Open Office?

[DirtyElf]

I don't need a full office suite, so I was considering going with the free open office for my small word processing and spreadsheet needs. What I would like it for it to be compatible with MS word in case I decide to upgrade one day, or if I need to transfer files from my computer to a friends' or family members' who has MS word.

Just wondering if anyone has any experience with the two.

Thanks.

 

[richc46]

Open office is suppose to be fully compatible with MS Word. It is a choice that is made by many here.

 

[xxxdannyxxx]

I have both installed ( MS office on a trial) and Open Office full suite and have never had any problems switching documents between the two.

Danny

 

[DirtyElf]

excellent, thanks guys. going to give open office a try and if i feel i need more, ill grab a copy of ms office

 

[richc46]

I have never seen any complaints about Open Office. I think that you will be very happy.

 

[xxxdannyxxx]

excellent, thanks guys. going to give open office a try and if i feel i need more, ill grab a copy of ms office

I think alot of people here are using it more than even MS office.

Good Luck

Danny

 

[Anak]

I use OOo writer and calc.

You can change to any "Save as Type" file, but leave the "Automatic file name extension" checked.

I unchecked it once, and found out on their forum that, that was the reason why MS Word and Xcel could not work with the OOo file.

I haven't had to visit the forum in a while, but they are current, reasonably quick to respond, and friendly. Forum at OOoForum.org

 

[SledgeDG]

The only thing that is not compatible between the both (and probably never will be) is the scripting language (that you use for Macros )
It's because of licensing issues with VB that Open Office uses a different dialect.
So you might run into problems if you create extensive spreadsheets and want to switch at some point.
It is not really difficult to rewrite those macros in the other dialect but you have to be aware of the fact that those documents/spread sheets that include any kind of macros will not work as expected without manual intervention no matter what direction to switch to.
That being said , I used both for decades and never ran into anything that wasn't easily resolved.

-DG

 

[Fayla]

There was a point, about a year or so ago for me when I had neither installed. Wanting to save some cash I installed OO. I used it to write up a report for one of my University classes. Took the file on a flash drive to class on Monday, opened the .doc file in Office 2007 (university only uses MS Office.) The formatting looked all out of joint, so I ended spending half an hour correcting it to the standard format required by the University. Admittedly this was over a year ago, maybe OO formatting perfectly converts between MS Office and OO itself now? I ended up buying MS Office

I have both installed ( MS office on a trial) and Open Office full suite and have never had any problems switching documents between the two.

Danny

 

[ie9]

You could also use the Office Web Apps that come free with any Windows Live account (also free). They might be a bit basic for your needs though, but maybe worth a look

 

[Ambimom]

You can even edit and revise any Microsoft Access database in Open Office base flawlessly....

1. From Microsoft Access export database into DBase format.

2. Open DBase format file with Open Office (it will be a calc file).

3. For database, connect to the Database as above. (May not see the file so create a directory for it and connect to that directory).

4. Click on table and the file should be there.

5. Open it and do what you will! The numbers add 3 zeros, but otherwise the same.

6. To print, must create Form or Report.

 

[Vertex]

I use Open Office on my Linux which often comes preinstalled with it anyway, though the only one I've exploited much is Open Office.org Word Processor, yes, its just fine as it would support formats from MS Word but on the version I had of Open Office (on a Linux), it is set to save your work to .odt format which is to my knowledge, is unsupported by MS Word but you can choose to save to another format like doc, docx, rtf. However if you worked on MS Word to put some designs, bullets and some other enhancement effects, you might find those things unsupported by Open Office.

So here's my verdict on Open Office:

The Good:

1. Its Free.
2. It has lots of features that you might just find useful.
3. It supports formats that you usually save your MS Office works with.
4. It also comes with a portable build that can be installed on a flashdrive then used on another computer which doesn't install as much components in your computer and its registry. (MS Office suite installs thousands of keys in the registry.)

The Bad:

1. It just look unpolished compared to MS Office that if you got yourself hooked with MS Office's ribbon interface, eye candy icons and visual effects, you might find working on Open Office to be uneasy and you might think it sucks.

2. Its just not as technically advanced as MS Office as some apps on MS Office would immediately present beautiful templates to work with. Of course MS Office users would need some time to adjust themselves to Open Office.

3. The portable build of Open Office that I got was very prone to crashes on Windows 7, that I decided to take it out and put it on my flashdrive instead.

But overall, its just fair to use but it remains your choice.

 

[Woz]

Hi. I'm Ken, and I'm a former OOo user.

I used OOo for years, but I had some problems with formatting in Word docs and Powerpoint presentations.

Grudgingly, I tried Office 2010. It was better than my 2007 trial. When MS brought out the Home & Student 3-pack, I thought the cost per license was reasonable, so I bought it.

Now that I think about it...I think the only reason I had to switch to MS is because I couldn't convince OTHER people to switch to OOo.