does anyone use openoffice?

[OBLAMA2009]

is anyone using openoffice and if so what are the pros and cons. also if you install and then uninstall it, does it mess up your operating system install?

 

[OBLAMA2009]

uh does anyone here use windows vista or windows xp?????????

 

[MrChad]

I don't use it personally, but there have been a number of threads on the topic.

The main advantage is that it offers most, if not all, of the features of Microsoft Office but its free. It can read and write Office documents reasonably well, or you can use the open standard format they offer.

The disadvantages are that it's not 100 percent compatible with all Office documents and that has performance problems for some people.

It can't hurt to try out, and I don't see why it would mess up your OS install.

 

[BlueWeasel]

PortableApps.com

If you're concerned about it screwing up your install, just download the full portable version, extract it, and run it. No install required and just delete the folder from your HD or USB drive.

 

[Soundmanred]

anyone here use ipod or free ps3

 

[George P Burdell]

While OO is good to throw on a USB drive, it cannot completely replace Office. While OO can be compared to Office 2003 and older for basic functions, it can't even begin to hold up a candle to Office 2007.

 

[lxskllr]

Office is office to me. It doesn't matter whether it's OO or MS. I'm not a big office app user, so anything that does the job on even a basic level works for me.

 

[Fox5]

Originally posted by: George P Burdell
While OO is good to throw on a USB drive, it cannot completely replace Office. While OO can be compared to Office 2003 and older for basic functions, it can't even begin to hold up a candle to Office 2007.

I'd say for most users, OO is good enough.
Maybe it lacks advanced features, but it has some scripting features and stuff that isn't available in MS Office either.
It's free, mostly compatible, and pretty good. Only real issue I've had is formatting doesn't always transfer exactly, especially from MS documents with active elements. Formulas don't transfer at all.

 

[Rottie]

I have used OpenOffice on my trusty old laptop last year at work and it worked very well loaded reasonable fast....easy to use...friendly interface like Office 2003. It is free. Oh yes I dont need any advance features to meet my need so OpenOffice is good enough for me but now I got a new notebook it comes with Office 2007 I am not looking to install OpenOffice over Office 2007 anytime soon.

 

[randomlinh]

it's a decent free alternative for folks who are looking to do basic word processing and spreadsheets.

 

[obl1v1ous]

i like it, it's very clean compared to microsoft office, although it lacks features, but i never use those anyway.

 

[Sylvanas]

I never knew about OpenOffice before this thread, just downloaded it and it seems great- glad I found this .

 

[Ratman6161]

Originally posted by: George P Burdell
While OO is good to throw on a USB drive, it cannot completely replace Office. While OO can be compared to Office 2003 and older for basic functions, it can't even begin to hold up a candle to Office 2007.

Please. I'm not a Microsoft basher. In fact I have made my living using and developing applications for Windows for several years. But Office 2007 is an abortion. The biggest reason people stick with MS Office is organizational inertia and the fact that we could move from one version to the next without having to re-train our employees. Before you turn on the flame throwers - I have users (as many organizations do) who panic if an icon is in a different location. You wouldn't think that going from Outlook 2002 to Outlook 2003 would have been a big deal right? But for these people it was traumatic. Now imagine people like that suddenly having Office 2007 dropped on them. I'd spend the next year doing nothing but holding their hands. So even though I have a volume license agreement and could do the 2003 - 2007 upgrade for free, I have elected not to do so. And when our license agreement comes up for renewal in January 2009, I'm seriously considering not buying software assurance for Office.

The Office 2003 - 2007 migration is just too much of a change and negates MS's advantage (i.e. the advantage being that we already know the product). Going from Office 2003 to Open Office will actually be an easier upgrade (or sideways move anyway) than going to Office 2007. And wen it comes right down to it, its been years since any of the Office Suites has had a new "feature" that really made any difference to us or the way we work.

So the long and the short of it is that I'm seeing less and less reason to pay for office applications.

 

[Megatomic]

I use Neooffice on my Macbook. It's based on Openoffice and it works great for me. My resume, created in Office2003, opened perfectly in Neooffice, no formatting issues. And after modifying it in Neooffice it opens perfectly in Office2003.

Openoffice 3 is in beta and I'll probably switch to it when it goes gold later this year. I'm pretty psyched about it too, because it's a native Cocoa app in Mac OS X. :beer:

 

[lxskllr]

On a related note... I just built an office computer for one of our guys, and I elected to use OO instead of MS Office. No one here is an advanced Office user, so I thought now would be a good time to switch since there's going to be a learning curve with either Office07 or OO.

The actual application went off without a hitch, but one thing needed is the MS Office Document Imaging Tool(or named something like that) We have a Xerox large format printer(for blue prints), and none of the imaging programs I've tried will print a .tif to scale. If I remember right Irfanview would print to scale, but there were performance and usability issues viewing the images on screen. I've tried several imaging programs, and none will work correctly.

I have a hard time believing MS is the only company that can make a decent imaging program. Do any of you have suggestions for something to try? Money isn't a problem unless it starts getting close to what MS Office costs, then there isn't a point in bothering with it.

Oh, one other thing... There has to be a free trial or something so it can be tested with our equipment. I don't want to buy some software, then find out it doesn't meet our needs.