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gutu
Newbie
Joined: 19 Oct 2004
Posts: 3
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 Posted: Sat Mar 03, 2007 1:45 am Post subject: Some Openoffice usability problems and advocacy |
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Hi,
I'm trying to advocate Openoffice everytime its feasible, but few (mis)features of Openoffice seem to always problems everywhere. Have you encountered these yourself? How have you handled the issue with potential user?
1. 'Text boundaries' are enabled by default.
This shows grey margin lines, or as many potential users say; "ugly grey lines in the page". Worse yet, it creates an impression that tables and such are not aligned correctly when the left or the right side of a table doesn't fit exactly on boundary line.
It doesn't seem to matter how much I explain that those can be disabled, they do not show on printed version and that they are for guidance only. Users say "I don't what these lines on my document, I want to use Word, it never does this kind of things".
2. Text boxes in Impress do not use autofit.
Practically all Powerpoint generated presentations have at least some auto-sized text boxes. When these documents are opened in Openoffice impress, the text bleeds outside the page which looks very ugly.
There really isn't any excuse for this problem and I consider this a compatibility bug (I have filed it).
3. Many users don't know how to use paragraph styles
They just try to format text manually by typing spaces, press enter at end of every line, use tabs and drag tab stops, etc.. you name it. They are essentially using Word as some kind of typewriter machine. This is an huge issue for compatibility, for example when user open this kind of document in Writer, it "looks all wrong" due to e.g. different default page size (A4 v.s. letter) and font rendering.
Could there be some kind of help system in Writer that would advocate using styles? For example if it notices that user presses return at end of every line it could e.g. pop up reminder bubble saying something like "You seem to be n00b, learn more about paragraphs". Just a suggestion.
Good to get his off my heart. Thanks for reading!
Edit: fixed some typos |
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jrkrideau
Super User
Joined: 08 Aug 2005
Posts: 6733
Location: Kingston ON Canada
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| Posted: Sat Mar 03, 2007 2:44 am Post subject: Re: Some Openoffice usability problems and advocacy |
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| gutu wrote: | Hi,
I'm trying to advocate Openoffice everytime its feasible, but few (mis)features of Openoffice seem to always problems everywhere. Have you encountered these yourself? How have you handled the issue with potential user?
1. 'Text boundaries' are enabled by default.
This shows grey margin lines, or as many potential users say; "ugly grey lines in the page". Worse yet, it creates an impression that tables and such are not aligned correctly when the left or the right side of a table doesn't fit exactly on boundary line.
It doesn't seem to matter how much I explain that those can be disabled, they do not show on printed version and that they are for guidance only. Users say "I don't what these lines on my document, I want to use Word, it never does this kind of things". |
Set the default template to no boundries and don't tell them.
| Quote: | 3. Many users don't know how to use paragraph styles
They just try to format text manually by typing spaces, press enter at end of every line, use tabs and drag tab stops, etc.. you name it. They are essentially using Word as some kind of typewriter machine. This is an huge issue for compatibility, for example when user open this kind of document in Writer, it "looks all wrong" due to e.g. different default page size (A4 v.s. letter) and font rendering.
Could there be some kind of help system in Writer that would advocate using styles? For example if it notices that user presses return at end of every line it could e.g. pop up reminder bubble saying something like "You seem to be n00b, learn more about paragraphs". Just a suggestion. |
NO.  You'd drive the users crazy. It would be worse than that MS thingy popping up.
Probably the best you can do is to just tell them about styles and maybe have a demo piece that they can play around with. Here you're running into a serious problem with WISIWYG . As far as the unsophisticated user knows , they are getting exactly what they want by using spacing, tabs and so on.
They don't see why they should use styles and likely don't even understand enough about something as basic as proportional type to understand why what they are doing is bad practice.
I have seen some pretty fancy formatting using Word as a typewriter. Just don't try to change anything. I have even seen fairly decent CVs writen in Excel. As long as the tool does the job okay, a lot of people are not going to have the time and motivation to learn how to do it well and will not realise that over the long term they will save time and hassle doing it properly.
I
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jrkrideau
Kingston ON Canada
Currently using Windows 7 & OOo 3.4.0 and Ubuntu 12.04 & LibreOffice 3.5.2.2 |
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rotomano
OOo Enthusiast
Joined: 13 Dec 2006
Posts: 198
Location: Greece
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| Posted: Sat Mar 03, 2007 8:30 am Post subject: Re: Some Openoffice usability problems and advocacy |
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| gutu wrote: |
1. 'Text boundaries' are enabled by default.
It doesn't seem to matter how much I explain that those can be disabled, they do not show on printed version and that they are for guidance only. Users say "I don't what these lines on my document, I want to use Word, it never does this kind of things".
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I agrre , text boundaries should be turned off by default when you install Ooo
I remember when I first installed Star Office, as it was then called, it was something I immediately disliked, because it looked and still looks UGLY.
Ooo is a WYSIWUG application, and the text boundary is something that does not fit into this concept. I can understand though that some users find them useful. |
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rotomano
OOo Enthusiast
Joined: 13 Dec 2006
Posts: 198
Location: Greece
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| Posted: Sat Mar 03, 2007 8:32 am Post subject: Re: Some Openoffice usability problems and advocacy |
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| jrkrideau wrote: | I have even seen fairly decent CVs writen in Excel.
I |
what do they look like ???????????????????  |
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