OpenOffice?

[PamJ]

TheSpirit mentioned using something called OpenOffice when replying to something in another thread. I started to post this there, but I didn't want to pull that thread too much OT.

I've never heard of this before.  I went to their site, and it looks interesting.  Can anyone who has used this tell me more about it, possibly comparing it to Word, WordPerfect, Works, etc?

Thanks!

Pam

[CharleyO]

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I have been using OpenOffice for at least 4 years. Works very good for me.   


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[alanrf]

It is (no surprise) a rather large download.  It is also a great concept.   

I admit it is about 18 months since I last tried it. 

I gave up up on it when it completely lacked any simple way to print an envelope (that either I or my assistant could get to work) especially compared with the simplicity of MS Word.

One of the folks I support gave up on it when its equivalent of Excel could not work with his personal tax spread sheets and the help forums admitted that OpenOffice was not up to speed with some of the MS functions and could not provide a work around.

It may well have improved since then and, one of these days, I will give it another try.  But if it cannot provide an easy way to print an envelope ... it has an uphill climb and isn't going to get too much traction.

[TheSpirit]

It is (no surprise) a rather large download.  It is also a great concept.   

I admit it is about 18 months since I last tried it. 

I gave up up on it when it completely lacked any simple way to print an envelope (that either I or my assistant could get to work) especially compared with the simplicity of MS Word.

One of the folks I support gave up on it when its equivalent of Excel could not work with his personal tax spread sheets and the help forums admitted that OpenOffice was not up to speed with some of the MS functions and could not provide a work around.

It may well have improved since then and, one of these days, I will give it another try.  But if it cannot provide an easy way to print an envelope ... it has an uphill climb and isn't going to get too much traction.

Yes, I had the same reservations, but the latest release 3.0 solved my open issues with complicated spreadsheets, so today I'm not aware of any incompatibilities, and the reviews are quite positive too, IIRC.

[Rafel]

I've got Office 07 Ultimate(i ownded it for 52€ because there was an offer for students) for my personal use and OO because in the high school where i teach uses OO. I must to say, i am very confortable working with it.
I think OO is a very good office suite.

[OrangeCrate]

I've used OOo for over five years. In fact, I converted to it before I switched completely to Linux. You can change the defaults to Microsoft documents, and if you do, most users, after a very quick learning curve, would probably prefer it to Office. Though I could certainly get the new 3.0, I'm still using 2.4 from the repositories. I'd recommend that anyone give it try. It's a great open source office suite, that deserves a look. Besides, it's free (as in beer).

http://www.openoffice.org/

[DavidR]

I keep saying one day I will give it another try.

My last try wasn't that long ago really, I have an old copy of MS Office 97 (told you it was old, but it does everything I need) and only MS Word and MS Excel installed. My gripe is that every time I opened a Word or Excel document OO's opening caused it to believe it had been changed and you got the pop-up save the changes, etc. etc. will be lost, yet the only thing that had happened was it was opened.

So actually opening a document converts it to be compatible or some such, so the alleged compatibility is a bit of a myth as it has to do some flip flopping around import .doc file, view in OO and either have to export it back or save as an OO doc (or an MS doc which it already was). I didn't want multiple variations of the supposedly same document which may have differences, so OO was history.

So until I bite the bullet and actually remove MS Office I don't see a future for OO on my system.

[Rafel]

I prefer OO old style(OO3) more than MS Office:

[Sesame]

For someone who is interested, I recommend OpenOffice Portable.  Pre-release version of 3 is here.

I'm satisfied with Writer and Calc but I'm not sure about Impress, though.  Is it possible to make a presentation which is as good as that of Powerpoint?

[OrangeCrate]

I keep saying one day I will give it another try.

My last try wasn't that long ago really, I have an old copy of MS Office 97 (told you it was old, but it does everything I need) and only MS Word and MS Excel installed. My gripe is that every time I opened a Word or Excel document OO's opening caused it to believe it had been changed and you got the pop-up save the changes, etc. etc. will be lost, yet the only thing that had happened was it was opened.

So actually opening a document converts it to be compatible or some such, so the alleged compatibility is a bit of a myth as it has to do some flip flopping around import .doc file, view in OO and either have to export it back or save as an OO doc (or an MS doc which it already was). I didn't want multiple variations of the supposedly same document which may have differences, so OO was history.

So until I bite the bullet and actually remove MS Office I don't see a future for OO on my system.

OOo > Tools > Options > Load/Save > General > Default file format...

As I said in my previous post, I have all the documents types that I use, set as the Microsoft 97/2000/XP equivalents. I have no problems as you described at all.

[DavidR]

I did that, but it doesn't stop it having opened a file, if you make no changes it asks to save the changes. So it seems to be doing something when it opens the file that is considered a modification. This was one of the OO 2.x versions I can't recall which.

The other issue is it reports that the version you have chosen (my old Word version of .doc files) to save may not support the layout, do you want to proceed (or words to that effect) and the last thing I want to do is possibly screw up the original document layout. This if anything was the straw that broke the camels back.

So I have no idea what it was playing at on my system but I wasn't going to risk the original documents.

[OrangeCrate]

^,

It must be the dial-up connection.

 

[OrangeCrate]

I prefer OO old style(OO3) more than MS Office:

I like screenshots, thanks.

Here's Writer on Xubuntu...

(AbiWord is the default word processor, I've added OOo from the repositories to better fit my needs.)

[DavidR]

It must be the dial-up connection.

 

very droll
I'm attached to my dial-up
:
:
:
:
by 9.5KM of copper cable from the exchange

[TheSpirit]

very droll
I'm attached to my dial-up
:
:
:
:
by 9.5KM of copper cable from the exchange

I think that the world record for wireless connections using standard equipment (but LARGE antennas) is several hundred kilometers. Why don't you make a Christmas gift for yourself?