Open Office vs MS Office, is Open Office worth it?

Kippa

Senior member
Dec 12, 2011
392
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I am thinking of getting a new rig in a few months and am wondering about trying Open Office instead of MS Office and want to know it if is worth it?

I don't really want to shell out money for a new copy of MS Office, but want to know if Open Office is really a good alternative. If you use Open Office how do you find it?
 

theevilsharpie

Platinum Member
Nov 2, 2009
2,322
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81
LibreOffice (oepnOffice's successor) is reasonably decent, and I've found it to meet my needs as far as document handling goes as long as you're dealing with ODF file formats. If you have to modify and share Microsoft Office formats, you'd be better off with Office.
 

lxskllr

No Lifer
Nov 30, 2004
57,981
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I'm a light user of office apps, and I prefer LibreOffice to MS Office. I can do everything I want with both packages, so LibreOffice wins by having libre code.
 

Berryracer

Platinum Member
Oct 4, 2006
2,779
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I'm a light user of office apps, and I prefer LibreOffice to MS Office. I can do everything I want with both packages, so LibreOffice wins by having libre code.

does L!bre off!ce have some sort of mail client like Outlook?
 

lxskllr

No Lifer
Nov 30, 2004
57,981
8,219
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does L!bre off!ce have some sort of mail client like Outlook?

No, it just has the basic office stuff. Thunderbird would be the replacement for Outlook, but I don't think it works as well with Active Directory. Maybe it doesn't work at all. I'm not familiar with AD.
 

mikeymikec

Lifer
May 19, 2011
18,602
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I have both MSO2k7 and LibreOffice. I prefer the latter, and as a light user of office apps, it works for me. For customers, I normally set its default document save formats to MSO.

It cold starts on XP like a one-legged dog. It's fine on newer versions of Windows though.
 

taq8ojh

Golden Member
Mar 2, 2013
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My wife does a LOT of Excel stuff, and since Office is expensive as hell, I suggested to give Openoffice a shot. She gave up after a week.
 

mikeymikec

Lifer
May 19, 2011
18,602
11,298
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My wife does a LOT of Excel stuff, and since Office is expensive as hell, I suggested to give Openoffice a shot. She gave up after a week.

Because....? She's lazy? Someone bought her MSO? She didn't like the default colour scheme or she's mad for ribbons? Or because something didn't work properly, or how she was used to it? And how long ago was this?

Your post was about as useful as "I read a book once; it was green".

- edit - It would also be helpful if the OP said what he intended to use the office program for, then people can answer "yes, LO does that fine", "I had trouble with that feature", or "No, it doesn't work reliably".
 
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taq8ojh

Golden Member
Mar 2, 2013
1,296
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Because....? She's lazy? Someone bought her MSO? She didn't like the default colour scheme or she's mad for ribbons? Or because something didn't work properly, or how she was used to it? And how long ago was this?

Your post was about as useful as "I read a book once; it was green".

- edit - It would also be helpful if the OP said what he intended to use the office program for, then people can answer "yes, LO does that fine", I had trouble with that feature", or "No, it doesn't work reliably".
I don't like your offensive attitude. You better start behaving a bit, allright?

I had to ask her because I forgot the specifics.
Lots of Excel functions missing, absolute incompatibility between the Excel and Word clones (impossible to copypaste data between the two).
 

Paul Klier

Junior Member
Jun 24, 2013
2
0
0
[FONT=&quot]Besides taking a lot your money every couple of years, what exactly has Microsoft done for you lately? Other than complicate your life with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and an endless stream of features that are seldom used.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]LibreOffice is free, but is it an adequate alternative? Not really. I can't get familiar with it's geeky interface, it's slow processing speed, and, above all, it's awful compatibility with Microsoft Office: Tables, figure captions and formatting like superscript and subscript are really messed up between MS Office and Libreoffice and vice versa., headers and footers have also created issues for me at times. It doesn't open password-protected files properly, and produces a lot of screwed-up layout generally.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Better try out SoftMaker Office, it's not free, but cheap ($69 for three licenses, including free support), and it will save your nerves. TextNMaker, PlanMaker, and SoftMaker Presentations display your Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files faithfully, it's speed is awesome, and it has a comfortable UI. Have a look at the website of SoftMaker and download the free 30-day trial version, compare it with LibreOffice, and you'll know what I mean.[/FONT]
 

nemesismk2

Diamond Member
Sep 29, 2001
4,810
5
76
www.ultimatehardware.net
I use Open Office 2013 which has Word, Excel, Power Point and Access. It cost me only £1.50 so spent the money saved on a few extra software like Dreamweaver Web Page Design. Yes i've used Microsoft Office before becausei have ECDL, RSA Desktop Publishing Stage 2, OCR New Clait and Clait Plus qualifications. I don't miss using Microsoft Office one because i can still do everything but at a much cheaper cost using Open Office 2013.
 
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Fardringle

Diamond Member
Oct 23, 2000
9,197
763
126
It really depends what you are doing. If you are just making documents for your own use/printing, then Open Office works great. If you are working in a business environment, or working WITH businesses and need to share documents with them, then you need MS Office since, despite its claims otherwise, Open Office really isn't fully compatible with MS Office files.
 

nemesismk2

Diamond Member
Sep 29, 2001
4,810
5
76
www.ultimatehardware.net
It really depends what you are doing. If you are just making documents for your own use/printing, then Open Office works great. If you are working in a business environment, or working WITH businesses and need to share documents with them, then you need MS Office since, despite its claims otherwise, Open Office really isn't fully compatible with MS Office files.

I do all of the IT for 14 different businesses and i've never run into any problems (touch wood) so far. I started using Microsoft Office in 1991 while i was getting my Masters Degree at University.
 

crashtestdummy

Platinum Member
Feb 18, 2010
2,893
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0
LibreOffice Writer is quite excellent, and if you're only making documents that you're printing for others (or sending as a PDF), it does everything you could want. It's equation editor is also substantially better than Word's. If you work in a collaborative environment, though, I'd suck it up and get Office. You're not going to be able to get your coworkers/company to switch (unless you're the boss), and interoperability still leaves something to be desired.

Calc has the above interoperability problems (most frustrating is that some of the commands are simply different), and is also not quite as full-featured as Excel is.

Most of these problems come from Microsoft's dominance. I work in academics, and even there most journals require me to submit in word format. I wouldn't trust the formatting enough in Libreoffice to sumbit a paper blindly in docx format. It's frustrating, but the reality we live in.
 

mikeymikec

Lifer
May 19, 2011
18,602
11,298
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When setting up LO for customers, I normally go for Office 97-2003 document formats (.doc, .xls, .ppt). I know that LO can open later documents but TBH most people don't get anything extra out of the later document formats and interoperability is good.

I wouldn't rely on Office 2007 (probably later as well)'s ODF support, especially since they didn't even bother to include ODF spreadsheet formulae when opening an ODF spreadsheet (yet the formulae are properly calculated, so it was more of a crude finger gesture at the OD Foundation).

As for submitting documents blindly, if formatting is that important, one should bear in mind that document formatting across various versions of Microsoft Word isn't 100% consistent (in documents with not particularly advanced formatting either, the sort of thing one might encounter on a CV), let alone between competing office apps.

I've had some customers reject LO. I'd say the primary negative reaction is "erm, this isn't Microsoft Office, so I'm going to reject it without looking any further" (ie. people are willing to cut MS slack if they choose to throw out the UI and start again, but a competing package has to be *identical* at all times), followed by not liking actual UI differences, followed by one or two who either experienced missing features or incorrect formatting of MSO documents.

I don't like your offensive attitude. You better start behaving a bit, allright?

Please forgive me, I wouldn't know *what* I'd do if you didn't! <cowers in corner>
 
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oynaz

Platinum Member
May 14, 2003
2,448
2
81
I use Libre Office at home, and MS Office at work. I actually have a MS Office licence for home use, but I haven't bothered to use it yet.
I find that Libre Office is perfectly adequate for my home use needs, so I definitely recommand giving it a try.

My wife, who is a heavy Excel user, finds Libre Office Calc inadequate for her needs, though.

BTW, compatibility has vastly improved these past 6 months.