Openoffice

[kenstauffer]

I am seeking opinions about OpenOffice for windows?

I am getting kind of annoyed with MSOffice (especially Word). Also MSOffice is very expensive, I am still running MSOFFICE 1998! And I do not want to spend mucho dollars to upgrade. This OpenOffice sounds really neat, as it is totally free. So anybody try it?

I am most interested in experiences with running on windows XP, and how easy the tools are, and how well they inter-operate with Word files.

Here's the website: www.openoffice.org

Thank's in advance.

[andrew]

OpenOffice.org runs fine on Windows XP. It's easy to use, but it takes a little time to adjust to its user interface. The world of office productivity is so heavily dominated by the Microsoft Office suite, that at times you feel OpenOffice.org's menubars and toolbars are counterintuitive simply because they're not identical to Microsoft's.

It's compatible with Word documents and Excel spreadsheets, so if you're willing to adjust to a new program I say use it. I think it's a great piece of software, and for the price it can't be beat.

[A.West]

I've fooled around with it, and it looks ok. It's loaded on my computer, and it runs, but have only needed it for a couple things. It runs in Java so it seems a little slower than my MS office software.

Give it a try - if it meets your needs then stick with it, if it doesn't, then go back and buy Office. If I were buying a new computer and needed a new office package, I would definitely try to move totally to openoffice rather than pay the $150 to $300 that various versions of MS Office cost. But I haven't needed to make that plunge yet. For some specialized work, I would probably need Excel, because 3rd party add-ins probably don't work with openoffice. But if it was just simple budgeting, memo's, etc., I'd probably use openoffice and then gmail as my microsoft outlook email substitute.

In the near future openoffice should have a working database program matching MS Access, which is quite expensive.

Incidentally, I've also been doing a lot of statistical analysis with another piece of open source software over the past year, R (rproject.org), the quality of which is in some respects better than various $1000+ software packages (though ease of use isn't).

[Hal]

I've hated every version of MS Office since Office 97. Microsoft had a good product back then, until they realised that in order to keep making money from it, they had to somehow justify rereleasing it every few years. This led to the continual introduction of thousands of pointless yet new 'features', resulting in a bloated monstrosity of a product which really isnt at all that better than the one they had 8 years ago (but hey, you'd better upgrade anyway unless you want file incompatibility problems!). Whats the install size of MS Office these days anyway, 2 gig or something similarly ludicrous?

Open Office (or KDE Office which is also nice) is certainly a preferable option assuming you can adapt to the interface. Good luck with it.

Edited June 15, 2005 by Hal

[DavidV]

I would recommend OpenOffice to anyone who cannot afford Microsoft Office and/or is using a copy prior to Office XP. OpenOffice’s Writer has some cool features that Word lacks, but I frequently use the thesaurus and dictionary features of Word, and their lack made me switch back.

It runs in Java so it seems a little slower than my MS office software.

OpenOffice is written in C/C++, not Java. There are some optional Java components, but they are not part of the core suite. I believe the slower speed has more to do with the relatively smaller budget and time frame that the developers had to optimize performance.

[scottkursk]

As long as you don't need to use, view, import, export, or otherwise do anything associated with Powerpoint OpenOffice is really quite nice. I personally prefer using WordPerfect myself but that is just out the fact I've used it since I started using it since I was running an 8086 and ProDos. I really use thesaurus/dictionary as well and WordPerfect has it and as I remember the last build I used it didn't have a robust feature.

I'm forced at work to use MS Office and I occasionally run into the odd import/export problem with stuff from home but for the most part, as long as you avoid Powerpoint like the productivity plague it is, you'll do just fine.

Actually, what I use the most is Excel. Since it's mostly numbers, it translates the best when you need to email the occasional file to a client/co-worker. So get used to saving everything into .doc and .xl format so that it's easier for everyone you deal with to read. Sometimes, no matter how hard you try, they have something cutesy in the way they format their .doc that just won't translate and makes it darn near unreadable when you go to open it. Again, forget about .ppt like a drunken encounter with a coworker at a Christmas party.

So for the occasional bit of aggravation, I'd say yes it's worth it.

[kenstauffer]

I loaded it earlier today, and I am testing driving it. Thanks everyone for advice/feedback on this topic. My first impression is similar to my first impression using Firefox. I am excited and impressed with the smoothness of the tools, and for free you cannot go wrong. The drawing program is a huge plus in my job (technical diagrams), and VISIO was always out my price range (unless I ripped off a copy from a client). The few word documents I regularly use seem to load fine and edit fine. The spread sheet also looks nice.

Of course, since I am upgrading from Office98, it doesn't take much to impress me. The funny thing is, on client sites their latest/greatest edition of Office looks pretty much like my 7 year old version. Part of the reason is (as mentioned earlier) that MS has focused on all kinds of "groupware", mega-features, instead of just making the core programs easy to use. Again, this very much reminds me of how Firefox has been able to upstage Internet Explorer.

Also, the download was a 65MB zip file. Installation was very easy and straight forward. When I launch the tools I don't get the feeling it is taking over my computer, unlike how I feel when I run the Office suite.

And of course its completely free. Cheers all from a happy hacker.

[A.West]

Good luck with OpenOffice.

This brings to mind my extreme dislike of Microsoft's current advertising campaign for Office which ridicules current customers of its older software as "dinosaurs". I consider the ads to be focused on negativite emotions and insinuate that you'll be an outcast from peers if you don't buy the latest version of Office. I think it will backfire on MSFT, and implies that they don't think a positive educational/informative campaign is the most effective way to sell their new software.

[scottkursk]

This brings to mind my extreme dislike of Microsoft's current advertising campaign for Office which ridicules current customers of its older software as "dinosaurs". I consider the ads to be focused on negativite emotions and insinuate that you'll be an outcast from peers if you don't buy the latest version of Office.

Actually MS has always been a company that constantly bothers me with their ads. Their latest ads really chap my hides in that it not only insults their customers but themselves. Basically, they are saying if you found value in their previous products and continue to use them and don't need to change you are a moronic dinosaur that will die off. It goes beyond saying our old product was good but this is better. The dino ads reach a new level of something; of what I'm not quite sure.

Mind you, it also plays directly into the criticism, quite rightly to be honest, that Microsoft will deliberately make slight changes in new version of software that effectively disable use of previous version of software. Thereby forcing old versions to go the way of the dinosaur. That is why Netcraft I think it was just released a stat that over 50% of the desktops are still using MS2k and haven't started using XP because they don't want to be forced down the upgrade path license wise again like they did five and ten years ago.

[Prometheus98876]

I use OpenOffice quite extensively. As a university student whom is studying alot of Mathematics, I find the Maths component quite useful.

As others have said, it is obviously much cheaper than Microsoft Office products and in most cases about as functional. It handles mst Office documents correctly as well, which is nice. It is updated fairly regularly by good software developers and gains the benefits of being Open Source (ie it is easier to customise and bebug the code).

And I am not too sure about this because I have not needed support for this product, but I would think that getting support for OpenOffice is easier in at least some countries

around the world. Here in New Zealand for instance, getting support from Microsoft on their products is not a pleasent exprience, or a reasonably timely one, even online.

[khaight]

My experience with OpenOffice is that it is at least as compatible with Microsoft Office as the various versions of MS Office are with each other. Which is more than adequate unless you have a large number of very complex MS Office documents you need to convert.

I've successfully used OpenOffice Impress (the Powerpoint analog) to both view and create (from Powerpoint templates)Powerpoint presentations. I've done this a number of times at work and have not received any complaints about interoperability.

It's definitely worth taking for a test drive. Since it's free, if you decide you don't like it you can always take it back for a refund. So to speak.

[Prometheus98876]

I thought I should let the fans of OpenOffice know that version 2 Final is out. I am quite impressed with it, although apart from minor changes and a speed boost, it seems pretty similar to the 1.94 Beta so far. It is good to see a decent Database [the Base] component in OpenOffice, instead of such features hidden in Calc.

Anyway, go and take a look for yourself, here is the link:

OpenOffice download

[softwareNerd]

Recently, an MS-Office update asked me to put my MS-Office disks in the drive. After searching the house -- where the heck did they go -- I decided to try OpenOffice. I checked out the word-processor and spreadsheet by opening some of my more complicated docs/sheets in them. I was quite impressed by the compatibility. On the surface, at least, compatibility appears high. These things always have little "gotchas" lurking. However, at this point I'd say the following for sure: if you have to pay extra for MS-Office on a new machine, then get OpenOffice instead.

[Prometheus98876]

Recently, an MS-Office update asked me to put my MS-Office disks in the drive. After searching the house -- where the heck did they go -- I decided to try OpenOffice. I checked out the word-processor and spreadsheet by opening some of my more complicated docs/sheets in them. I was quite impressed by the compatibility. On the surface, at least, compatibility appears high. These things always have little "gotchas" lurking. However, at this point I'd say the following for sure: if you have to pay extra for MS-Office on a new machine, then get OpenOffice instead.

I have never had any compability problems with the Windows version so far, although the Linux version seems a little more buggy in this regard (although most of the time it does quite well). I would definetely suggest OpenOffice to anyone whom A)Could not afford Word, as you say and Anyone who needs not need the extra features such as voic-recoginiton that Word provides.

Word is better, but until I have more money OpenOffice wins at the moment as it is free .

[scottkursk]

I had some problems with my laptop failing to recognize my wireless card and having other assorted windows related issues. So I decided to try Linux again. I got Ubuntu about 3 weeks ago and have been using it full time since. I also installed OpenOffice and decided to give it a whirl full time.

As a WordPerfect bigot, I must say I'm really impressed by OpenOffice. The thing I was afraid of was Impress and how it would interop with PowerPoint. I've only had 1 problem in the 3 weeks and probably 100 slide shows I opened. The problem was with some of the sounds of a transition I previously used. It got a bit garbled. The only thing I don't really like is the thing I use the most which is Calc. I really love Quattro Pro over Excel and prefer it because of some really minor formatting things.

I must retract my previous comment about avoiding OO if you used PowerPoint at work. I seriously think I could use it at work without problems. For home use, absolutely I'd recomend OO. Though I still stand by my earlier statement that if you can help it, avoid PowerPoint like a drunken encounter with a coworker. The more I use it and view other .ppt's, the more I come to think it's a productivity killer.

[softwareNerd]

After trying to use Open Office's Spreadsheet for a few month's now [my new system came with Word but not Excel], I've given up. I can live with the fact that it starts-up slowly. However, for any serious sized spreadhseet: even 200 rows with a couple of graphs, it is too slow to be usable. I find myself saving my file to my shared drive, and using my older computer (with Excel). There's no comparison in speed.

[DavidV]

I've been using Office 2007 for about a month. The new UI is sweet.

Get it here:

http://www.microsoft.com/office/preview/ui/video.mspx

[scottkursk]

I've been using Office 2007 for about a month. The new UI is sweet.

Get it here:

http://www.microsoft.com/office/preview/ui/video.mspx

We just got this pushed to our desktops at work. It took a bit of adjustment and complaints from staffers about the UI but once you start using it, it really works. That is "it works" in the Macintosh "everything is where is should be and you don't have to think about it" school of design. I am impressed. We REALLY use the callendering and contact info and it's also a good bit of an improvement. Excel is still Excel. Haven't used word enough to notice any change.

Still, I think it's a realization from MS that the way we communicate has changed. We used to type letters/documents and really needed Word to be the be all end all. Now, we just use Outlook for just about everything. Well, short of doing a resume or fax cover sheet that is. So, it makes sense that they are really pushing alot of improvements onto Outlook vs. the other apps.

I still use OpenOffice at home but literally never use an email client per se. I just use gmail or yahoo. I can't remember the last time I used an actual full blown email client outside of work.

[softwareNerd]

...Office 2007...The new UI is sweet. Get it here: http://www.microsoft.com/office/preview/ui/video.mspx

Thanks, I did.

The taller tool-bar is not what I'd have expected, but it might make sense with the proliferation of options. Nice looking though.