Subj : Re: How much should I charge for fixed-price software contract? To : comp.programming From : blmblm Date : Sun Aug 21 2005 05:19 am In article <87slx5fszx.fsf@benpfaff.org>, Ben Pfaff wrote: >Randy Howard writes: > >> blmblm@myrealbox.com wrote >>> Yes, I have tried OpenOffice. Yes, it does a pretty >>> good job, and I'm grateful that it exists. I don't have extensive >>> experience with the most recent version, but previous versions .... >> >> It's gotten a lot better over the last year or so, but it is >> still imperfect. The powerpoint part of it is especially weak >> compared to its MS counterpart, but thankfully I don't care much >> about that anymore. > >I'm surprised that you've found much to complain about in the >OpenOffice counterpart of PowerPoint. I used it to teach a >course here at Stanford this quarter. I imported the slides from >previous quarters, which had been built by the previous >instructors in PowerPoint, and had very few problems using or >modifying them with OpenOffice. A few oddities and >idiosyncrasies, yes, but nothing much to complain about. Maybe the newest version is better, or maybe you're less picky than I am, but I haven't been happy with the results of trying to open PowerPoint files in OpenOffice 1.something -- things that look fine when viewed with Genuine MS PowerPoint are subtly not-so-fine viewed with OO -- colors different, bulleted lists badly formatted, etc., etc. Which is too bad, because I sometimes have occasion to do just what you talk about doing -- use slides created by PowerPoint, preferably without actually using PowerPoint. That it works for you makes me think maybe I should try again. -- | B. L. Massingill | ObDisclaimer: I don't speak for my employers; they return the favor. .