I know, it is part of Open Office, but like most open source alternatives to current Microsoft applications, it sucks. It will take a while for open source software to be as good as or better than licensed software, and even then, the licensed stuff will always be more 'polished' and 'professional'. Microsoft Office will never go away, but when the Open Source alternatives are good enough, basically only professionals will use it.

I like it, but then I rarely use either.

In general, I really don't like Open Office.

Here is the story behind my dislike, at my old job, we had a computer technician who was really, really dumb. He noticed that all of the computers in the lab were running a copy of Microsoft Office that had been licensed to one computer. (What had in fact happened was that when the computers were initially installed, the tech guy of the time installed everything on to one computer, and then copied that configuration on to all the other computers. This was his way of saving himself the work of having install the same program over and over again, and of insuring that all the computers had exactly the same configuration.) He concluded, falsely, that this meant that we only had a license for one computer, so he uninstalled Microsoft Office from all the other computers in the lab, and installed Open Office in the rest. He insisted that Open Office was the same as Microsoft Office, was compatible with Microsoft Office, was easier than Microsoft Office and could do everything that Microsoft Office could do.

Basically, no one was able to make the stupid program work. There was only one guy, who was himself something of a fanatical Linux user, who was able to make it work, the rest of us just took turns using the computer with Microsoft Office.

After that tech guy got fired, we demanded that Microsoft Office be re-installed on all the machines, which it was. We tried Open Office, and it failed its trial run. It just isn't good enough.

How long ago was this? I've found OO 2.0 to be quite usable. Some of the functionality is different from MS Office but one can accomplish the same tasks with it.

That's what I was going to say, with the caveats that I primarily use Writer and that I was never a Microsoft "power user" to begin with, given that in my previous work, I mostly was working with professional page layout software. My demands on a spreadsheet and presentation software are pretty minimal.

Spring 2007

No doubt Open Office is quite useful for people who don't use the more advanced features of Excel or Word, but for people like me who use these programs for our jobs, and who do all sorts of fancy stuff with them, like create ridiculously convoluted macros to compute our grades or other bizarre operations that were never intended by the designers (like making an Excel spreadsheet that can compute the Galois group of a given polynomial, yes I do indeed know someone who has done exactly that) Open Office just isn't good enough.

Thanks for all the input, Doom - I have the on-line resources bookmarked and I expect I'll use them. While having the scripture online is remarkable for searches and other advanced features, I still can't get into just "reading" on the web (at least, reading anything that is large). Even in school I still need to have a book to carry around and get comfortable with (plus, I learn best by taking handwritten notes, then transcribing them on the computer - copy and paste robs me of that).

I work in IT, and we have a subscription to O'Reilly Press' entire catalog of books online. While it's great for searches and solutions for minor problems, it's really difficult to sit and read a 400 page book (even with a Tablet PC, which does make it easier).

All of this discussion about Open Source Bibles has me curious about the idea of "independent" translations - perhaps my questions belong in a separate thread... my first reaction is "What's the Magisterium for if not to verify and approve of biblical translations?" Don't we have 500 years of evidence that willy nilly translations lead to trouble?

I ended up finding my "dream" Bible - it's actually better than I had wished for. It's a NRSV Catholic Edition "XL Format" - softcover but with a leather binding (I hate the way the regular square bound bibles fall apart, that kind of binding is just not meant for large books) - and it's "widescreen" format (wider than it is tall) - tons of margins, and two column text. Nice thick pages that I can comfortably highlight without ruining the thing - I highly, highly reccomend this Bible for anyone looking. I couldn't have found it online (needed to touch and feel), but now that I know the edition, here's a link (Harper Catholic Bible NRSV XL Catholic Edition)

I also notice that Amazon is selling this Bible for $15 less than it was in the store :roll:

Approval of a Bible translation, or of any book whatever, is not a magesterial act, if it was, we would have major problems on our hands with a myriad of explicit and direct contradictions.

Okay, I understand. I assumed as the teaching authority that would be a function of the magesterium. With that void, the alternative surely isn't "follow your own translation" (I am certain this isn't what you are advocating). How is that middle derived?

The Magisterium is the teaching office of the Church and has been entrusted to the bishops as the successors of the Apostles. While it is rare for a Bible translation to be approved as an act of the Extraordinary Magisterium (a decree of the Pope or of an Ecumenical Council), approval of Bible translations is done by bishops and is an act of the Magisterium.

No it isn't, if it were, then it is hard to see how one could reasonably deny that the Gates of Hell have prevailed and the Church is in explicit apostasy and that the Antichrist is now in charge of the Church, given some of the books that have been approved by Church authorities over the years (Anthony Wilhelm's 'Christ Among Us', The Dutch Catechism, the study notes in the NAB etc etc etc) and the myriad of contradiction, reversals etc. Asserting that these kinds of acts are official acts of the magesterium of the Church sounds like a great argument against infallibility frankly, or at least a great argument for something like sedavacantism.

The Church is not a mind controlling cult like the Jehovah's Witnesses or the People's Temple, she doesn't make up a long list of all the books you are allowed to read and then smack you upside the head every time you deviate from it. Intelligent, knowledgeable Catholics are allowed to (cautiously) use whatever resource is available, and always have been.

Doom, not all acts of the Magisterium are infallible or irrevocable. An imprimatur is an act of a bishop as teacher, stating that a book, let it be a bible translation, is free from error in faith and morals. That is an act of the authentic magisterium, but it is not infallible.

The Dutch Catechism originally had no imprimatur. After publishing a supplementum that retracted its errors (in the very back) it got an imprimatur. Then that was revoked by JPII. I have burned numerous editions of the Dutch Catechism. Two are common in English. One with a blue dust cover and one with a red. The red one is slightly new and has one of those advertisement bubbles on it that says "Now with an imprimatur!". They realised that people saw it was bad.

The Index of Forbidden Books meant that intelligent Catholic had to get permission from their ordinary first before reading a banned book (in certain institutions study of them was permitted a priori)

Now it is a matter for the individual to decide, based on guidance from the Church whether it is safe for him to read a bad book.

Don't forget Christ Among Us, also proud owner of an imprimatur revoked by order of the Holy See.

The authentic Magisterium, which is that exercised by the bishops, is not infallible.

Right, the Church never had a "white list" of books but only a black list. And as then-Card. Ratzinger stated, the Index retains its moral force.

I'm not sure I suggested that I expected mind control.

Your response assumes intelligent and knowedgeable Catholics. More than most aren't, it seems. So the magisterium has no business approving or disapproving of translations, and it's up to Joe Catholic to decide? This seems... contrary to the point of a teaching authority, doesn't it? I'm not expecting a black list. I'm surprised to hear that the Chuch has no interest in guidance on this matter - I would say I've seen implicit evidence to the contrary.

The fact that translations are given imprimaturs shows that the Church has a lot of interest in this matter.

It is rare that a translation will be approved for the whole Church, but this was done with the Sixto-Clementine Vulgate and the Sixtine Septuagint.

On a related note - aside from missing the deuterocanonical books, is there anything specifically undesirable about the NIV or King James Versions? I really liked the NIV, but the NRSV seems pretty similar.