On 20 May 2011 00:01, Daniel Case <danielcas...@googlemail.com> wrote: > Hi guys, > > I'm a web designer and host, and I often get clients email with .doc, > .ppx and even .docx nowadays.... the question is, what should I be > doing about these people? I often send an email back asking them if > they would mind sending in an open format so I can open it without > problems, but I have had one person cancel a job over it (extreme, I > know, apparently I was wasting time..) so the question is how can I > educate these people, especially if they are willing to cancel a > project over it? (I make my income from this stuff!)
More or less what Popey said, actually, but I would like to make a more detailed suggestion. You don't need to actually spend any money to achieve this, or most of this. What you do is: [1] Install WINE from the Ubuntu Software Centre. [2] Go to the Microsoft website and download the Word, Excel and Powerpoint viewers. You might want to add in the Visio viewer, too, but I believe that this requires Internet Explorer. Use Google to find the downloads - it's quicker & easier than Microsoft's own search engine. [3] Install all the viewers. Test them - just Google for "test .doc file", "test .xls file" & "test .ppt file". Check that you can open and view the files. [4] Back to Google and search for the "Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Office 2007". This will add support for the new .docx/.xlsx etc formats to the free viewers. Download and install it. That's it. Using all freeware, you can now view the files in native Microsoft applications, without a Windows licence or binaries or anything. OK, true, it is not all FOSS - not FOSS at all, in fact - but it's legal, legit and works. I prefer to think of it as a small gesture of defiance, myself. -- Liam Proven • Info & profile: http://www.google.com/profiles/lproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lpro...@gmail.com Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 • Cell: +44 7939-087884 • Fax: + 44 870-9151419 AIM/Yahoo/Skype: liamproven • MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • ICQ: 73187508 -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
