#297279 - 19/04/2007 12:57
Professor's Requests
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enthusiast
Registered: 14/07/2002
Posts: 344
Loc: South Carolina
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My sister-in-law (SIL) is working on her Master's and she had to submit a PowerPoint for one of her professors. She created it in Office 2007. If you try to open it in a previous version it won't open without downloading the compatibility pack found here. The professor responded to her first email with "I can't open the file. It says it isn't compatible with my version of Office. Please resend it in a compatible format." I was contacted and asked how she could do this. I gave her the link to send to the professor. After sending this link, the professor replied, "I don't have time to install the compatibility software. You need to recreate the PowerPoint in a compatible version." Well, my SIL only has Office 2007. I easily opened the ppt in Office '03 and saved it in that format but my question is why should it be the responsibility of the student to format a document in an older version of software simply because the professor "doesn't have time" (which only took me about 3 minutes, btw)? Dan (DWallach), you're a professor. Is this a typical response or simply a professor being hard to deal with?
_________________________
Russ
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"The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack of will." Vince Lombardi
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#297280 - 19/04/2007 13:06
Re: Professor's Requests
[Re: russmeister]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 29/08/2000
Posts: 14491
Loc: Canada
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Office 2007 is too new (and deliberately incompatible) to be a reasonable file format choice. The professor in this case is undoubtedly using OpenOffice, which is very compatible with most stuff from before 2007, and there's no good reason to require them to purchase a $500 (??) software package (MS Office) just to read a proprietary file format.
Cheers
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#297281 - 19/04/2007 13:09
Re: Professor's Requests
[Re: mlord]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 30/10/2000
Posts: 4931
Loc: New Jersey, USA
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Quote:
...and there's no good reason to require them to purchase a $500 (??) software package (MS Office) just to read a proprietary file format.
You're right. That's why you can download PowerPoint Viewer for free.
The professor is definitely being a prick for no good reason IMO.
_________________________
-Rob Riccardelli
80GB 16MB MK2 090000736
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#297282 - 19/04/2007 13:10
Re: Professor's Requests
[Re: russmeister]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 12/02/2002
Posts: 2298
Loc: Berkeley, California
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Well, many IT departments lock down computers so end users can't install software. So what might seem like a simple install might require getting the attention of a busy, overworked and underpaid computer professional who's time could be better spent on tasks that don't involve fixing microsoft's purposeful incompatibilities.
Matthew
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#297283 - 19/04/2007 13:13
Re: Professor's Requests
[Re: robricc]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 29/08/2000
Posts: 14491
Loc: Canada
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Quote:
That's why you can download PowerPoint Viewer for free.
I wonder if that teaser permits the professor to do mark-ups and corrections ?
Cheers
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#297284 - 19/04/2007 13:14
Re: Professor's Requests
[Re: matthew_k]
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enthusiast
Registered: 14/07/2002
Posts: 344
Loc: South Carolina
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Quote:
Well, many IT departments lock down computers so end users can't install software. So what might seem like a simple install might require getting the attention of a busy, overworked and underpaid computer professional who's time could be better spent on tasks that don't involve fixing microsoft's purposeful incompatibilities.
Matthew
But for the common end user who just bought a new computer and has no access to a previous version, accept through someone as myself, has to suffer?
_________________________
Russ
---------------------------------------------------------
"The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack of will." Vince Lombardi
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#297285 - 19/04/2007 13:15
Re: Professor's Requests
[Re: mlord]
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veteran
Registered: 25/04/2000
Posts: 1525
Loc: Arizona
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Quote:
I wonder if that teaser permits the professor to do mark-ups and corrections ?
It allows printing and marking with the normal red pen. Does that count?
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#297286 - 19/04/2007 13:15
Re: Professor's Requests
[Re: russmeister]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 29/08/2000
Posts: 14491
Loc: Canada
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Quote:
But for the common end user who just bought a new computer and has no access to a previous version, accept through someone as myself, has to suffer?
No, just install OpenOffice and use that. No $$$ cost, takes less than 3 minutes to setup.
Cheers
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#297287 - 19/04/2007 13:16
Re: Professor's Requests
[Re: Tim]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 29/08/2000
Posts: 14491
Loc: Canada
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Quote:
Quote:
I wonder if that teaser permits the professor to do mark-ups and corrections ?
It allows printing and marking with the normal red pen. Does that count?
That could work, so long as the marked-up copy can be saved so that it can be returned back to the student.
Just hypothesizing here.
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#297288 - 19/04/2007 13:18
Re: Professor's Requests
[Re: mlord]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 12/11/2001
Posts: 7738
Loc: Toronto, CANADA
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Mark, if the case were the professor not using $500 software, then why would they ask for PowerPoint? Why not a PDF which can easily be marked up with all sorts of tools, some of them free or close to it.
Submitting content in any MS format is a recipe for disaster. You want something that can be locked down and controlled like a PDF IMO.
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#297289 - 19/04/2007 13:19
Re: Professor's Requests
[Re: russmeister]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
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Usually, Office programs give you the option when saving to save in the older format. This may require selecting the "Save As" option instead of just "Save", though. I also don't know for a fact that Office07 retains this feature.
There are a variety of reasons why it might be difficult for the professor to view the file, but if the response was as curt as you suggest, it sounds like he's being a dick, especially if he specifically asked for a PowerPoint doc. And also especially if you were able to open it with Office03 without problems. That either means he didn't try at all, he has an ancient version of PowerPoint, despite asking for files in that format, or he has a problem with his computer, none of which would be your sister-in-law's fault.
My suggestion would be to delete MSOffice and just use OpenOffice anyway. Or, even better, make a PDF of the slides. Unless either the professor or your sister-in-law are in love with PowerPoint timewasters transitions.
_________________________
Bitt Faulk
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#297290 - 19/04/2007 13:23
Re: Professor's Requests
[Re: mlord]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 30/10/2000
Posts: 4931
Loc: New Jersey, USA
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Teaser?
It's not a stripped version of PowerPoint with a timer on it. It's a viewer. If someone made a PowerPoint 2007 viewer released under GPL, you would probably urge this professor to use that. But, if distributed by Microsoft, it's poison that's not to be trusted.
Office 2007 Home and Student contains PowerPoint and costs $127 retail. A far cry from $500.
Luckily I was able to type this post fast enough. Windows might blue-screen and suck the money from my wallet at any moment.
_________________________
-Rob Riccardelli
80GB 16MB MK2 090000736
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#297291 - 19/04/2007 13:23
Re: Professor's Requests
[Re: hybrid8]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 29/08/2000
Posts: 14491
Loc: Canada
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Quote:
Mark, if the case were the professor not using $500 software, then why would they ask for PowerPoint?
That part has me puzzled, too. Probably because most people have heard of "powerpoint" files, but it's very suprising how many are *still* clueless about "pdf" files. And most MS programs make it very difficult to create "pdf" files, although perhaps O2007 has fixed that (?).
Quote:
Why not a PDF which can easily be marked up with all sorts of tools, some of them free or close to it.
I don't have any tools that can mark up a pdf file, and don't know of any. I do know of lots of them that can create pdf, and powerpoint, and ..
Cheers
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#297292 - 19/04/2007 13:26
Re: Professor's Requests
[Re: robricc]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 29/08/2000
Posts: 14491
Loc: Canada
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Quote:
Teaser?
It's not a stripped version of PowerPoint with a timer on it. It's a viewer. If someone made a PowerPoint 2007 viewer released under GPL, you would probably urge this professor to use that. But, if distributed by Microsoft, it's poison that's not to be trusted.
Maybe, but that's not what I meant. It's a teaser in the viral marketing sense, kinda like how Paypal lets you "send" money to people who have never previously even heard of the service. It's a way of getting them hooked.
Quote:
Office 2007 Home and Student contains PowerPoint and costs $127 retail. A far cry from $500.
Both of which are an even further cry from *free* and open: OpenOffice.org, which can save compatible powerpoint files if need be.
Cheers
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#297293 - 19/04/2007 13:28
Re: Professor's Requests
[Re: mlord]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 29/08/2000
Posts: 14491
Loc: Canada
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Quote:
Quote:
Office 2007 Home and Student contains PowerPoint and costs $127 retail. A far cry from $500.
Both of which are an even further cry from *free* and open
Take that $500 and use it to purchase (another?) empeg for yourself, rather than wasting it on unnecessary software which isn't even compatible with prior versions of the same thing.
Or take the $127 and upgrade another player with CF cards! 
EDIT: or in the case of a student, use the money for food and books, or just to keep the debt load down. No need to waste it hopping onto a software upgrade bandwagon!
Cheers
Edited by mlord (19/04/2007 13:30)
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#297294 - 19/04/2007 13:32
Re: Professor's Requests
[Re: mlord]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 30/10/2000
Posts: 4931
Loc: New Jersey, USA
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Quote:
Quote:
Office 2007 Home and Student contains PowerPoint and costs $127 retail. A far cry from $500.
Both of which are an even further cry from *free* and open: OpenOffice.org, which can save compatible powerpoint files if need be.
For the casual user, Linux and most open source software is only "free" if your time has no value.
I could easily use OpenOffice.org (and have), but it's slow and the files it creates don't format properly when opened on a machine with Office.
Every free/open PDF creator I have used has also sucked far more than Adobe Acrobat. Even the low-cost alternatives are awful.
I have to support a small office of novice computer users. Introducing free alternatives such as OpenOffice.org, PDF Creator, and Thunderbird has just been met with disaster time and time again.
_________________________
-Rob Riccardelli
80GB 16MB MK2 090000736
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#297296 - 19/04/2007 13:41
Re: Professor's Requests
[Re: wfaulk]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 08/06/1999
Posts: 7868
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Quote:
Usually, Office programs give you the option when saving to save in the older format. This may require selecting the "Save As" option instead of just "Save", though. I also don't know for a fact that Office07 retains this feature.
It does, and it seems like this would be the easiest solution if the professor wants a PowerPoint 2003 file. Microsoft didn't throw backwards compatibility out with 2007, just as they haven't for 2003, XP, 2000, and the older Offices.
As far as the general discussion here, I don't think the professor is being a prick about it. He has a method that works for likely a big majority of his students, why does he have to change just for one or two people? Yes, it's a slight pain for the student to have to go to File, Save As and make sure it's compatible, but anyone upgrading to new software has this issue in any environment.
Quote:
I don't have any tools that can mark up a pdf file, and don't know of any.
Acrobat Reader (free from Adobe), FoxIt Reader (Free version), Preview.app in OS X.
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#297297 - 19/04/2007 13:44
Re: Professor's Requests
[Re: robricc]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 06/04/2005
Posts: 2026
Loc: Seattle transplant
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Quote:
I have to support a small office of novice computer users. Introducing free alternatives such as OpenOffice.org, PDF Creator, and Thunderbird has just been met with disaster time and time again.
Rob- what don't you like about PDF Creator?
I've been using it happily on Windows and Office for years.
Am I missing out on something?
_________________________
10101311 (20GB- backup empeg)
10101466 (2x60GB, Eutronix/GreenLights Blue) (Stolen!)
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#297298 - 19/04/2007 13:46
Re: Professor's Requests
[Re: wfaulk]
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veteran
Registered: 25/04/2000
Posts: 1525
Loc: Arizona
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Quote:
Usually, Office programs give you the option when saving to save in the older format. This may require selecting the "Save As" option instead of just "Save", though. I also don't know for a fact that Office07 retains this feature.
To do 'Save As' in 2007, you have to hit the circle office symbol in the upper left, then Save As, and it gives an option for 'PowerPoint 97-2003 Presentation'. Still there, just goofy in how to get to it.
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#297299 - 19/04/2007 13:46
Re: Professor's Requests
[Re: wfaulk]
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enthusiast
Registered: 14/07/2002
Posts: 344
Loc: South Carolina
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Quote:
Usually, Office programs give you the option when saving to save in the older format. This may require selecting the "Save As" option instead of just "Save", though. I also don't know for a fact that Office07 retains this feature.
I just checked the copy we have here and you can in fact save a document in 97-2003 format. I think this may be the solution for my SIL moving forward.
_________________________
Russ
---------------------------------------------------------
"The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack of will." Vince Lombardi
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#297300 - 19/04/2007 13:47
Re: Professor's Requests
[Re: russmeister]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31594
Loc: Seattle, WA
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I'm on the professor's side.
It would have taken the student all of ten seconds to hit "Save As" and select a more compatible file format. The professor should not have to jump through hoops or install new software just to open the student's files.
In this day and age, a student going for a Master's degree, as part of the college education process, should have had enough computer experience to be able to comprehend this simplest of tasks. (I'm aware that the world is full of people with degrees who are stupid, ignorant, and unskilled. But I believe this is a bad thing and needs to be changed as we move forward.)
Microsoft's idiotic insistence on creating new and incompatible file formats with each new version of their office suite is a completely different rant, of course. But at least give them credit for giving the option to easily save as other formats.
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#297301 - 19/04/2007 13:47
Re: Professor's Requests
[Re: Robotic]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 30/10/2000
Posts: 4931
Loc: New Jersey, USA
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It will often choke on files made with our manufacturing program and throw up log files all over the desktop.
It also chokes constantly when trying to convert a .ps or .eps file. Otherwise, for things like printing web pages and Office docs, it seems to do a good job.
_________________________
-Rob Riccardelli
80GB 16MB MK2 090000736
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#297302 - 19/04/2007 13:53
Re: Professor's Requests
[Re: tfabris]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 08/06/1999
Posts: 7868
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Quote:
Microsoft's idiotic insistence on creating new and incompatible file formats with each new version of their office suite is a completely different rant, of course. But at least give them credit for giving the option to easily save as other formats.
For once, I'm not going to bash Microsoft over this on Office 2007 file formats. They moved to new extensions to represent the completely new format, and moved to an XML driven system. This should (in theory) make their files a bit more compatible with other non MS products. Yes, it caused them to toss out the old MS Office formats that really haven't changed all that much since the 80s, but Office 2007 can still save to a file format compatible with a 10 year old version of Office (97).
I have plenty of actual legitimate reasons to dislike MS's practices. This particular change isn't one of them though.
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#297303 - 19/04/2007 13:54
Re: Professor's Requests
[Re: robricc]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31594
Loc: Seattle, WA
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Quote:
It will often choke on files made with our manufacturing program and throw up log files all over the desktop.
Heh, the computer equivalent of a cat with hairballs.
/me looks around for the digital Petromalt...
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#297304 - 19/04/2007 13:58
Re: Professor's Requests
[Re: robricc]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 29/08/2000
Posts: 14491
Loc: Canada
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Shheesh. Back off, dude. I mean it.
I'm not bashing anyone or any company here. Just reminding y'all that there's no need to spend hundreds of dollars when something pretty darned similar can be had for $0. Sure, a certain company makes a point of being incompatible with other such products, but we can't do much about it as long as everyone keeps buying their stuff.
Cheers
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#297305 - 19/04/2007 14:01
Re: Professor's Requests
[Re: drakino]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 10/06/1999
Posts: 5916
Loc: Wivenhoe, Essex, UK
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Quote:
For once, I'm not going to bash Microsoft over this on Office 2007 file formats. They moved to new extensions to represent the completely new format, and moved to an XML driven system.
...and at least they are "real" (if very complex) XML files, unlike Apple's approach. I was so disappointed when opening several of Apple's XML based file formats (Garageband for example) to find that they were no such thing. A small bit of XML meta data and then a huge base64 encoded chunk of binary data does not an XML based file format make !
Edited by drakino (19/04/2007 14:02)
_________________________
Remind me to change my signature to something more interesting someday
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#297306 - 19/04/2007 14:02
Re: Professor's Requests
[Re: drakino]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31594
Loc: Seattle, WA
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Quote:
They moved to new extensions to represent the completely new format, and moved to an XML driven system. This should (in theory) make their files a bit more compatible with other non MS products.
I agree with you in theory. The only problem is, I know their track record. So we have historical evidence to indicate that the Office 2007 file formats are just another rung in the same old ladder; the files are not going to be any more forward- or backwards-compatible than any previous version was.
It may make them easier to parse by third party products, but that won't help someone trying to open an Office 2013 file in Office 2007. They'll still run into the same problem, mark my words.
I believe that MS does all this on purpose, as yet another planned-obsolsesence to make people upgrade the office suite.
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#297307 - 19/04/2007 14:08
Re: Professor's Requests
[Re: mlord]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 30/10/2000
Posts: 4931
Loc: New Jersey, USA
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Quote:
Shheesh. Back off, dude. I mean it.
Back off from what? I'm not allowed to my opinion that a lot of high-profile open/free software isn't as good as the paid counterpart?
_________________________
-Rob Riccardelli
80GB 16MB MK2 090000736
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#297308 - 19/04/2007 14:09
Re: Professor's Requests
[Re: russmeister]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 30/04/2000
Posts: 3810
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Quote:
Dan (DWallach), you're a professor. Is this a typical response or simply a professor being hard to deal with?
Seems I'm a little late to the party here. Generally speaking, when I'm having students submit things, I require PDF or HTML, since those are universal and can be easily graded by grad students using whatever platform they've got (we've got a lot of Linux and Mac around here). PowerPoint is a bastard format. I can't tell you how many times I've seen the bullets and other dingbats change into random garbage when you move PowerPoint from one machine to another. Changes in fonts between Windows and Mac also cause layout hell. PDF guarantees that you see everything how it's meant to be seen, although you do lose any animations.
Furthermore, if the professor in question is in the Humanities side of the house, they may be running a University-administered machine. At Rice, anyway, that means lock-down mode, and the prof would be simply unable to install software without filing a bug with the help desk and waiting a few days for somebody to come around and do it. In a situation like that, it's eminently reasonable to ask the student to submit something in a more legible format.
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