16 November 2007

Another Resource For Sharing Microsoft Office 2007 Documents

Here is yet another resource for dealing with the newly introduced "incompatible" file formats in Microsoft Office 2007 (see this link and this link for earlier resources mentioned on this blog for helping volunteers and church staff who don't have Microsoft Office 2007 but want to use Office 2007 documents).

For anyone using Ubuntu 7.10 ("Gutsy Gibbon") release of Linux along with the optional Automatix software for this Ubuntu release, one can easily use the import/export filters in Open Office that read the new Microsoft Office file formats.

This would be useful for churches and other cash-strapped non-profit organizations that may be using older donated computers and open source software but also need to share data with volunteers (who may be using the latest version of Microsoft Office on a spiffy new computer).

Yes -- it's possible to ask a volunteer to save a document in a compatible file format (the older Microsoft Word .doc file format, .rtf rich text format, etc). However, this new addition to the Ubuntu - Open Office environment will make life easier for the volunteers and staff with the older computers. And when newsletter and other deadlines are fast approaching, this will be helpful.

[Note: Wikipedia describes Automatix as a "tool that automates the addition of applications, codecs, fonts and libraries not provided directly by the software repositories of Debian-based distributions (specifically Debian, MEPIS and Ubuntu).]

No comments: