ISO 26300
ISO 26300
ISO 26300
Wasn't .docx also supposed to be an open standard but M$ kept fucking with the implementation so it would only work in Office?
Yes, it technically is a standard, but because it's an ISO standard you have to pay for I wouldn't call it open. https://www.iso.org/standard/71691.html but people have different definitions of what an open standard is and I'm not trying to critique them.
So it's an "open standard", not in the sense that anybody can contribute to the development, but in the sense that the details of the standard are open and you can learn about them.
The format itself is an XML version of the existing Office document formats, and they grew organically over decades with random bugs, features, and bug compatibilities with other programs. e.g. There will be a random flag on an object that makes no sense but is necessary for interoperating with some Lotus 1-2-3 files that a company had, who then worked with Microsoft to support back it in the 90s. Things you can't change, nobody really cares about, but get written down because the software already implements it (and will emit sometimes)
Could we perhaps not drag RMS out of whatever dark place we're blessed not to hear about him from now?
We have enough pedo shit going on with the POTUS at the moment.
Also, LibreOffice saves in .docx format, if you want to be pragmatic rather than dogmatic.
For anyone who's not aware:
https://stallman-report.org/
Thanks. Sorry I should have linked to it. I kind of assumed it was common knowledge.
For anyone who is not aware: https://stallmansupport.org/
Wow, he's quite passionate. I just kept scrolling through the quotes and it never ends
Yeah, LibreOffice saves in docx. Which is fine as long as you don't care what it looks like when they open it.
At least for school assignments this is easily fixed by just opening it yourself in the school library and adjusting format. It's usually pretty minor.
Honestly most of my professors accepted papers saved as pdfs which was helpful too
When I was in college and I needed extra time on a paper (because I procrastinated too hard), I would deliberately save the .odt as an incompatible .doc format and submit it. Which gave me at least as much time as it took for the professor to let me know they couldn't open it and ask to resubmit.
Who is RMS?
What do we do ir we want to be automática?
Everyone knows the only acceptable formats are .pdf and .tex, everything else should be shunned out of society.
I know png has issues but I HATE ANYTHING ELSE googles OWN version of PowerPoint doesn't support their OWN file format!!
.tex
Ha, lamers. A true wizard writes their assignments in roff.
roff? Ha poser! I use CTSS /s
Nah, I hand code my postscript on magnetic core memory with a geomag stud.
I wonder how people actually work with LaTeX.
Do you actually write all the headers and stuff manually through a TeX editor, or do you use tools that do it for you?
Because the former sounds incredibly tedious.
The former, it becomes easy and "natural" fast, as you memorize the stuff, eventually you become so used to being able to specify how the document should be specifically that using WYSIWYG stuff like word is awful, you start to fight with the document editor...
But there is stuff like overleaf if you want something less direct, it is still LaTeX but it has tools and Whatnots to do it easier.
I do both, but usually I use markdown to write the texts because it features basic formatting like headers and bold text, but it's faster and easier to write. Then I use pandoc to convert it into .tex and do the final editing and adjusting directly in Latex.
Do you actually write all the headers and stuff
I've used Latex as my go-to tool for writing anything that needs formatting for years, and I'm not quite sure I understand what you mean?
I start off my document with a documentclass statement, which is one line..? And then I will sometimes usepackage a couple things for further document-wide formatting, but we're still talking about a small handful of lines (like 5-10 at most).
The preamble can grow quite large for big documents with a lot of specific formatting, but I have some boilerplate preambles with the most common packages lying around that I can copy-paste in. Usually however, the preamble grows as you're writing the document and you add things dynamically as you need them.
I would love to give you a better answer to your question, since my impression is that pretty much no one that swaps to Latex ever looks back, and I would love to help you learn. Feel free to expand on what you mean by "all the headers and stuff" and I'll try to give a better answer :)
I used typst for my thesis and a couple of assignments and can absolutely recommend it. Easier syntax and ultra fast compilation.
.tex supremacy
Okay, I just want to say I blame schools for Microsoft's monopoly on personal computing. School sysadmins are always dazzled by the shiny looking gifts that Microsoft gives them, ensuring the next generation of Microsoft useds is ready.
Yes I really liked the "microsoft excel and spreadsheets" class everyone had to take for 1-2 whole years. The tools designed for us to learn basics within weeks and discover features naturally over time.
I mean imagine how many negative side effects on education there would be if we just spent one or two weeks learning KStars or Geogebra or Kalzium.
Don't worry tho cause with microsoft backing openai I am sure every student will be given a set of chatgpt premium accounts to "help" them in their learning. Universities are already doing it en masse.
You lose some you lose some.
Schools could have used that time they were "teaching" the Office suite to give an introduction to unix, programming, and the basics of how the internet functions. I had to read and analyze Beowulf, Shakespeare, Chaucer, and Homer and memorize the names and formulas of 33 polyatomic ions. Computing education to the same depth should have been and should be required as it was required for the other subjects.
Really?
They're almost universally Chromebooks and the Google suite for schools these days...
yeah but that's fairly recent.
when i was in school in the late 90s it was all microsoft all the time. we had courses specifically on MicrosoftTM WordTM. that sort of indoctrination isn't visible in the workplace until the people going through it are old enough to work.
K-12 use Google, University use Microsoft
A couple years ago I interned for computer support at an elementary school in NYC. Most students had Chromebooks and Gsuite, K-2nd grade had iPads. Teachers had Lenovo laptops with Windows 10 and Office365.
Most of my professors prefer pdf
most of them accept pdfs so if thats the case for you just write the assignment in typst or latex and compile to pdf
This is the way.
Best thing I ever saw was an Italian cooking class that sent recipes as an ODT, and then 20 minutes later as a DOCX as an afterthought for the Americans.
Why not pdf?
Because the chef didn't know how to do that? I dunno.
It's the right thing to complain about that kind of stuff and to do it officially.
Nick Offerman after getting Jumanji’ed
Do you remember when radicals were trying to cancel RMS because of him merely defending some accused person.
The whole feud was very sad to unfold.
Ok, he is not perfect, but we need him, now more than ever. Even if only as a symbol.
No, I in fact don't.
I recall people questioning his publicly stated beliefs on his website that he updates frequently of "what if the child consents tho?!" when defending someone accused of sexual assault.
Dutch pedophiles have formed a political party to campaign for legalization.
I am skeptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children. The arguments that it causes harm seem to be based on cases which aren’t voluntary, which are then stretched by parents who are horrified by the idea that their little baby is maturing.
All link his personal website for her views and documented credited places for other statements/citations.
Me when the school system is Google Classroom
Mine accepted both. The professor read it from a web app anyway.
🤮
agreed
just rename the file and submit it as a .docx, it's their fault
Can't OpenOffice export to .docx?
please do not use openoffice in 2025
Honestly I keep mixing up Openoffice and Libreoffice.
I mean it completely fucked my resume when I exported it but I was being fancy with grayscale
I can smell this pic.*
*Not a compliment
Personally complain to the it crew and you get that look.
Mine accepted rtf.
Another proprietary Microsoft format:
I would do my work in OpenOffice at home, save it to doc/docx, then when it is entirely completed, I will bring it to the library to load it in Word on a library computer and correct any formatting issues and resave it.
that's an old looking William Riker
It's the root mean square of Riker.
Well played
I once failed a uni assignment, because the teachers assistant wrote remarks on a pdf in a way that's only viewable in adobe's products.
She failed us because "we ignored her remarks". Had no idea they were there.
Had the same in gymnasium, eventually got it overturned via bitching about it. Notes wouldnt even show up on their webapp : /
Ooh I would fucking LAY into her in the review if she did that, and cause a stink to the dean. That shit would've pissed me off so bad. I hate when people expect you to be telepathic like that.
To be honest she probably didn't even know that the comments were only visible to Adobe product readers, but that's still infuriating as hell
Tbh it's probably less of an Adobe problem and more due to the absolute mess that is PDF annotations.
Despite being a defined open standard, most free PDF viewers either don't support them (zathura etc), or fuck them up (GNOME evince). Even some of the viewers that do support them like Okular need extra configuration.
Unironically Firefox as a PDF viewer actually has the best support for PDF annotations.
The state of PDF Readers on Linux - Discussion - It's FOSS Community - https://itsfoss.community/t/the-state-of-pdf-readers-on-linux/12798