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Posts: 2,006 | Thanked: 3,351 times | Joined on Jun 2010 @ N900: Battery low. N950: torx 4 re-used once and fine; SIM port torn apart
#240
Originally Posted by ndi View Post
Odd, I've always found OO to be lacking, heavy on resources for no reason, and poor in compatibility. Sure it "reads" the file, but it always kills formatting in all but its most basic forms. All embedded graphics are realigned, and tables have missing or different features if anythig advanced is used and while content matters when you present a poem, formatting is paramount when presenting a high level paper, such as diploma or doctorate paper.

I had to buy a printer to make it look right, because the printing services I wanted had only OO. I ended up sending them a PNG for the cover and laser print myself.

Therer's a reason they keep charging hundreds while a free alternative exists. As a Linux user, this may sound strange to you, but "works" is not enough.

I had one of the two 10s, or A's or whatever your system is when I presented my license paper (exam is county wide and covers 2 generations) and I guarantee that changing even the shade of a heading will ruin the carefully balanced and professional look of a paper.

So no, just because you never found OO to have any issues doesn't mean it's sufficient, even if you are a student.
If you want to be sure that the document preserves colors, shapes, alignments - use either .pdf or .html. Period.

With .doc, only the program-creator knows what it meant - and even this program can damage the document and destroy it.

With .html, you can edit the document in Notepad, vi, nano, emacs, anything, and you see clearly what is going on.

With .pdf, nobody can edit it (except, maybe, Adobe Acrobat or PDFedit) - it's make once and never edit, best format for printing.

Originally Posted by ndi View Post
This isn't personal, it's just that I've heard this all too often, usually in a superior voice. Why pay for Photoshop, GIMP is free. GIMP Is Not Photoshop. Thay should call it GINP.
I have not seen Photoshop for years. Not even a glimpse of it. I don't know a single human who has Photoshop installed. At the same time, most people around use Windows, and GIMP for advanced image editing. I know it's next to impossible to separate object from background in GIMP - but it doesn't have artificial intelligence.

GINP is a good suggestion. See:
GINP -> GIMP Is Not Photoshop.
GIMP -> GNU Image Manipulation Program.
GNU -> GNU Not Unix.

Originally Posted by ndi View Post
Hmm. Reading back the post, I seem quite upset, sorry for the tone. It's still a valid point, though.
Yes, it is a valid point, that Windows is the prevalent operating system, despite all its shortcomings. Windows users want everything to be done and polished; Linux users need to set up everything by hand, and simply using Linux is an incentive for the user to become a developer. Linux user isn't expected to get programs running right after installing them.

GIMP and OpenOffice.org both show such large number of buttons and functions, that it's difficult to find the needed one.

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This post is subjective.