That makes sense. Not a lot of people still use the older microsoft office formats 97-2003. Do current Mac's and PC's still support those older formats?
Google Docs Ditching Old Microsoft Export Formats(.doc, .xls, .ppt) on October 1
21–30 of 53 posts
Re: Google Docs Ditching Old Microsoft Export Formats(.doc, .xls, .ppt) on October 1
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
especially the spreadsheets Can you expand on that? (I work in this space.)
Googles ability to copy formulas across cells and automatically adjust them relative to their new postion is weak compared to Excel. Basic patterns work, but if you are doing anything complex, Google just doesn't do it. Also, Google's formating possiblities are very limited compared to Excels. I run into this limitation frequently. There are numerous other restraints I come up against with Google Sheets occasionally,…
If you have any examples handy of the kinds of formula copying or formatting you're talking about, I'd love to hear them.
Re: Google Docs Ditching Old Microsoft Export Formats(.doc, .xls, .ppt) on October 1
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
The article as far as I can tell does not say anything about importing those formats, only that they are ending support for exporting them. How many people are both "modern" enough to be using Google Docs, but sufficiently out of date that they need to export the old formats? I am guessing sufficiently few that Google doesn't really care about them. If their copy of Office is that old, how old is their browser? Can t…
You forgot to ask, how many people need to export to a specific older version format to support their colleagues or customers.
Fair point, but I am guessing the answer again is "few". Most people probably send out PDFs if the technology situation of the receiver is that rocky.
Re: Google Docs Ditching Old Microsoft Export Formats(.doc, .xls, .ppt) on October 1
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
Any changes in their own internal format would surely require maintenance of the legacy Microsoft formats, which would be quite burdensome I expect.
Yeah, it's not as if Google could abstract or overload the export function.
Easier said than done. As a general principle, existing features introduce maintenance and create drag when adding new features, so they better be worth it.
Re: Google Docs Ditching Old Microsoft Export Formats(.doc, .xls, .ppt) on October 1
#25Did they announce this previously or are they giving just a 5 day notice(only 3 working days given the weekend)? A lot of users are going to get irritated at having to change their workflow to have a copy of Office to re-save documents before uploading them. If you need to have a copy of Office around to save them in the new format, then some of the savings by using Google Apps is diminished.
Welcome to the cloud, where you don't have the option of running old versions to tide through the transition and in which anything you don't control can be pulled from under your feet with little or no notice. That's the thought that goes through my mind when I hear the "Yay, cloud!" line from the following MS ad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1h8f5AOCNcs
Read the article and the tryoll again.
Re: Google Docs Ditching Old Microsoft Export Formats(.doc, .xls, .ppt) on October 1
#26We need a real competitor to google docs, especially the spreadsheets.
LibreOffice. It's old-school local app though, not cloud.
There are several other Free Software tools that will provide spreadsheet compatibility, Gnumeric being among my favorite. Also the KDE office suite, KOffice.
Re: Google Docs Ditching Old Microsoft Export Formats(.doc, .xls, .ppt) on October 1
#27Odd, I thought one of the main reasons they bought Quickoffice was the deep knowlege these guys must've had of .DOC, .XLS etc
Re: Google Docs Ditching Old Microsoft Export Formats(.doc, .xls, .ppt) on October 1
#28nooooo..... I still use word 97 on my windows 7 laptop as it does everything I need (even in 2012!). Office is just to fancy nowadays and takes up to much space - I got my word 97 install to 10 megs. Oh well - rtf it is then.
Have you tried Open/LibreOffice? I also find the latest versions of office too flashy, and the open-source alternatives much smaller and simpler.
Re: Google Docs Ditching Old Microsoft Export Formats(.doc, .xls, .ppt) on October 1
#29nooooo..... I still use word 97 on my windows 7 laptop as it does everything I need (even in 2012!). Office is just to fancy nowadays and takes up to much space - I got my word 97 install to 10 megs. Oh well - rtf it is then.
If Word 97 does everything that you need (and why wouldn't it?) why do you care what Google Docs does and does not support?
Re: Google Docs Ditching Old Microsoft Export Formats(.doc, .xls, .ppt) on October 1
#30This is a wrong move. Recentism trashes bidirectional accessibility. Stable standards are not de facto useless.