frustration- funeral march for importing/exporting odt files

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MBP
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Joined: 2009-09-25 14:21:53

frustration- funeral march for importing/exporting odt files

Post by MBP »

I like Nisus - generally fast or faster than the bulky office suites; however I use a lot (almost all of them) of .odt files and the process of import and export is at a snail's pace. the rtf default is not desirable. I thought it would be acceptable; but it just doesn't fly with my needs.

It is looking more and more as if I will have to forget about this software and go back to the larger suites that do offer a faster .odt experience.

Most of you do not care - and this is not a post to just complain; but it is sad that it handles a number of important aspects to me and to a number of other people here from some of the posts i have read so freakin slowly and poorly.

A relative was in town last week and a diehard Microshaft guy and It guy and certified MS guy and he laughed and complained about the uselessness of the rtf format.

I will keep Nisus around on the laptop; however I am forced to go back to my default application that handles the odt format with speed and clarity and zero issues.

Too bad!

Thanks for everything. Maybe things will change and bring me back in the future. Best wishes to you all!
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xiamenese
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Location: London or Exeter, UK

Re: frustration- funeral march for importing/exporting odt files

Post by xiamenese »

MBP wrote: ... and certified MS guy and he laughed and complained about the uselessness of the rtf format.
Hmm, I'll read that as "certified" as used in British officialese ... :wink: His experience of RTF is obviously of the basic, bog standard Microsoft/Apple version rather than the extended version as developed by Nisus.

How long are the documents you are opening? I took a 3 page RTF file, opened it in OOo and saved it out as .odt. Then opened that in NWP. I opened NWP specially for this, so after the brief pause while the file converter was loaded into memory, the file opened as quickly as any other file. I guess if you're opening 300 page documents, then it'll be slow, but I reckon they would be slow to open in anything. I find OOo appallingly slow to start up, on the other hand. This .odt took just as long to open up in OOo, which was already running, as it did in NWP.

But horses for courses. If you find NWP too slow for you, then good luck with OOo or NeoOffice, whichever of the two you use.

Mark
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martin
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Re: frustration- funeral march for importing/exporting odt files

Post by martin »

I'll agree with Mark here, that opening ODT files in NWP isn't painfully slow after the initial cost of loading our OOo-based importer, but that if NWP doesn't meet your needs I can understand being frustrated and moving elsewhere.
MBP wrote:A relative was in town last week and a diehard Microshaft guy and It guy and certified MS guy and he laughed and complained about the uselessness of the rtf format.
That's an uneducated opinion. RTF handles nearly all the features anyone could want: Unicode, style sheets, TOCs, indexing, comments, tables, track changes, floating text boxes, graphics layer, etc. It's an old format, so it isn't sexy like XML, nor is it particularly clean internally, but calling it "useless" is terribly short-sighted. Basically any content you can produce in Word can be saved to RTF and reopened with complete fidelity.
shrumpkin
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Joined: 2009-09-03 10:05:06

Re: frustration- funeral march for importing/exporting odt f

Post by shrumpkin »

Hi Martin,

I am a big fan of RTF format. I became a bit concerned when a friend of mine told me that RTF cannot handle the Track Changes feature.

Is this true?

I see above that you mentioned that RTF supports Track Changes just as well as Word would; in fact, RTF does everything Word can do.

If this is the case, why hasn't Nisus Writer Pro implemented this feature? I thought this was because of RTF's limitations regarding the Track Changes feature.

Love Nisus Writer! And I don't want to buy Office '11, no matter how many folks say that it's the best edition yet for the Mac. But I need the Track Changes feature yesterday, and I might have to give Microsoft my money very shortly. :( I'd rather stay with Nisus. Please help! Can you pass along some encouraging words?

Best,

Michael
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martin
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Re: frustration- funeral march for importing/exporting odt f

Post by martin »

shrumpkin wrote:I am a big fan of RTF format. I became a bit concerned when a friend of mine told me that RTF cannot handle the Track Changes feature.

Is this true?
No, that is not true; RTF supports tracked changes.
If this is the case, why hasn't Nisus Writer Pro implemented this feature? I thought this was because of RTF's limitations regarding the Track Changes feature.
Why we implement one feature instead of another comes down to user demand, resources, and the complexity of a feature. RTF definitely won't stop us from adding Track Changes. Don't worry, we know our users want this feature!
shrumpkin
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Re: frustration- funeral march for importing/exporting odt f

Post by shrumpkin »

RTF definitely won't stop us from adding Track Changes. Don't worry, we know our users want this feature!
Awesome!! Just the kind of refreshment I needed in my life. You've given me hope instead of going the Word or Pages route. Anything to keep my Nisus Writer Pro!

Keep up the stellar work, my man.

Best,

Michael
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