Open Office

Any users of Open Office here?

I've been using MS Office forever - been using the same Office 2003 install disks for the past 5 years each time I upgraded my PC.

I'm buying another computer, and I've already installed on my "limit" of computers. I don't really want to fork over the money for 2007.

So I'm considering using Openoffice instead. I'm a moderate level user of Word, Excel and Access - any opinions on how/if OpenOffice will work for me? Will the files I create be openable by other using MS Office 2003/2007?

I'd appreciate any advice.....

 

I use Open Office. The Impress application (similar to PowerPoint) is decent, but don't rely on it too much if you use PowerPoint a lot (making files). You can view MS2007 PowerPoint files (.ppx), but sometimes you get "click to add title here" showing up on slides and things of that nature. I haven't updated it so maybe that has been corrected.

Writer (.doc) is pretty good and converts to PDF. Calc (Excel) is decent, too. I've never been a heavy user of the MS versions so for my needs, it's fine. Impress has crashed on me a few times. I tend to have a dozen+ ppt files open at once for weeks at a time (sleepmode laptop so I never close them), which probably causes it.

It's pretty good for the money. I'm never paying or using MS Office products on my computers ever again.

You can save it in many file types. Default is .odf (Open Document file), but you can do Save As and do it in a Microsoft 1997/2000/XP (.doc) file.

 

I use OpenOffice daily. When I switched to Mac, I wanted a clean break from MS. No issues whatsoever with my legacy docments/spreadsheets etc.

 

First thing I uninstall is any MS Office crap.
First thing I Install is Firefox.
Second thing I install is OpenOffice.

 

I had OO for a number of years and felt it was a good substitute, but I prefer the real MS Office. I'm sure a lot has improved in the last couple of years since I used it last, but I ran into a number of limitations and bugs that are acceptable for personal use, but entirely unacceptable for use in business, especially since my work is seen by clients. I also ran into a few formatting issues when I created a resume several years back that led to some embarrassment that was thankfully caught by a peer before sent out.

 

You should give Google Chrome a try if you haven't already. It's replaced Firefox on my computer. Very light weight.

 

I used OO for awhile. The only issue I ever came across was it didn't handle macro excel sheets at all. This may of changed in more recent versions.

 

I use OpenOffice and NeoOffice on a daily basis for school, the latter I find to be faster and generally more responsive. I would also, like Bounty, highly recommend Google Chrome. Something about the way Google Chrome handles certain steps in browsing by skipping over them makes it run faster. Here are some charts:

http://www.cnet.com.au/google-chrome-faster-than-firefox-ie-safari-339291767.htm

Hope that helps you!


Jeremy

 

I been using Chrome since day1 but it's not as secure as FF I wouldn't use it for banking etc. Even if you are on Mac, a lot of exploits come from Safari/chrome.

Also that url is based on 3.01 of firefox and since 3.5 it is just as fast as chrome.

 

Well, thank you for telling me that my source is outdated, I'll remember not to use it anymore


Generally, my setup of choice is OpenOffice and FireFox 3.1 on Ubuntu 8.10 Linux. But that's just me.

 

I use OpenOffice. I find it is just as competent as MS products except for the database element.