Posted on August 21, 2008 by ikd
From the pages of this blog I have written about how to open a docx (office 2007) file in openoffice. This happens frequently with a client, a customer, a colleague who just updated (or was forced to update) to the newest version of Microsoft’s Office suite. And many readers have commented that often they received (as have I) docx files as attachments and don’t know what to do with them.
(Begin diversion)
I recently received such a file, an invitation to join a social club. I returned it with a polite note asking to receive it in doc, pdf or txt.
(End diversion)
But, what happens if someone (you, perhaps) started sending odf files to all those MS Office users? How, could the recipient(s) of such a file work with it, open it, edit it and then save it back as odf?
There are many possibilities, all free (isn’t it funny that you can work in an expensive, proprietary world with free software?):
- The SUN ODF plugin for Office. This is a SUN product which allows users of Office (versions 2000, XP, 2003, 2007 SP1) to read, edit and save an odf file.
- The Open XML/Odf Converter for Office. This is a sourceforge project with similar capabilities to the previous plugin. A command-line translator is also available for batch processing jobs.
- Microsoft Corp. According to this press release, the upcoming SP2 for Office 2007 will offer the ability to work with many additional formats including odf.
- OpenOffice.org. Educate the person who received the file that there is a free alternative to the MS Office way that does what MS Office and more…
If you know of additional methods of working or educating people who receive odf file in an Office environment, please let me know. What has your experience been in this area?
I.
=
Filed under: openoffice | Tagged: Office 2007, OpenDocument, OpenOffice.org | Leave a Comment »
Posted on August 11, 2008 by ikd
After a long period of inactivity, we are back in force with some changes, cosmetic and content-related ones.
First, a new look for this blog. The 3-column digg-like seems better than the more austere two-column (one sidebar) contempt used before. The picture above is from the town of Kalamata and was taken in late April 2008.
Second, there is an addition to the permanent pages of this blog. Using the tab labeled docx/xlsx above you can get a quick link to previous posts about how to deal with docx/xlsx files in openoffice.org or earlier versions of MS Office.
Third, a generous re-organization of the content presentation in the hopes of making this blog more accessible and easier to navigate.
Please let me know what else you’d like to see.
I.
Filed under: blog | Tagged: Microsoft Office Suite, OpenOffice.org | Leave a Comment »
Posted on June 18, 2008 by ikd
Posted on June 16, 2008 by ikd
Tomorrow Tuesday June 17th, the 3rd version of Firefox will be available to the web. Firefox, the browser that was reborn from the ashes of Netscape and came to occupy a significant portion of market share (there is no doubt that Internet Explorer has the largest share) has reached a major milestone.
The 3rd edition, which had been circulating in beta and release candidate versions for some time now, is better than all previous versions and packs many extras. The Mozilla Foundation, which is responsible for Firefox, has called a worldwide collective effort to download Firefox in record volumes so that it can achieve Guinness book of records status. What must we do? What will I do at least? Simply, I will go to the site of Firefox and get the latest version of Firefox for all the platforms I use.
I.
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Filed under: internet, linux | Tagged: firefox, Mozilla Firefox, Mozilla Foundation, Netscape, Web browser | Leave a Comment »
Posted on June 14, 2008 by ikd
An experimental extension to edit pdf documents in open office is now available at the extensions repository. It is only available for the beta version of openoffice (ie, it will not work with openoffice 2.x) and is fine if you want to manipulate small pieces of the pdf text (and the source is not available). This is done in the Impress part of the OpenOffice.org suite. The extension is available for many platforms, including solaris, mac os, windows and linux.
More information is available at gullfoss and in this article available at the free your media site.
Enjoy!
I.
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Filed under: openoffice | Tagged: Office Suites, OpenOffice.org | Leave a Comment »
Posted on June 14, 2008 by ikd
As reported in the gullfoss a new development snapshot for the upcoming open office 3 has become available through the usual channels.
In past postings, I have also mentioned that upcoming releases will be available for the amd64 platform, too, and this release is no exception.
Go ahead and download and of course enjoy!
I.
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Posted on June 13, 2008 by ikd
Until the 
new iphone 3G
that the Steve announced the other day become available, I use this small but comfy Mio P550 Pocket PC for my pda/gps needs 
(I am a needy person, I know).
It’s very functional, and above all, it does exactly what I want a pda to do. Plus it offers GPS capabilities, so whenever I travel to some other town, I don’t have to follow weird instructions, like: “go straight, and after so many miles, turn left at the ugly looking house, then left at the even uglier house…”
However, it had a little problem which I didn’t find in the reviews but I discovered it in the process. Out of the blue and without me requesting it, ActiveSync would start and seek the sync source so the pda’s battery was drained. After a while, the only way to turn it on was via the hard reset switch which meant re-adjusting the date and so on. And in my case, this happened even when the battery was around the 50% mark.
While googling for the problem, I found similar complaints in other forums. A neat solution was found at this total pda forum and involved the deactivation of the auto activesync feature. There are instructions on how to do it. An update for some other battery power troubles is also available via more formal channels. Now, it’s been more than 2 days the pda is still standby/on, has not lost much power and I have found some peace of mind.
By the way, a neat utility is the Magic Button available from download.com. Upon installation, it adds a special button on the pda screen to list all active/inactive apps which you can terminate at will in order to save some more power.
Enjoy!!!
I.
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Filed under: mobile, pda | Tagged: digiwalker, mio, pda | Leave a Comment »
Posted on June 6, 2008 by ikd
It has just been reported at gullfoss, that there is a new dev build release of openoffice 3 (this would be developer snapshot build DEV300_m16).
In addition to bringing us one step closer to the much expected OOo version 3, this dev build can be installed side by side to the “regular” OOo release, for someone adventurous enough to try new and exciting things. In addition, there is a 64-bit version for the people who like to run on the 64-bit way of life.
Although the release link does not say much, the 64-bit version is there along with the 32-bit version. It can be downloaded from many servers around the world.
Enjoy,
I.
Filed under: linux, openoffice | Tagged: amd64, linux, open source, openoffice | 1 Comment »
Posted on May 30, 2008 by ikd
As I wrote in my other blog, I bought a Macbook for my work.
Although I had worked in the past with PowerPC boxes and even older Macs (that was in grad school), this would have been my first “new generation” mac product. Sporting Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, albeit the Greek version (you can go ahead and say “it’s all greek to you”, that’s ok), the Macbook (black on the outside) is a very lightweight laptop, has an impressive life battery (that is probably one of my major concerns); it is durable, I can work with both native and X11 apps. Talking about apps, my main work applications include:
- Openoffice (I have downloaded the NeoOffice version),
- R available at my nearest CRAN site,
- Emacs,
- TeX/LaTeX,
- plus the regular combo of firefox, thunderbird, gpg.
BTW, the Mozilla folks are organizing a download day (that would be the day when they ask everyone to download a copy of firefox so they can be go into the Guinness book of records).
Going back to the Macbook. Yesterday, I aslo downloaded the latest updates from Apple. The process was painless and lasted less than twenty minutes. I was pleasantly surprised when the OS asked me to plug the power cord for the macbook just in case I ran out of juice
In all a very positive experience, so positive, that I have even changed my ubuntu desktop look to look like a macbook (shame on me, I know!!!).
I.
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Filed under: mac | Tagged: Mac OS X, Mac OS X v10.5, NeoOffice | Leave a Comment »
Posted on May 28, 2008 by ikd
Happy birthday to the daily blah blah.
Four years ago today in the friendly pages of blogger.com, this blog saw the light (of the day? of the internet? is there light in the internet?) Link to the first post on the blogspot platform. Later on, the blog moved to the even friendlier pages of wordpress.com where it still lives and grows. Link to the actual first post on wordpress about (what else?) a moleskine journal.
It started as a place for daily rants and raves (although the posts came not so regularly). Lately, it has started to deal with issues around open source and free software, the on-going struggle between docx, odf, ms office 2007 and openoffice, moleskine journals, fountain pens and other things that make you say “hmmm…” as the banner suggests.
Well, hats off to the daily blah blah and watch out for more postings coming really soon!
I.
Filed under: blog, funny, personal | Leave a Comment »
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