Microsoft Office on FreeBSD?

[sidetone]

Not that type of standard. It's a standard in another way. WordPerfect as a product is used as better than the minimum accepted in some professions.

Also, in colleges, assignments are submitted in doc or docx format. PDF hasn't been used for written assignments in college.

Resumes are also written in the output files of word processors, and printed. PDF would be an extra and unnecessary step. The person may want to reedit the file, for improvements or for future submissions.

 

[daridro]

Plain text or PostScript files (GNU/GPL ghostscript flavor at the extreme limit, if some fancy formatting are needed) are the way to go.

I refuse any imposition of format, especially if they are closed or proprietary.

If they are enough dumb to be unable to process postscript files, send them multi-page DjVu files.

I'm fed up with all of these dictates and all of these narrow and pre-formatted minds.

 

[aragats]

I concur with USerID: Why would anyone in their right mind (≈ FreeBSD users) want to use M$ Office?​

Think broader.
Of course, I don't need and don't use MS Office.
However, some companies allow using only MS Outlook to access their emails. I'd like to run it in FreeBSD, but I don't think it's possible.
I can use their web interface, but it makes me nervous. The current work-around is to use Outlook in a virtual Windows 10 (in bhyve), I need Windows occasionally anyway. I set up a few filters in Outlook to copy messages to another, "normal" account, thus I can read them in mutt().

 

[cracauer@]

Outlook mail has a decent web interface.

 

[kpedersen]

Resumes are also written in the output files of word processors, and printed. PDF would be an extra and unnecessary step.

No. The vast majority of resumes are submitted as PDF.

(though some companies (usually outside tech) have a job application form to fill out that can often be .doc(x))

The person may want to reedit the file, for improvements or for future submissions.

?

Thats like saying authors don't distribute compiled executables because they can no longer edit their original source code.

Creating a PDF doesn't destroy the LaTeX or docx files.

 

[daridro]

Outlook mail has a decent web interface.

But all the html generated are full of their mso.* junk.

 

[sidetone]

No. The vast majority of resumes are submitted as PDF.

Resumes have been printed. They've wanted them printed out. Going from a word processor to PDF is an extra step. You still need the processor to make the file, then export it to PDF. To reedit for future use or to improve upon it, you want a word processor. You don't want to recreate it each time from PDF each time an adjustment is made. More than often, people use word processors or other publishing suites, not altering it as much from PDF. The PDF is more than often the exported file. People more than often choose the software they want to make it with, then export it.

Word processors are made for creating it, then outputting it is the next step. Less often do people do the creation in PDF form. It's like printing a paper, then saying, I have to put it back into word processor form each time, where it can be edited, because I don't have the word processor file.

Thats like saying authors don't distribute compiled executables because they can no longer edit their original source code.

You're the one making that case. I'm saying use the Word Processor or other publishing software to create the file, so it can be reedited.

About school papers,

They *should* be submitting work as .pdf

Word's .doc, .docx isn't a standard. PDF is.

Formatting issues haven't really been an issue for decades because of this (hint: embed the fonts in the PDF).

They're been turned in, in doc format for colleges.

At this point, you're nitpicking, and this isn't a real conversation anymore.

So, you're saying, that resumes have never been printed, made from word processors and submitted that way, ever.

 

[kpedersen]

Resumes have been printed.

Rarely. Companies often get hundreds of CVs they won't waste the paper.

They've wanted them printed out. Going from a word processor to PDF is an extra step.

Not for you. Not for them.

• You submit docx (1 step). They print it (1 step).
• You submit PDF (1 step). They print it (1 step).

You still need the processor to make the file, then export it to PDF.

Yep (or LaTeX compiler). docx, odt, pdf is just a button press away.

You probably see more exported .png files than Photoshop .psd files kicking around the web right? Same concept. The export is for... "exporting" to people.

To reedit for future use or to improve upon it, you want a word processor. You don't want to recreate it each time from PDF each time an adjustment is made.

How are you expecting to re-edit the file you have already sent over as a resume or college assignment? It is on someone elses computer.

PDF is also less likely to get kicked by corporate email filters (from external sources).
PDF is also much smaller in file size, so again, more suitable for emailing.

For more info on why PDF is the more common choice, check out here.

 

[sidetone]

How are you expecting to re-edit the file you have already sent over as a resume or college assignment? It is on someone elses computer.

Edit it for yourself, for future submissions, like to send elsewhere. Not for them.

MAKE THE WORK ON A WORD PROCESSOR, export or print it. At one point, resumes were printed and turned in, and doc is still accepted for resumes. People do editing and creation on word-processors, more so than directly on Adobe PDF suite.

You're just nitpicking.

 

[kpedersen]

Edit it for yourself, for future submissions, like to send elsewhere. Not for them.

Then you open up the original source material (i.e .tex, .docx, .odt or whatever). You still have that.

You aren't making much sense. Read through my previous post (and link) again, to see why people tend to export stuff when distributing to others.

Either way, I don't particularly mind what you send people. Being sent a .docx wouldn't really bother me. So long as its readable, I generally don't care if a candidate's formatting is trash (technical diagrams is much more of an ongoing problem). Though I did have one guy sending me a .lnk file. I did chuckle.

 

[Cath O'Deray]

… WordPerfect is a standard in some professions such as for law offices. …

Interesting. Nice that a product still exists after so many years, I assumed (wrongly) that it was no longer developed.

Flashback to the early 1990s:

 

[%pupil -sceptical]

Resumes have been printed. They've wanted them printed out.

Depends on the job, and the company you're applying to.
There are many jobs, and companys where you are just out because of you send them paper.
There are others doing it vice versa. As I said: depends.

so it can be reedited.

That's exactly the crucial point.

There is an important distinction to make who is allowed to reedit, and who not, simply to get the print (PDF, paper) - a document.
Like many other things it was a poor choice by Microsoft to call them working files documents, cause that's exactly what they are not.

Like many you misunderstood the concept of Wordprocessors.
Besides they are gruesome, very ineffecient in use, and produce terrible typesetting
-
yes, yes, I know 95% now want to contradict befor reading one letter further,
because 95% never learned anything but wordprocessors, never thought about it, it's so comfy, and believe they're right, although they never really used anything else, if even tried - but know better, of course.
Before start a shitstorm on me, at least take a peek into
Allin Cottrell, 'Wordprocessors: Stupid and Inefficient')
-
A .docx, .odt or whatever is your working copy.
You may share it with people who shall edit it.
But you never give anybody a copy who shall not edit it.
Those you give a printed output.
That could be a hardcopy in form of paper, or in electronic form as PDF (or .ps, .dvi)

You send a customer a bill, but not a copy of your accounting database (of course not, we are not stupid.)
A supplier will get the prints for construction, the gerber files to manufacture,
but for sure not my CAD-files (naturally, we are not stupid.)
You may send him a .jpg, .png, or .gif, but not your gimp's .xcf (duh!)
With .docx by principle it's the exact same thing. (Ha?!)

Well yes, of course also PDFs are editable.
But for ~98% of all Windows users that either means to buy the expensive Adobe Writer, or it's 'hacking', cause they simply don't know how. So in most cases a simple PDF without any additional protections is fully sufficient.
There is a barrier. It's not insuperable, but it's there.
Also paper can be forged.
It's the question of effort, and knowledge.
A .docx needs no knowledge, and is no effort, since everybody has Word, or Libreoffice installed.
There is no barrier, even not for Karen Everyuser.

I do not accept any legal stuff like contracts, offers, or specifications for an offer in that format.
Nobody gets anything else but PDFs by me. (Paper, if wished; maybe .dvi, .ps - if somebody asks.)
But no .docx, .odt...
Because they are easy to edit.
If they insist on doing .docx, only, for me business is over.
That's highly unprofessional.
You may get into legal's hell, cause no-one has any prove who wrote, sent, get what.
That's a no go.
Either PDF, or paper with signatures in real ink,
but for sure no .docx-garbage.
Never, ever!

Although I told them I do not accept .docx-files, but explicit to use PDF a potential supplier once sent me an offer as .docx anyway.
So I showed him why not.
I 'adjusted' some things obviously to my advantage, sent it back, and wrote:'I accept.'
They came back blank with:'...uh,...that was not what we..'
'YES! That's the point excatly. Don't use .docx for that!'

Can't be that hard.
Fifteen years ago you needed to install some Free PDF printer extra - download, install - very 'hacky.'
Now the PDF export is part of any wordprocessor by default.
Where is the f4kk1n problem to press the 'print to pdf'-button in the menu?!
With every Word-file you start, you fumble around dozens of clicks, to set font, size,.... - before you even wrote the very first word. And you fumbled zillions of times again, drove dozens of mouse-kilometers until the whole crap finally fits not completely dorky on the pages.
Can't that much more effort to simply hit the 'Print as PDF' button a single time.

 

[bsduck]

There's an inconvenience, which, I may accidentally save a file as .odt, because that would be the default, then my classmates would be like, wtf is this?

Microsoft Office can open OpenDocument files just fine. No worries for the classmates.

Incidentally, when I was at school, the school's computers were equipped with OpenOffice, and that's what we learnt to use, not Microsoft Office.

 

[sidetone]

%pupil -sceptical I look up whichever file type or physical copy they want. If they don't have that information available, I'll buy a book which tells me. We can figure out exporting to a digital format which is ask for. Scribus can be used to export PDF too. Pretty much any program, including of music, artistic presentation or word processor, can export to another digital format.

You could also edit PDF, though, not as easily. A point is, that it could be done at all for forgery.

I also have realized, which it may not have to be said, that resume parameters on spacing and fonts don't have to be nearly exact as the requirements for other types of documents to match Microsoft Office's parameters. So, the fonts asked for aren't an issue, except knowing how to install them is an issue for newbies.

Incidentally, when I was at school, the school's computers were equipped with OpenOffice, and that's what we learnt to use, not Microsoft Office.

I didn't mention that Libreoffice and opensource writers are likely more common in Europe. I didn't write it, because it was an assumption, but it may be the case. LibreOffice is big in Germany, and opensource is big in Europe. European organizations and governments seem to be fitting opensource into their software. Switzerland's government now requires its software to be released as opensource. The EU has their own OpenSource software license as well.

It comes down to what's asked for, looking that up, and meeting that expectation for documents.

 

[ralphbsz]

There are times, when the actual Microsoft Word product is needed.

Two examples, the formatting on LibreOffice or Apache OpenOffice varies from the format they want from Microsoft Office. While, they're close enough, they want the exact formatting of Microsoft Word for such as school papers.

Even worse: If you prepare presentations with PowerPoint, and then import them to the equivalent OpenOffice, Mac Keynote, or Google slides software. Quite frequently, the presentations will work 90%, but not perfectly. Now imagine you are founding a startup, the engineering VP has written a presentation using software #1, mails it to the CTO, who goes to one of the VC (Vulture Capitalist) offices on Sand Hill Road to ask for $100M, and then the presentation has blank pages, one important word is missing at the margin and ends up on a slide by itself, and the transitions between graphics don't work. Even worse: the one extra slide containing just a few letters screws up the slide numbering, and when you say "see slide 12", it points at the wrong information. Your use of substandard software just cost you $100M. That story is nearly completely true; fortunately our CTO got my presentation the night before (I had prepared it with PowerPoint on a Mac, and a colleague had improved it using OpenOffice), tried it on his Mac the night before the trip to Sand Hill Road, got fuming mad at me (rightfully so), grabbed a Windows laptop and a true copy of PowerPoint, and successfully gave the presentation the next morning.

When I was one of the founders of that startup, we initially wanted to standardize on using Macintoshes, with Linux people being able to run in a VM on the Mac. After that experience with PowerPoint decks, we switched our plan to using Lenovo Thinkpads that boot Windows and use *REAL* PowerPoint, and Linux people can run development tasks in a VM.

Purists and people whose main raison d'être is hating Microsoft may think the above is irrelevant, and we reacted wrong. Sorry, having presentations that work even after mailing them around is not irrelevant. It is really important in the real world.

 

[%pupil -sceptical]

I believe I got an idea what sidetone is referring to:
Writing job applications for a temporary work agency, which differs of writing an application to a company.

Those agencys send you (not seldom really dorky) word files in their corporated identy style, and you have to transfer, 'fit' your application into that faeces for them, so they send it to companys simulating they did the job they are payed for.

For that you have to use Word,
because as ralphbsz pointed out, and anybody took even the slightest peek at typesetting know, even different versions of the same wordprocessor may rip up the typesetting of the file.
At the end of 90s, beginning 00s could happen to you another version of Word wasn't even capable to even open a file made with another version of Word. I'm not talking an older version trys to open a file from a newer version, of course that won't work. I'm talking downwards compatibilty. A one sided file not fitting the side anymore, but a single letter jumped to a second page was no rarity, and one of the smaller nuisances. Refitting the whole file, including correcting the table of contents with all page numbers by hand, and counting pages was even more common.
Hence another prove wordprocessors are crap.

But once you worked for a temporary work agency you're burnt for the real job market.
(Alomst) nobody else will employ you anymore, because you worked for such. Signed a contract with a working agency that makes you write their application for them is job market at rock-bottom. At least that's what I experienced in central europe.
So think twice before you applicate for those.

 

[richardtoohey2]

Purists and people whose main raison d'être is hating Microsoft may think the above is irrelevant, and we reacted wrong. Sorry, having presentations that work even after mailing them around is not irrelevant. It is really important in the real world.

I'd like you to be wrong, but (as you say) this is the real world. The open/libre office suites are great, but if you are sharing anything remotely important, it's going to be on Microsoft Office (probably for Windows.)

I use Libreoffice for everything that doesn't really matter, but if working with other organisations - they are going to be Microsoft, and Microsoft Office, and if I want to be 100% sure what I'm doing will be compatible - there's no choice. No-one wants to pay for me to muck around with office suites, they want files that will work on their (Windows) computers.

 

[astyle]

Even worse: If you prepare presentations with PowerPoint, and then import them to the equivalent OpenOffice, Mac Keynote, or Google slides software. Quite frequently, the presentations will work 90%, but not perfectly. Now imagine you are founding a startup, the engineering VP has written a presentation using software #1, mails it to the CTO, who goes to one of the VC (Vulture Capitalist) offices on Sand Hill Road to ask for $100M, and then the presentation has blank pages, one important word is missing at the margin and ends up on a slide by itself, and the transitions between graphics don't work. Even worse: the one extra slide containing just a few letters screws up the slide numbering, and when you say "see slide 12", it points at the wrong information. Your use of substandard software just cost you $100M. That story is nearly completely true; fortunately our CTO got my presentation the night before (I had prepared it with PowerPoint on a Mac, and a colleague had improved it using OpenOffice), tried it on his Mac the night before the trip to Sand Hill Road, got fuming mad at me (rightfully so), grabbed a Windows laptop and a true copy of PowerPoint, and successfully gave the presentation the next morning.

When I was one of the founders of that startup, we initially wanted to standardize on using Macintoshes, with Linux people being able to run in a VM on the Mac. After that experience with PowerPoint decks, we switched our plan to using Lenovo Thinkpads that boot Windows and use *REAL* PowerPoint, and Linux people can run development tasks in a VM.

Purists and people whose main raison d'être is hating Microsoft may think the above is irrelevant, and we reacted wrong. Sorry, having presentations that work even after mailing them around is not irrelevant. It is really important in the real world.

Back in 1990s, when I was in high school, I'd sometimes type up an essay in Word Perfect, because that's what was installed on the $3,000 laptop that ran Windows 3.11. There was no printer at home, so I'd type up the essay, save it to a floppy, and bring it to school to print it out. School had Windows 95 and MS Word '97. So when I opened a Word Perfect file in Word '97, formatting of text, margins, and other details was off, and I had to spend about an hour just correcting the formatting so that the essay could be printed out and look neat. Things did get a little better since, but my college years really hammered home the value of using standardized software. Yeah, it may be expensive to have your own copy, but it's still a better option than going with something else that is similar, but not quite the same thing. If you're too cheap to buy your own copy of MS Office, then use the school's computer lab, where it is available.

If MS Office doesn't work right on the school computer, just log out, go to the next one, and use it there. If LibreOffice on your personal machine doesn't work, you're on your own pretty much.

 

[GlitchyDot]

You could also edit PDF, though, not as easily. A point is, that it could be done at all for forgery.

https://www.sejda.com/ - u can edit for free , is limit on how many times a day, but i do have VPN - so kinda change ip and its fine.
But also there are some protections involved in some PDF files and it shows squares or Chinese/Japanese glyph s and you can not edit , but im not sure about Adobe with this issue

 

[kpedersen]

Your use of substandard software just cost you $100M.

I would say that PDF also handles presentations nicely and deterministically.

Yes, you miss out on transition effects and embedded videos but lets be honest, the former looks tacky and the latter never works anyway.

Besides, I recall an issue with Office 2008 on MacOSX still not being compatible with Office 2010 on the PC. Images would be encoded weirdly if coped and pasted directly into the document via the MacOSX clipboard. A workaround was to colour adjust it. It looks like a similar (though not identical) issue is still present.

 

[drhowarddrfine]

What we did was just have one Windows box in the corner that was used for Windows only testing and documentation.

 

[USerID]

Tell me, do most organizations in your city use a licensed Microsoft Office package or everything "patched" (pirated)? I'll tell you honestly. I worked in a hospital, the number of workstations on which Microsoft Office was installed reached 80 pieces. In the neighboring hospital there are about 150 workstations. NOT A SINGLE package was purchased for these workstations. I live in the most corrupt country in Europe. Do I have the moral right to install a pirated product? No. I could go to the director, offer a licensing scheme. But this does not work here. I am the one acting as a scapegoat. Yes, the director is also "walking" under administrative and criminal articles. But the director does not give a shit, since the director is regularly mentioned in the local media as a "hardened corrupt official" on "kickbacks" and all the prosecutors, judges, policemen and other "HIS FRIENDS" are bought from him. The director benefits from purchases with kickbacks, you understand? That's it, that's it. When this CORRUPTION CRAP doesn't buy licenses, I'm under criminal charges. I have to avoid proprietary products. You don't have that level of corruption in the US and Europe. You can. I don't want to go to jail because of the director. Why doesn't the "Law" work, you ask? - Because the court is bought and it will make the system administrator guilty. We had a case where a lawyer quit her job after the director forced her to make tender purchases with kickbacks. In the end, the lawyer was "set up", she got off with a fine and quit. And the director doesn't care. The newspaper wrote about the director that she pushed through "tender purchases with corruption risks". The director continues to work because the Medical Department "protects" her. She brings them an envelope with money and no one touches her. That's it. The end. Can your organization BUY LICENSES"? Do you buy them yourself? Is running a pirated copy of Word through Wine a crime?

 

[kpedersen]

Tell me, do most organizations in your city use a licensed Microsoft Office package or everything "patched" (pirated)?

We own licenses but most installs are patched. In the UK at least, anti-DRM solutions to facilitate interoperability and integration are legal. Doing so greatly improves security and robustness.

 

[Argentum]

Depends on the job, and the company you're applying to.
There are many jobs, and companys where you are just out because of you send them paper.
There are others doing it vice versa. As I said: depends.

Depends also on country. In this country, for example, signed paper documents are already extremely rare and many organizations do not accept these at all.
.asice is a common container format, everybody is using. (https://www.id.ee/en/article/what-i...ned-documents-with-bdoc-and-asice-extensions/)
Encrypted .cdoc is also commonplace. All residents have two certificates one for authentication and the other for signing - https://www.id.ee/en/

Unfortunately the relevant software has not been ported to FreeBSD so far - https://www.id.ee/en/article/install-id-software/

Usually resumes are accepted in .asice format or .asice inside a .cdoc container. The file format itself is not that important when digitally signed.

 

[astyle]

You don't have that level of corruption in the US

In US, corruption is just as bad, it simply manifests in somewhat different ways...

Zoom used to be king of the hill, nowadays people use Teams, and the convenient features that you can get with free-of-charge licenses keep getting dialed back or twisted into something unusable and unrecognizable. Rank-and-file worker drones in many industries sometimes don't get enterprise licenses, and are expected to make do with the free licenses and whatever cheap devices they own - and they are on their own if something breaks down, even if it's work-related.