17 replies to this topic

[sarkar112]

Developer: Sun Microsystems (Community-based open-source)
License: GNU LGPL 2.0
Software: Openoffice.org 2
Description: An office suite including a word processor, a spreadsheet editor, an equation editor, a presentation editor, a database editor, and a vector graphics editor.

Advantages: Open-source, uses (by default) open formats, supports a variety of different formats, and has a good interface
Disadvantages: A bit slow when starting up

Official WWW: http://www.openoffice.org/
Wikipedia Article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenOffice.org

[alanro]

As I know, in general, both Office 2003 and OpenOffice can create files that can be read by pretty much everyone else. In the case of Office 2003, this is because Microsoft has established de facto formats such as .doc for Word documents and .xls for Excel. OpenOffice, on the other hand, uses open standards for its native files, but can both read and write files in Microsoft's formats.

OpenOffice has invested a lot of effort in ensuring that Writer and Calc users can share documents with Microsoft users and has succeeded in all but a few specific cases mentioned below, like Excel pivot tables. OpenOffice users can even choose to automatically save out files in Microsoft formats by default.

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software reviews

[Blake]

Also the equation writer in Open Office is great.

[LaHrrS LoVeLL]

OpenOffice has served me well for the past few years but in some cases Microsoft Office is more suitable, as with everything Linux, it has a steeper learning curve than Microsoft Office.
The startup problems seem to be resolved since the update to 2.2.

[buzzons]

Just a note, the equation editor in Office 2007 rocks so so so hard (better now than the OO one) hooza!

[belgther]

Honestly, i like OpenOffice.org because it helps me exporting my files as PDF, then i can edit my HTML files easier with it (better than Word's HTML editor for people who dislike Frontpage) and you can read macros protected with VBA password protection. The disadvantages are that reading encrypted presentations are not supported yet. But how many of us use encrypted presentations?

[Mouhahaha]

OpenOffice2 compared to ms office 2003 is pretty good, but ms office 2007 shouldn't be underestimated, a lot of new nice options are added to it, such as the 3d image features...

[fulvioo]

Open Office crashes too much.

I migrated from windows to linux, but I can't live without Excel 2003 -- best software ever made?... so I have to use crossover office.

[Janet Kellman]

I’ve been an MS Office user for many years. It only made sense because I was developing software for the Windows platform. But I recently installed MS Office 2007 and I was so frustrated with the interface that I gave up and switched with OpenOffice.

OpenOffice doesn’t feel like Microsoft Office, but in the end, accomplishes the same tasks for a much cheaper price, free.

[rlastinger]

I like open office writer specifically for the ability to export to PDF. There are some powerful things in Office 2007, but the biggest problem that I've seen so far is from a user perspective. They're not used to the new extensions and are having a difficult time with that. Of course, they are users, but I'm really tired of my parental units and siblings calling me all the time asking where things are. I quit working with users year ago... on purpose.

[Blake]

Just a note, the equation editor in Office 2007 rocks so so so hard (better now than the OO one) hooza!

I will have to check that out, for a long time I preferred the OO

[fedrus]

I don't mind using Open Office for basic day to day stuff, but I find that for doing anything remotely complicated with spreadsheets, Excel is easier - maybe that's just because I used MS Office for years and OO does things slightly differently.

The biggy for me though is that OO is free. I'm self employed, and can't afford to buy MS office for my company laptop, so Open Office it is

[thecowman]

yes mayte, we use m$ office at college and i have the pirate at home but always download open office anyway. Its a smaller download which is just great when youve got work in for tommorow and you need it right away. I never even used m$ office much so it doesnt even bother me, they both seem to have pretty much the same features anywyay. The only problem I ever found was that it use the java for some aspects which slowed down my old slack12 lappy quite a bit, Infact word processing was impossible. Support for older hardware would be mint, but I suppose nobody really cares anymore.

[sarkar112]

yes mayte, we use m$ office at college and i have the pirate at home but always download open office anyway. Its a smaller download which is just great when youve got work in for tommorow and you need it right away. I never even used m$ office much so it doesnt even bother me, they both seem to have pretty much the same features anywyay. The only problem I ever found was that it use the java for some aspects which slowed down my old slack12 lappy quite a bit, Infact word processing was impossible. Support for older hardware would be mint, but I suppose nobody really cares anymore.

I'd recommend AbiWord if you need support for older hardware. There's a large community that cares, I'm sure there's already a feature request for wat you've mentioned.