Comments on: The Microsoft Lock-In at Top Law Reviews http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/infolaw/2006/08/07/the-microsoft-lock-in-at-top-law-reviews/ Information, Law, and the Law of Information Fri, 04 Dec 2009 21:55:50 -0500 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.5.2 hourly 1 By: Info/Law » Can I Write My Next Law Review Article in Google Docs? http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/infolaw/2006/08/07/the-microsoft-lock-in-at-top-law-reviews/comment-page-1/#comment-70821 Info/Law » Can I Write My Next Law Review Article in Google Docs? Mon, 01 Dec 2008 01:50:49 +0000 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/infolaw/2006/08/07/the-microsoft-lock-in-at-top-law-revi#comment-70821 [...] if we can just get the law review editors to stop insisting on Microsoft Word, we will be getting [...] [...] if we can just get the law review editors to stop insisting on Microsoft Word, we will be getting [...]

]]> By: Info/Law » Open Access Law: Two Cheers for Northwestern http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/infolaw/2006/08/07/the-microsoft-lock-in-at-top-law-reviews/comment-page-1/#comment-916 Info/Law » Open Access Law: Two Cheers for Northwestern Wed, 25 Oct 2006 16:49:26 +0000 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/infolaw/2006/08/07/the-microsoft-lock-in-at-top-law-revi#comment-916 [...] Issuing current scholarship in PDF format makes a certain amount of logistical sense. What was a relative rarity (although not at all unheard of) when I went to law school is now commonplace: spurred by economic considerations, more and more journals have taken the digital typesetting process in-house. Articles are edited in digital format (chiefly Microsoft Word, it seems) and laid out according to the journal’s own in-house templates, yielding a final PDF copy that can then be transmitted electronically to be printed and bound. Because the journal is going to produce a PDF copy anyway for its own purposes, it takes little extra effort to post the PDF online, and voilà, you’ve gone open-access. [...] [...] Issuing current scholarship in PDF format makes a certain amount of logistical sense. What was a relative rarity (although not at all unheard of) when I went to law school is now commonplace: spurred by economic considerations, more and more journals have taken the digital typesetting process in-house. Articles are edited in digital format (chiefly Microsoft Word, it seems) and laid out according to the journal’s own in-house templates, yielding a final PDF copy that can then be transmitted electronically to be printed and bound. Because the journal is going to produce a PDF copy anyway for its own purposes, it takes little extra effort to post the PDF online, and voilà, you’ve gone open-access. [...]

]]> By: C.E. Petit http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/infolaw/2006/08/07/the-microsoft-lock-in-at-top-law-reviews/comment-page-1/#comment-714 C.E. Petit Sat, 12 Aug 2006 15:53:14 +0000 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/infolaw/2006/08/07/the-microsoft-lock-in-at-top-law-revi#comment-714 One way to force WordPerfect to produce a "good" Word document is to save the document as Rich Text Format, but rename it to ".doc" to satisfy the fussbudgets who don't know that RTF is a format actually native to Word. That also works for those writing on Macintoshes using virtually any software (just trust me—those "smart quotes" look pretty dumb on a Windows machine!). As an aside, RTF is a better choice than .doc for another reason: viral macros almost always die in the transfer, so at least one won't infect someone else's machine. The downside is that RTF files default to horribly oversizing graphics, but that shouldn't matter all that much in a law journal article! One way to force WordPerfect to produce a “good” Word document is to save the document as Rich Text Format, but rename it to “.doc” to satisfy the fussbudgets who don’t know that RTF is a format actually native to Word. That also works for those writing on Macintoshes using virtually any software (just trust me—those “smart quotes” look pretty dumb on a Windows machine!).

As an aside, RTF is a better choice than .doc for another reason: viral macros almost always die in the transfer, so at least one won’t infect someone else’s machine. The downside is that RTF files default to horribly oversizing graphics, but that shouldn’t matter all that much in a law journal article!

]]> By: Luis http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/infolaw/2006/08/07/the-microsoft-lock-in-at-top-law-reviews/comment-page-1/#comment-706 Luis Tue, 08 Aug 2006 22:08:42 +0000 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/infolaw/2006/08/07/the-microsoft-lock-in-at-top-law-revi#comment-706 Oh, I'd hardly argue for Writely as a tool for writing academic documents right now, and it might never be, given Google's penchant for simplicity over power. But as a potential indication of the emergence of a true ODF-based ecosystem, and hence beneficial competition, I think Writely could be very important. I've not done much Abiword->Word export, so I can't speak to that. Ask Dom Lachowicz- I think he wrote that export :) Hopefully I can be a more effective advocate for openness at Columbia than I was at Harvard, but I'm not optimistic- Columbia IT seems even more of a mess than Harvard's, from what I can see. Oh, I’d hardly argue for Writely as a tool for writing academic documents right now, and it might never be, given Google’s penchant for simplicity over power. But as a potential indication of the emergence of a true ODF-based ecosystem, and hence beneficial competition, I think Writely could be very important. I’ve not done much Abiword->Word export, so I can’t speak to that. Ask Dom Lachowicz- I think he wrote that export :)

Hopefully I can be a more effective advocate for openness at Columbia than I was at Harvard, but I’m not optimistic- Columbia IT seems even more of a mess than Harvard’s, from what I can see.

]]> By: Tim Armstrong http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/infolaw/2006/08/07/the-microsoft-lock-in-at-top-law-reviews/comment-page-1/#comment-705 Tim Armstrong Tue, 08 Aug 2006 18:33:52 +0000 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/infolaw/2006/08/07/the-microsoft-lock-in-at-top-law-revi#comment-705 I like the idea of Writely a lot, and let's hope that it will blossom under the Google umbrella into something truly useful for academic writing, but it's very far from being there at this point; style sheets are nonexistent and maintaining consistent formatting throughout a document is a needless chore. Furthermore, Writely lacks the one thing legal writers truly can't do without, and that's the ability to create footnotes. I have Abiword installed on my laptop, since it's far more lightweight than OpenOffice, but have to admit to not having played around with it very much as yet -- any opinions on how its Word export filters stack up to OpenOffice's? Luis, we are all counting on you to be an effective advocate for open standards at your new institution, so study hard. :-) I like the idea of Writely a lot, and let’s hope that it will blossom under the Google umbrella into something truly useful for academic writing, but it’s very far from being there at this point; style sheets are nonexistent and maintaining consistent formatting throughout a document is a needless chore. Furthermore, Writely lacks the one thing legal writers truly can’t do without, and that’s the ability to create footnotes. I have Abiword installed on my laptop, since it’s far more lightweight than OpenOffice, but have to admit to not having played around with it very much as yet — any opinions on how its Word export filters stack up to OpenOffice’s? Luis, we are all counting on you to be an effective advocate for open standards at your new institution, so study hard. :-)

]]> By: Luis http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/infolaw/2006/08/07/the-microsoft-lock-in-at-top-law-reviews/comment-page-1/#comment-702 Luis Tue, 08 Aug 2006 12:18:19 +0000 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/infolaw/2006/08/07/the-microsoft-lock-in-at-top-law-revi#comment-702 (applause for bringing this subject up) I frankly am not a big fan of Open Office, so I was hesitant to push it at Berkman, even though walking our own talk seemed important. I'm glad to see that more and more options (Notes, <a href="http://www.writely.com/" rel="nofollow">writely</a>, and the cross-platform <a href="http://www.abisource.com/" rel="nofollow">Abiword</a>) are supporting it- hopefully one of them will prove usable and powerful enough for the legal community. I'm not holding my breath about OOo becoming that tool, for better or for worse, and I think that definitely hinders the adoption of ODF at this point. (applause for bringing this subject up)

I frankly am not a big fan of Open Office, so I was hesitant to push it at Berkman, even though walking our own talk seemed important. I’m glad to see that more and more options (Notes, writely, and the cross-platform Abiword) are supporting it- hopefully one of them will prove usable and powerful enough for the legal community. I’m not holding my breath about OOo becoming that tool, for better or for worse, and I think that definitely hinders the adoption of ODF at this point.

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