
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > On 27.9.2012 10:08, Gordon Burgess-Parker wrote:
> > > > On 26/09/12 12:01, webmaster-Kracked_P_P wrote:
> > > > > I have seen listings on Mozilla's archive
                system for an extension to help with the syncing to a
                Google account.
> > > > >
> > > > Don't need any of those for Google Calendar - you
                can use Caldav which doesn't require any extension at
                all.
> > > > http://support.google.com/calendar/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=99358#sunbird 
> > >
> > >
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