Oolite Bulletins

As I said upthread, I use a basic standalone WP now - Jarte, which is built on the Wordpad engine.
I believe Jarte has a recommended PDF 'printer' that plugs-in - and it is fast and lean.

I've discovered that, on Linux and with Word 2003, I can install install, in the native OS, a PDF printer, and print to that from Word. It all seems to work, though the files produced have a .prn extension (until renamed) and Word keeps hanging when the Internet is off. (Is the Internet patchy because of the UK storms?)

I've had a look - but not installed - Jarte. Intriguing. Perhaps not for me. I should add that I write academic stuff and do proofreading work.

UK_Eliter wrote: ↑Thu Oct 19, 2017 5:38 pm

spud42,

Privacy and de-bloating are, somewhat, different topics. But I do myself care about both!

seeing as the topic is

Windows 7/10 stuff

then it is well within topic parameters.... lol

as well as entirely necessary to get windows to work!

as well as entirely necessary to get windows to work!

<chortles>

Re making PDFs - I had to have full Acrobat compatibility for the games I publish so I gave in and bought Acrobat ten or twelve years ago - not cheap, but it has no problems making a PDF from just about any source. Failing that, there are plenty of programs around that can take output intended for a printer and turn it into a PDF.

UK_Eliter wrote: ↑Wed Oct 18, 2017 7:38 pm

Well, task scheduler is something else (something other than services). And I've been there (the task scheduler), been shocked, and done that!

I sincerely hope you've been doing something else than just being shocked! Task scheduler is something else than services alright, but it also could be sneakier. Not to be confused with task manager, or other "task [...]" in windows. It is the incarnation of the Unix "cron jobs" on the lesser OS. You thought you turned off an offending process, and poof, it pops up 5 min later!
Did you notice the things placed in there by the ... device drivers (e.g. NVidia)?

UK_Eliter wrote: ↑Wed Oct 18, 2017 7:38 pm

And I am on Windows 8, not 10, so that's something, I think.

My Windows 7/x86_64 box had stuff there with the automatic updates turned off since day 0. Win X just makes it harder than this to cut it off, but I'd betcha even XP has them too, since quite a while ...

ffutures wrote:

Re making PDFs [...] Failing that, there are plenty of programs around that can take output intended for a printer and turn it into a PDF.

LibreOffice (I'd guess OpenOffice too) have an "Export to PDF" option that can be applied to any document these tools can open (docx, xlsx, pptx & co. included). Also they can open a PDF document and allow you editing it using the "draw" tools (i.e. as if it were an odg document). Bookmarks and other facilities (e.g. batteries) included.
The way I print to PDF from any windows program (no gizmo driver installed) is by installing a generic out of the box PS driver (usually the first that comes in the list, or the first HP PS driver), and using the linux like command tools included with Cygwin -- ps2pdf (ghostscript) or those from xpdf suite. True, not all the features are available, but a quick way to pass decent printing output around.

I would vote for LibreOffice PDF export too. LibreOffice is free, great to work with and can open a large variety of file types, all of which can be converted to very accurate PDF prints. In fact, this is how we generate the OoliteReadMe.pdf and Refererence Sheet PDFs we distribute with Oolite, so you can see for yourself that even complex documents can be handled very nicely.

i use foxit for PDF, and foxit phantom to create editable PDF forms. windows has a built in driver to print to a pdf file.. just select it from the drop down list of printers..

spud42 wrote: ↑Thu Oct 19, 2017 9:34 am

i use open office but by default it saves as .ODT..... when submitting documents online they reject this extension.

It's very simple to go into the settings and change Open Office or Libre Office (which I prefer to OO) to default to saving in .doc/.docx formats.

spud42 wrote: ↑Thu Oct 19, 2017 9:34 am

i use open office but by default it saves as .ODT..... when submitting documents online they reject this extension.

... which is a bit strange at this time and age. Win7's default Wordpad can open and save .ODT files out of the box. (I think) the same is true for MS Office since 2007 version.
Of course YMMV with regards to the formatting, but that's just regular commercial support for open source standards

Thanks all, for your thoughts.

Windows spyware: yes, I do take steps to turn just about all of it off.

PDF: yes, LibreOffice can output to PDF, but sometimes I need, on a Linux laptop, to edit a file created in Word on a Windows desktop and then output the result to PDF. At the moment I do that follows. On Windows, save my Word file as .doc (not .docx). Load the file on Linux in Word 2003 running in Wine. Edit the file. Output to PDF by using Word's 'print to file' option and having installed, in Linux, a PDF printer.

but you dont need to do that you can simply print the doc to a pdf file on windows. its called "Microsoft print to PDF" its a dummy printer in you drop down list of printers. it will save the file as a PDF. simple.

spud42 wrote: ↑Sun Oct 22, 2017 5:15 am

but you dont need to do that you can simply print the doc to a pdf file on windows. its called "Microsoft print to PDF" its a dummy printer in you drop down list of printers. it will save the file as a PDF. simple.

No. I do. Here's why. I produce documents in Word on a Windows PC and turn them into PDFs, so that, using a Linux laptop, I can project them easily (with a projector, onto a screen). The Linux laptop does have Word, but it has it in a 'Crossover' bottle and I'm having trouble installing additional software - such as printer drivers - into that bottle. Also, Microsoft's own print-to-pdf doesn't work on Word 2003. Thanks anyway!

<notices the subtle title change for the thread - chuckles>

Unfortunately my needs were a little more complicated - I always had to add lots of links in documents, from the table of contents onwards, and Acrobat does that very easily. Also, when I started producing ebooks Steve Jackson Games insisted on complete Acrobat compatibility for stuff they sold from their online ebook store, and that was the easiest way to do it.