Question about the Open Office "Writer" application

[Orrex]

Why the hell does it make RTF files so goddamn huge?

Using Word, I saved a document that came in at about 550K. Open Office made that exact same document, with no changes whatsoever, 2.5 megs.

WTF?

[hobbit709]

1. The same file in WordPerfect would be about 300K.

[laconicsax]

2. It makes .doc files about twice as large too.

I typed up a full page of text, saved it as a .doc in Writer, 76K.
Copied and pasted the text into Word, saved it, 28K

No idea why.

[Chan790]

3. It's the joy of open source software...

if you open your software's "guts" to the public, you're going to get some inelegant coding because some coders are hacks. Inevitably some of that shit code ends up in your product. It's no different than the shit HTML you get from a WYSIWYG editor. Bad code equals wasted characters, extra characters equal bigger files. It's the price you pay for fully-customizable powerful free software.

[Orrex]

4. I suppose, but it still seems weird to me

I mean, if the coding were screwed up for some esoteric and seldom-used function, then I could see why there'd be little incentive to correct it. But I can't be the only person who ever tries to save in rtf format, can I?

All else being equal, I'd think that the higher-profile functions of the platform would be first to be addressed.


But the very fact that it exists at all is extremely cool, so props to its coders/organizers/supporters/etc!

[TreasonousBastard]

5. You and I may actually be the last...

two people on Earth using rtf. And I don't use it that much any more. And I hardly use Open Office at all-- I agree that they are all great people for keeping the project alive, but it may be getting out of hand.

Until I finally broke down and bought WordPerfect a few years ago, few, if any, of the editors I was using did a decent job with rtf. Even Apple people I knew had some of the same complaints. What a great standard that that wasn't quite standard.

A year or so ago I think I recommended AbiWord to someone who needed to deal with rtf and didn't have money to spend. Try that, and see if free software can be useful and not become bloatware as bad as commercial stuff.

(Or, break down and get WordPerfect. )