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Ed
Super User
Joined: 28 May 2003
Posts: 1040
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 Posted: Mon Jul 05, 2004 4:36 am Post subject: .sxw files on OpenOffice.org |
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I am trying to follow the development of the OpenOffice.org 2 codeline, but am finding it quite difficult to read the speclink files because they are all on sxw format, forcing me to only read them on my own computer, which has OOo on it.
I am sure that this would also make things difficult for prospecticve OOo users who would like to read these filed before they decide if it's worth downloading, and so woukld put them off if thety cant read them.
Would it really be that diffiult to encode these files as HTML? Not only would this make them readable without OOo, but it would also make the website more userfriendly, since all pages could be viewed inside a browser, rather than having to open a separate program to read some bits. |
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Methuselah
Newbie
Joined: 17 Aug 2004
Posts: 1
Location: South Africa
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| Posted: Tue Aug 17, 2004 6:52 am Post subject: Hear Hear - SXW Files reader !. |
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Greetings, new user very MS currently and entering the OOo world.
It's kinda frustrating to have all these links to files I cannot read at work ... I've seen some SXC files mentioned as well.
It makes it kinda difficult to prepare this proposal when the reference doc is encoded.
Admin - please consider a Welcome / New Users sticky providing suggested links.
(This is the reason I registered now ... to be able to make this comment)
(Consider, I Googled directly to a post presenting such a link).
Also, if there are alternatives to installing the whole OOo suite to read such files ...
... please mention these as well ... otherwise the OOo appears community is guilty of the very same thing they are wont to rubbish Microsoft about ... proprietary / secret formats.
Is there a decoder somewhere ?
(i.e. if I just want to look before I leap ... how do I go about it)
Thanx for "listening", folk. 
Meths. |
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Michael A. Kearsley
OOo Advocate
Joined: 04 Jul 2004
Posts: 390
Location: UK
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| Posted: Tue Aug 17, 2004 9:28 am Post subject: Re: Hear Hear - SXW Files reader !. |
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The OOo XML file formats are open formats, not proprietorial - the source code for the filters is freely available. Abiword does file filters for sxw files although these are a bit shoddy; KOffice includes filters for all the OOoXML files and they are to adopt the new Open formats being introduced with version 2.0 as their main formats - Corel is also participating in the development of the new Open formats which are now being developed by the Open Office Technical Committee in OASIS which is chaired by Sun Microsystems with Boeing also being a major sponsor and member:
http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=office
http://www.oooforum.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=11483&highlight=
| Methuselah wrote: | Greetings, new user very MS currently and entering the OOo world.
It's kinda frustrating to have all these links to files I cannot read at work ... I've seen some SXC files mentioned as well.
It makes it kinda difficult to prepare this proposal when the reference doc is encoded.
Admin - please consider a Welcome / New Users sticky providing suggested links.
(This is the reason I registered now ... to be able to make this comment)
(Consider, I Googled directly to a post presenting such a link).
Also, if there are alternatives to installing the whole OOo suite to read such files ...
... please mention these as well ... otherwise the OOo appears community is guilty of the very same thing they are wont to rubbish Microsoft about ... proprietary / secret formats.
Is there a decoder somewhere ?
(i.e. if I just want to look before I leap ... how do I go about it)
Thanx for "listening", folk.
Meths. |
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avantman42
Super User
Joined: 28 Jul 2003
Posts: 751
Location: Staffordshire, UK
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| Posted: Tue Aug 17, 2004 11:52 am Post subject: Re: Hear Hear - SXW Files reader !. |
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| Methuselah wrote: | Is there a decoder somewhere ?
(i.e. if I just want to look before I leap ... how do I go about it) |
There's a viewer at:
http://os.up.edu.ph/modules.php?name=Downloads&d_op=viewdownloaddetails&lid=27&ttitle=OpenOffice.org_Viewer
It needs Java installed, and from my limited testing, it wasn't particularly great.
A possibly better option is the web-based file converter at:
http://www.oooconv.de/engine/OOOconv.php
This allows you to convert an OOo file into any one of several output formats, so you could convert the files into PDF, Word format, Excel format, or whatever to view on your local machine. Since it uses OOo to do the conversion, it'll also give you an idea of how good OOo's export filters are
Russ |
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Michael A. Kearsley
OOo Advocate
Joined: 04 Jul 2004
Posts: 390
Location: UK
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| Posted: Tue Aug 17, 2004 12:27 pm Post subject: Re: Hear Hear - SXW Files reader !. |
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The sooner they release the source code so others can continue the development the better I would have thought - however a lot of people who install Java on their computers will also be prepared to download OOo whereas a lot of people who don't have Star Office, OOo or something such as KOffice mostly won't have Java either which I think is a bit of a flaw in their strategy.
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avantman42
Super User
Joined: 28 Jul 2003
Posts: 751
Location: Staffordshire, UK
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| Posted: Wed Aug 18, 2004 4:55 am Post subject: Re: Hear Hear - SXW Files reader !. |
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| Michael A. Kearsley wrote: | | The sooner they release the source code so others can continue the development the better I would have thought |
I agree. I don't know much about Java, but I think it's possible to compile Java source code into a native Windows/Linux/whatever executable. If I could get hold of the source code, I'd look into doing that, so that people just had to download a (hopefully) relatively small program.
Russ |
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Jetlag
General User
Joined: 26 Apr 2004
Posts: 13
Location: Cumbria, UK
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| Posted: Fri Aug 20, 2004 5:38 am Post subject: Re: Hear Hear - SXW Files reader !. |
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| avantman42 wrote: | | so that people just had to download a (hopefully) relatively small program. |
Why should people have to download anything? If I have a look at some documentation on a potentially useful piece of software, I want to be able to just read it. I don't want to have to search the web, find something that might let me read it, download it, install it and _then_ look at it. It's too much of a barrier, and it may well put a lot of people off. I for one would not jump through that many hoops!
It's all very well saying that the file formats are open standards, but that doesn't help Joe Random User running a factory-standard Windows box, does it? I would have thought it would be only sensible to provide documentation in a format that just about anybody can read on just about any computer, without having to have a specific bit of unusual software installed. HTML? rtf? pdf? In fact, if it was available in pdf, it could also serve to demonstrate a major feature that OOo has over MSO.
hugs,
Jen |
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avantman42
Super User
Joined: 28 Jul 2003
Posts: 751
Location: Staffordshire, UK
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| Posted: Fri Aug 20, 2004 6:54 am Post subject: Re: Hear Hear - SXW Files reader !. |
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| Jetlag wrote: | | avantman42 wrote: | | so that people just had to download a (hopefully) relatively small program. |
Why should people have to download anything? |
I can't argue with that. My point was that various people, at various times, have expressed a desire for an OOo Viewer. The only one that I know of requires Java, which is itself quite a hefty download. If an OOo Viewer is a Good Thing (tm) then a small, easily downloadable, not-dependant-on-other-packages viewer is surely better than one that requires a large external package (ie Java) to be installed.
| Quote: | If I have a look at some documentation on a potentially useful piece of software, I want to be able to just read it. I don't want to have to search the web, find something that might let me read it, download it, install it and _then_ look at it. It's too much of a barrier, and it may well put a lot of people off. I for one would not jump through that many hoops!
It's all very well saying that the file formats are open standards, but that doesn't help Joe Random User running a factory-standard Windows box, does it? I would have thought it would be only sensible to provide documentation in a format that just about anybody can read on just about any computer, without having to have a specific bit of unusual software installed. HTML? rtf? pdf? In fact, if it was available in pdf, it could also serve to demonstrate a major feature that OOo has over MSO. |
Personally, I think it should all be in HTML or PDF, and only in PDF when there is a good reason for preferring PDF over HTML. Perhaps we should file an issue in Bugzilla.
Russ |
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