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On 17/05/11 07:43, Henry Bremridge wrote:
On Mon, May 16, 2011 at 10:01:58PM +0100, Adam Latham wrote:The reason to mess around with these prop. software's is either Political (cultural imperialism) - only those who can afford it, can use it, or (more logically) to extend the monopoly like status of Micros**t and Adooby-dooby-do, within the education sector.
i agree there is an assumption that everyone has ms office at home hence application forms are in ms word format and have features that don't work properly in open office, more annoyingly than that people assume that people can affor d it, oh and as they assume that they also assume they also can afford windows.
There are certain features in local authority forms that really cause issues, such as a section for free form typing,press tab and you end up in the next section so indent paragraphs for example. there are also boxes where you put an x, in open office these end up as click on them and you get the resize grabbers not an x in the box. and thats before you try and mess with the page margins to stop text vanishing off the side of the page.
so if you have t fill in a form create on word you are at an immediate dis-advantage.
paul
I got the files off now, so I can put the disc and the proprietary stuff where the sun don't shine, for now!Willing to accept good selling by Microsoft but I am more tempted to say that it is more likely: - Lack of knowledge by the designer (or their employer) - Trying to make things pretty rather than useful As an example as anyone on the list tried to work with a text document that comprises just tables within which are other tables? Each section was a table and each chapter was another table.
yep , i get that with these forms, very irritating. paul -- Paul Sutton Cert SLPS (Open) http://www.zleap.net 17th September 2011 - Software freedom day -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/listfaq