23 replies to this topic

[peterbj7]

I do have a lot of reservations about Mac, as in general I like neither Apple products nor their company philosophy. But quite a few people here use them, and everyone I've spoken to never has any operating issues at all - it just works.

Win7 does have one big advantage over XP - it boots much more quickly. And in general it works better and faster. What I object to is largely trivial - they keep mucking around with the user interface to no useful end just to show they can do it. One of the most irritating aspects of 7 is a feature common to all versions of Windows that I've ever used, from 3.10 on, part of File Explorer (or whatever they call it nowadays) yet in 7 they've decided to change one of the system defaults so that it no longer functions as desired and requires a second corrective action that was never needed before. It's simply the way an expanded folder displays, which is now totally illogical and user-unfriendly.

I will I'm sure move my "Windows" computing to Linux or something like it. Friends running the University of Oxford computing service made that change years ago, around the time XP was introduced, and have never looked back.

[WreckWench]

An aside...I lost my licensed windows products in my move (translation = they are in a box I have not opened nor can I find timely)

So rather than pay for a new system which was mostly based upon principal but also based upon cost...I installed Open Office.

So far its been interesting and aside from a few formatting issues I can read everything from MSOffice just fine with my Open Office.

Now the biggie for me...does anyone know how to use the Open Office equivalent of Publisher?

I have some MS Publisher flyers I need to update and now sure how to proceed in Open Office?

Thank you!

[peterbj7]

I couldn't find the answer so asked on the Open Office discussion forum. It seems that Open Office doesn't have an equivalent to that format.
See http://www.oooforum....p=409511#409511

Kamala - people have been posting to the above thread and there is apparently a solution. I can't test it as I don't have a MS Publisher file, but you do and can..... Please come back with a report on how it went.

Edited by peterbj7, 07 January 2011 - 12:09 PM.

[shadragon]

Win7 does have one big advantage over XP - it boots much more quickly.

For fast boots (regardless of OS) you can buy one of these.

Amazing new tech that places a HD in RAM. So instead of microseconds to access info, it takes picoseconds with this. This is the future.

[peterbj7]

Sounds good - if there's a laptop version. Because of the power/voltage surge problem here (really quite severe) I no longer use desktop machines.

[shadragon]

Sounds good - if there's a laptop version. Because of the power/voltage surge problem here (really quite severe) I no longer use desktop machines.

Ahhh... Then you need an 2.5" SSD. There is no PCI-E slot in laptops so that would not work for you.

[WreckWench]

Thank you Peter...I will check into it! That would solve a LOT of issues for me!

[Capn Jack]

So the $250 video card upgrade is going to cost me $1600 by the time I get the above mentioned parts, new case, power supply and hard drives. Plus, the new monitor needed on the separate system.

Add the price of a new keyboard you need to send me - beer ran out my nose all over my old one... TFF

[Cajun Diver]

An aside...I lost my licensed windows products in my move (translation = they are in a box I have not opened nor can I find timely)

So rather than pay for a new system which was mostly based upon principal but also based upon cost...I installed Open Office.

So far its been interesting and aside from a few formatting issues I can read everything from MSOffice just fine with my Open Office.

Now the biggie for me...does anyone know how to use the Open Office equivalent of Publisher?

I have some MS Publisher flyers I need to update and now sure how to proceed in Open Office?

Thank you!

I tried the solution Peter found (Zamzar) and it works well (I have the MS suite 2007 at home so have publisher 2007). The test file I created (1.5mb) took only a few minutes to convert. I had it convert a pub file to an odt (open document text file) and pulled it up in Word and it looked OK and looked editable. So you may be able to do the conversion and open them in the Open Office word processor and make the changes.

Note that when going on their site just do the file conversion and it's free (click the browse button and find the file in the first box, do the drop down to choose the file to convert to (odt), enter the e-mail address they will send the link to download to and click convert). Seems like the first time I went to the site it had a different screen that tried to get me to register - just ignore it and go to the convert files.