Re: [tlug] Poll: OpenOffice or LibreOffice?

[Raymond Wan <rwan.kyoto@example.com>]

On Sat, May 17, 2014 at 6:54 AM, Travis Cardwell
<travis.cardwell@example.com> wrote:
> On 2014年05月17日 03:43, Benjamin Tayehanpour wrote:
>> On Fri, 16 May 2014 09:18:22 +0900 Travis Cardwell wrote:
>>> When one does not have to worry about Microsoft compatibility,
>>> perhaps by exporting to PDF for sharing, the software does indeed
>>> seem to be a contender in its own right.
>>
>> Here goes. Is it at all common for simple text documents to be
>> collaborated upon?
>>
>> Still with me? Good. Here's why I ask: I can get spreadsheet
>> collaboration. I can somewhat get slide show collaboration. But text
>> documents? Aren't they usually started by one person, finished by the
>> same person, and then passed on *as a final product* to, well,
>> whomever?


Well, these are "simple text documents", but research manuscripts,
project reports, legal contracts, etc. usually are collaborated on.
Perhaps one person writes one part and another person writes another
part and some boss makes a final pass to make it look like one person
wrote it all (though this last step is often skipped...and it shows!).


> practice!).  When I did the first proofreading of some non-native English
> speakers' writing, it was definitely preferable to modify the document
> myself, as the (high number of) corrections would have been difficult to
> mark legibly on paper.


I love LaTeX and try to do as much as I can with it.  But one thing
that Microsoft Word does well that LaTeX does poorly is track changes.
 Annotating a PDF file with Adobe is not quite the same...

I'm sure Libreoffice and Openoffice can do it well, too, but I usually
send my documents "up" the chain.  If there is something that doesn't
look right, I don't want to explain to them the wonders of
Libre|Openoffice.  Upper management wants the document, not a lecture
on open source software.  Well, at least for me...  :-)

Ray