LWN: Comments on "Welcome Stéphane Guillou, new QA Analyst for LibreOffice (Document Foundation)"

Welcome Stéphane Guillou, new QA Analyst for LibreOffice (Document Foundation)

Wol — Thu, 24 Nov 2022 15:05:51 +0000

I was under the impression Word had the same ability - dunno who copied whom.

But if you do "file", "export", Word will create a pdf for you. I'm guessing this option (as opposed to "print to pdf") was done precisely to enable this ability.

Cheers,
Wol

Welcome Stéphane Guillou, new QA Analyst for LibreOffice (Document Foundation)

abo — Thu, 24 Nov 2022 14:36:28 +0000

LibreOffice will recover the attachment automatically, so there's no need to extract the document to continue editing (just open the PDF in LO).

Welcome Stéphane Guillou, new QA Analyst for LibreOffice (Document Foundation)

docontra — Thu, 24 Nov 2022 14:12:05 +0000

A: Haven't specifically used that feature from LibreOffice, but have dealt/provides support for coworkers with PDFs with similar attachments (both editable and other PDFs) and It Just Works (TM), as long as your PDF viewer supports attachments[1]:

On GNU/Linux you likely have at least one of those preinstalled on desktop distros (Evince/Gnome Document Viewer and pals, Okular, Firefox)

On macOS, I'd expect the default system viewer can show attachments

On Windows you need third party software (Firefox, Okular, or one of the expansive proprietary PDF viewers[2]). Notably, Chromium and derivatives (including at least Chrome and Edge) do not support PDF attachments on any platform (!), and I couldn't open them in SumatraPDF[3] (free software, light-weight native Windows PDF viewer).

[1]: On viewers that do not support attachments, the PDF will (well, should) open just fine, but it won't display the fact that it has attachments, won't show you what it has attached, and won't let you recover the attached files

[2]: And yes, I had to fight tooth and nail, on several occasions (which included demonstrations on their own computers via remote desktop), with said Windows-using coworkers (My boss's boss and their secretaries) to tell them that a) You don't need Adobe for this, b) Firefox should be plenty enough, and c) Here, have two alternatives to Adobe which are much less sucky (which they then proceeded to call "Adobe", telling me with extremely smug grins that they had installed Adobe Reader against my vehement wishes, and I wisely refrained to correct them).

[3]: It does display the attachments and lets you click on them, but fails to open them because (in my inexpert opinion) it tries to open them as if each of them were a NTFS ADS (which they are not)

Welcome Stéphane Guillou, new QA Analyst for LibreOffice (Document Foundation)

ms-tg — Thu, 24 Nov 2022 13:36:23 +0000

> LibreOffice can produce hybrid PDF files which
> should be viewable anywhere but also embed the
> OpenDocument file so they can be opened for
> editing in LibreOffice.

WHAT?!

This seems like a big deal, and is news to me for one.

I found documentation here:
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Faq/Writer/PDF_Hybrid

Q: Does anyone have experience using this in a professional context?

Welcome Stéphane Guillou, new QA Analyst for LibreOffice (Document Foundation)

abo — Thu, 24 Nov 2022 09:20:11 +0000

LibreOffice can produce hybrid PDF files which should be viewable anywhere but also embed the OpenDocument file so they can be opened for editing in LibreOffice.

Welcome Stéphane Guillou, new QA Analyst for LibreOffice (Document Foundation)

donbarry — Thu, 24 Nov 2022 07:36:11 +0000

Send them a link to the download page of Libreoffice. Unlike commercial, proprietary tools, they can enable interoperability with standards-compliant (*real* standards-compliant, not the fake purchased Microsoft-version of them) software for free. People should be encouraged at every opportunity to download such tools so they are more likely to interact with them and ultimately transition to them. And encourage them to do so at home and among their kids in school.

Welcome Stéphane Guillou, new QA Analyst for LibreOffice (Document Foundation)

amacater — Wed, 23 Nov 2022 17:48:21 +0000

It may also be important to manage accessibility for folk with visual impairments, dyslexia and neurodiverse conditons - in fact all the
WCAG criteria / Americans with Disabilities Act s508 provisions (and similar worldwide). *That* is an area where Libreoffice could shine and where compliance is mandatory for many companies and governments.

Welcome Stéphane Guillou, new QA Analyst for LibreOffice (Document Foundation)

coriordan — Wed, 23 Nov 2022 17:35:51 +0000

Kinda off-topic, but I recently send a .odp presentation and two people complained they couldn't view it. One was a Gmail user. She clicked the file to see the preview and Gmail displayed it with zero formatting. The other was a Windows user and opened it in Powerpoint and said half the slides were blank.

I'm not sure there's much point in trying to file a bug report with Microsoft or Google.

What's another way to make them want to improve interoperability?

I can think of a few ideas, like an interoperability scoring system, so governments could take this sort of thing into account during procurement procedures. But when you think it through, with the need for an entity that judges the criteria, it's a huge task.

Anyone got any thoughts on this issue?