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NeoOffice :: View topic - word processing features
word processing features
 
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SeeJ
Blue Pill


Joined: Oct 28, 2008
Posts: 1

PostPosted: Tue Oct 28, 2008 8:58 am    Post subject: word processing features

Since I bought my new MAC a couple months ago I've been attempting to use NeoOffice as my primary productivity tool. I've found the process a bit frustrating. Arguably the cost saving has been far less than the productivity loss. Here are a couple suggestions if anyone is interested:

Change case needs a "title case" option to apply caps to beginning of words in selection;
the automatic spelling check is fine but how about an auto fix 'while typing' for common errors (e.g. i vs. I, 'i before e', etc);
the import picture function is fine but the picture formatting needs a lot of work -- the controls aren't very intuitive or don't work (e.g. cropping), dragging into position on the page is imprecise and choppy, ...
Saving as *.rtf has produced files which can't be read by others using PCs (notably, however, *.doc files are fine)

Meanwhile, the print straight to PDF function is quite useful. Whoever came up with that can't be thanked too much.
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pluby
The Architect
The Architect


Joined: Jun 16, 2003
Posts: 11949

PostPosted: Tue Oct 28, 2008 9:53 am    Post subject: Re: word processing features

SeeJ wrote:
Since I bought my new MAC a couple months ago I've been attempting to use NeoOffice as my primary productivity tool. I've found the process a bit frustrating. Arguably the cost saving has been far less than the productivity loss. Here are a couple suggestions if anyone is interested:


If you are suffering from huge productivity losses, I would recommend that you consider purchasing the US$150 Home/Student version of Microsoft Office. NeoOffice is not a full clone of Microsoft Office and probably never will be as we are funded purely by donations from our users. NeoOffice has many of the features of Microsoft Office, but our funding and features are far more limited than Microsoft Office's. Because of this, Microsoft Office on the Mac is a very nice product with many advanced features and if those advanced features save you a lot of time, the purchase price of Microsoft Office might be worth it.

SeeJ wrote:
Change case needs a "title case" option to apply caps to beginning of words in selection;


This feature already exists in NeoOffice. You can set text to title case by selecting some text, select the Format :: Character menu and in the dialog that appears click on the Font Effects tab, select Title for the Effects field, and press the OK button.

SeeJ wrote:
the automatic spelling check is fine but how about an auto fix 'while typing' for common errors (e.g. i vs. I, 'i before e', etc);


What you are essentially asking for is the spellchecker to automatically editing of your document. Sorry to give you the bad news, but that is not going to be a feature that we are likely to implement given the number of users that complain that the existing level of autocorrection is far too aggressive.

However, there is a workaround in NeoOffice that you use to emulate such behavior. To use your first case as an example, select the Tools :: AutoCorrect menu and in the dialog that appears, click on the Replace tab, enter "i" in the "Replace" field, enter "I" in the "With" field, press the New button, and press the OK button. This will cause NeoOffice to automatically replace any "i" characters followed by a space or punctuation to be capitalized. For the second case, you can add new entries like NeoOffice's existing "peice" entry.

SeeJ wrote:
the import picture function is fine but the picture formatting needs a lot of work -- the controls aren't very intuitive or don't work (e.g. cropping), dragging into position on the page is imprecise and choppy, ...


I sense that you are anchoring images as a character when you really want it to anchor to an absolute position on the page. When it is anchored as a character, the image is treated like a big character so moving the image with force all surrounding text to be moved around to accomodate the big character. If you Control-click on the image, select Anchor :: Page from the popup menu, you can position an image to any coordinate in the page and text will flow under the image.

SeeJ wrote:
Saving as *.rtf has produced files which can't be read by others using PCs (notably, however, *.doc files are fine)


I cannot reproduce this. You are not trying to save files with images are you? I ask because the .rtf file format as defined by Microsoft (they created that file format) is a text only format and you cannot save any image in that format.

Patrick
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Lorinda
Captain Mifune


Joined: Jun 20, 2006
Posts: 2051
Location: Midwest, USA

PostPosted: Tue Oct 28, 2008 10:30 am    Post subject:

yoxi recently provided a macro Title Case. This macro can then be assigned to a keyboard shortcut or a toolbar button. Information on how to add the macro code and assign keyboard shortcuts/toolbar buttons to macros is available in this wiki article.

Lorinda
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wheat
Operator


Joined: Sep 18, 2003
Posts: 46
Location: Atlanta, Georgia, USA

PostPosted: Mon Dec 29, 2008 12:16 pm    Post subject:

You may not be aware of the fact that EVERY application in Mac OS X with a Print command can print to a PDF document, as this is built in to Mac OS X itself.

Ironically, NeoOffice does not use the Mac OS X PDF printing capability, but rather it uses the PDF creation method that comes from OpenOffice.org.

So you should try printing PDFs from other applications, such as Safari, FireFox or whatever. In the lower left corner of the Print dialog in every application than runs on Mac OS X (other than NeoOffice!) there is a button with a down arrow labelled "PDF". Click on that, and you can create a PDF from anything.

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Wheat Williams
Atlanta, Georgia, USA
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ovvldc
Captain Naiobi


Joined: Sep 13, 2004
Posts: 2352
Location: Zürich, CH

PostPosted: Mon Dec 29, 2008 12:25 pm    Post subject:

You can even use the Mac OSX PDF function from within NeoOffice. However, the yields a significantly larger file and takes significantly longer..

Best wishes,
Oscar

_________________
"What do you think of Western Civilization?"
"I think it would be a good idea!"
- Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
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pluby
The Architect
The Architect


Joined: Jun 16, 2003
Posts: 11949

PostPosted: Mon Dec 29, 2008 12:37 pm    Post subject:

wheat wrote:
Ironically, NeoOffice does not use the Mac OS X PDF printing capability, but rather it uses the PDF creation method that comes from OpenOffice.org.


This is flat out wrong. We only use OpenOffice.org's PDF generation code when you select the File :: Export As PDF menu or its matching toolbar. And even in that case, our code uses Mac OS X's CGPDFContext functions to create native font subsets.

wheat wrote:
So you should try printing PDFs from other applications, such as Safari, FireFox or whatever. In the lower left corner of the Print dialog in every application than runs on Mac OS X (other than NeoOffice!) there is a button with a down arrow labelled "PDF". Click on that, and you can create a PDF from anything.


Wrong again. The PDF arrow is in NeoOffice's native print dialog as it is just that: Mac OS X's native print dialog. Pressing any button in the native print dialog will use Mac OS X's native print functions and will not use any of OpenOffice.org's print or export as PDF code.

Patrick
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wheat
Operator


Joined: Sep 18, 2003
Posts: 46
Location: Atlanta, Georgia, USA

PostPosted: Mon Dec 29, 2008 12:47 pm    Post subject:

Hey, Patrick, I'm sorry. In reading the initial post it seemed to me that the writer was new to the Macintosh platform and was not aware that all Mac applications can print PDFs. I was trying to educate him about Mac OS X and its features, and I don't think I was being off-topic.

My point was that Microsoft Windows does not support making PDFs directly but that OpenOffice.org on Windows does--however, the Mac OS supports PDFs directly, and parenthetically, NeoOffice's PDF function behaves similarly to that of OpenOffice.org on Windows.

I'm sorry that my ignorance of your underlying code was "flat out wrong" but the point was to clarify the PDF issue and put it in the perspective of contrasting Windows to Mac OS X as a platform.

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Wheat Williams
Atlanta, Georgia, USA
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pluby
The Architect
The Architect


Joined: Jun 16, 2003
Posts: 11949

PostPosted: Mon Dec 29, 2008 12:55 pm    Post subject:

wheat wrote:
I'm sorry that my ignorance of your underlying code was "flat out wrong" but the point was to clarify the PDF issue and put it in the perspective of contrasting Windows to Mac OS X as a platform.


No worries. Your comments about Mac OS X printing are good.

I just wanted to make sure that things were clarified before more confusion sets in. It can be easy for OpenOffice.org 3.0 users to assume that NeoOffice and OpenOffice.org work the same in this area, but they do not. We have made lots of effort to ensure that the printing in NeoOffice works entirely natively just like Apple's Mac OS X applications do.

In addition, even the Export as PDF feature from OpenOffice.org is highly modified in NeoOffice and will continue to be so in the NeoOffice 3.0 Early Access. We made these modifications to ensure that as many of the font related parts of the Export as PDF output is generated natively. In many cases, you won't see any difference between NeoOffice and OpenOffice.org, but when you have Arabic or vertical Asian text, the differences jump out.

Patrick
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