[ubuntu-uk] Example of difficulty to Convert MS users

[suprengr]

On Wed, 2011-06-08 at 17:12 +0100, Gordon Burgess-Parker wrote:
> On 08/06/2011 16:24, Grant Sewell wrote:
> > On Wed, Jun 8, 2011 at 1:10 PM, J Fernyhough<j.fernyhough at gmail.com>  wrote:
> >> On 8 June 2011 11:00, Jon Reynolds<maillist at jcrdevelopments.com>  wrote:
> >>> My dad uses Windows and recently it completely crashed and the local
> >>> computer shop said it needed reinstalling. So he lost all his programs.
> >>>
> >> <snip?
> >>> Just maddened me a bit because he was willing to try free software... just
> >>> didn't have enough willingness to learn a little bit more.
> >>>
> >>> Ho hum.
> >>>
> >> I reformatted my parents' laptops, made Ubuntu the single OS on one,
> >> and made it the default boot in a dual-boot with Windows on the other
> >> (they needed software that wouldn't run under WINE). They had no
> >> option but to learn how to use it.
> >>
> >> I feel I should throw in a "muahaha!"
> >>
> >> Jonathon
> > My advice to (some) who are willing to try Linux systems is to keep
> > Windows installed, but don't make it an option in the boot menu -
> > making it unnecessarily hard to boot into Windows has meant that some
> > of them have been more inclined to figure out how to do XYZ in Linux
> > rather than "just boot into Windows coz I now how to do it there".
> >
> I think that's a bit simplistic.
> The major problem (IMHO) in using Linux instead of Windows for ordinary 
> users, is the difficulty with Office 2007 and 2010 documents, which are 
> becoming more and more
> Email and web browsing is dead easy - it's the incompatibilities of 
> OOXML format documents with the Office suites available on Linux (Open 
> Office, Libre Office and all the others) that would seem to be the 
> problem, particularly as a) prior versions of Office are now being 
> replaced by 2007 and 2010 in which OOXML is the default and b) it would 
> seem to be the norm that Windows hides extensions of known file types by 
> default now such that the average user doesn't even KNOW they are saving 
> and opening OOXML files...
> For example I've just opened a docx document designed as a tri-fold 
> brochure, in Libre Office. Because of the way Word is used, this 
> document makes use of tables with invisible borders. On opening this 
> even in Libre Office 3.4, the latest version, the formatting is all OVER 
> the place. It was actually easier to re-create the document from scratch 
> rather than to try to sort the formatting out...
> That to me is the main obstacle in the take up of Linux - most of the 
> popular distros just "work out of the box" for most things now a days. 
> There's not a lot of figuring out to do. The other functions that the 
> average user uses in Windows, burning music CDs, sorting pictures etc 
> etc are very similar and very easy to use. It's this that is the problem...
> 

It might be worth mentioning at this point that MS fonts cause a lot of
the format compatibility problems.

(Assuming that) if you have a legal version of Ms installed or just hold
a legal licence to use it you can copy the fonts from Windows
to /yourhomedir/.fonts

In my case, I had horrendous problems with works docs that "must not"
have fonts changed from company standards.  Thanks to Ms closed source
fonts - they were all over the place when opened in OOO [Libre Office
wasn't around at that time].  I followed advice and checked the legality
stated on [I think] on the forums and copied the whole lot.  A practical
solution is to compress the whole system/fonts folder from windows,
store it in your Ubuntu system somewhere convenient, & when an Ms doc
has a different font from the freely available downloads... open the
compressed file, select font required & click 'install' [trust me - it's
obvios when you do it].  You'll be surprised.

I do not offer this as a panacea to all compatibility problems, merely
as a soloution to some of them - learned and proved from own experience.

Cheers,
SuprEngr. 

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