[ltp] Lotus Office

[Frank Roberts - SOTL]

On Thursday 07 August 2003 12:25, Tod Harter wrote:
> On Wednesday 06 August 2003 03:09 pm, Frank Roberts - SOTL wrote:
> > Hi All
> >
> > For some time I have been struggling with Open Office file compability
> > between the MS side of this box and the Linux side.
>
> What I've discovered is that COMPATIBILITY wise OO is virtually 100% at
> handling MS Office file formats. 

Sorry it doesn't work that way on a dual box system or at least this dual box 
system.

That being said the central issue is not MS Office or Open Office.

Before we go on lets look at how this box is set up and why.

First there is the Windows XP side on one partition.
Then there is the Linux side using a different set of partitions.

Now here is the central issue. 
Windows XP will not read the Linux drive and Linux is notorious for not 
reading XP file format.

That is one of two reasons that there is a third partition called Common_Data 
which is set up so that both Linux and XP will see it. 

The other and just as major reason is that by not allowing Linux to see the XP 
drive then Linux can not change XP. Here I am not to worried about Linux 
doing this. I am extremely worried about the operator doing it; in fact this 
is almost an guaranteed. So we have a system protection issue.

Now how does this effect MS Office and Open Office compability. Simple in 
order to make both MS and Linux read the same partition I had to use an old 
partition format which excludes many current features in both.

Funny though Lotus word does not have these issues since it does not have 
these advanced features.

Thus there is a compatability problem.

BUT!!! The compatibility problem does not effect the spell checker and 
thesaurus issue. In fact if you have a pure MS box (I do) and a pure Linux 
box (I do) running the same version of the exact same operating systems (I 
do) then you have exactly the same problems WITHOUT transferring files from 
one box to the other provided you are using MS Office and Open Office. I 
haven't tried this with any other of the Linux word processors like KDE Word 
or Abbie Word as I have never made (laze) the work correctly on any of my 
boxes. I do have Lotus Works installed which gives no problems. 

I haven't tried it yet but I am willing to bet 3 lashes with a wet noodle (One 
of Ann Landers old sayings.) that if I installed MS Word 4 which I still have 
a copy of that the issue would disappear. 

The spell checker and thesaurus would work.

The spell checker and thesaurus does not happen to all files. Nor does the 
format that they are saved in seem to make much difference except for pure 
text which not eliminates the problem but it also eliminates all formating.

I am also willing to bet I don't know but I will;l bet that since Lotus Office 
spellchecker works in MS that it will work in Linux too.

Thus if somebody knows where this may be obtained I would appreciate the URL.

Thanks
Frank