OT: Massachusetts Verdict: MS Office Formats Out

[Guy Fraser]

On Wed, 2005-28-09 at 15:47 -0500, Mike McCarty wrote:

...snip...
> I like plain ASCII text, myself. But diagrams in documents
> can go a long way in helping understand how a complicated
> piece of software works (like a multi-processor debugger
> I wrote a few years ago: two separate programs, five
> threads communicating via messages). Nice diagrams are difficult
> with ASCII text :-)
I'll agree with that.

I just checked and OO can import many graphic formats including 
DXF and EPS and can create formulae.

My point being ; If documents were all stored in a uniform format 
then anybody who has access to them should be able to read them 
without having to use proprietary software. If you were to 
write a technical document and send it to a customer who does 
not have access to a version of word that will open your document 
then you either need save it in a different format, and word may 
tell you that something may be lost, or the customer has to upgrade 
to a version that will read your document. If the document was 
saved in ODF then there is free {as in beer} software he can get 
to read your document, and once all vendors support ODF, you 
will no longer have to worry what software your customers use.