Open Office

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So I just DLed Open Office and have been playing around with it a bit.

Apart from the sleeker interface, what exactly makes this superior to MS? Yeah, I know it's free and stuff, but that's not really a concern for me. I have access to MS stuff at home and at school. Are the functionalities better? Are there any cons? Can I finally place images around without it going completely crazy? Is it a good idea to start writing my notes exclusively with it? What?

Seeking help from more computer savvy people than I.

 

Open Office is equal to MS stuff in every way at the least - and as it can open (and save as) files made with MS Office, there's no real reason *not* to use it. I'm unsure that it's significantly better, but not using Microsoft products is enjoyable by itself

 

OO is portable...meaning that you can run the program off of a flash drive. I don't know if U3 technology is required to run programs on your flash drive, but I only buy SanDisk drives, so it's no big deal for me. Here's a list of portable apps for U3 drives...

 

Only problem I've ever had is trying to do database projects at school and at home. The Database files are non-transferable (in the versions I've used so far)

Also there are more colours in OpenOffice which is always shiny for me!

 

Microsoft offers the best spreadsheet and database tools. Open Office word processor I find to function extremely well and is much faster than Microsoft Word.

Another Office Suite to check out is Google's. The only downside with Google's Office Suite is that to use the suite you have to be connected to the internet.

I prefer Microsoft Office because it offers a more fimilar interface and a higher power spreadsheet and DB software.

 

I've always found Access more awkward than Base, personally.

Nobody I know really likes Access if they have an alternative program

I think school killed any possibility for liking Access for me though

 

Open Office is a cheap knock off mostly. I use it at home because I'm not willing to pay more for an office productivity suite than I paid for my operating system, but I do miss MS Office, its just so much better.

 

Cheap knock off?!?! What are you smoking dude? Before I finally got used to Office 2007's new interface, I would often get fed up and open up OO to do what I needed. MS Office might have more features (most of which are hidden), but that's because customers have to pay through the nose for it. OO focuses on what matters...core functionality.

On a side note, I only use MS Office because my school gave it to me for free, and it's the office suite all the instructors use...so when they're giving specific instructions for how they want something done, it's easier to just use what they use. I always have OO installed and ready to go for the frequent, "F*** this! I need something that works!" moments one encounters while using MS Office.

 

Its got the core features so buried in a terrible user interface that you never get to use them! And Writer is absolute junk - it does a much worse job of trying to figure out what you intend with your spacing, so it messes everything up.

I MUCH prefer Office to Open Office - I can actually get some work done.

 

YMMV. I'm the exact opposite - I found the interface in Writer and Impress to be SO much easier to figure out than Word and Powerpoint. Word keeps messing up my spacing unless I go and turn off a half dozen idiotic features that are on by default (MS loves doing this) while OO requires very minimal tweaking before I get it to work exactly the way I want (and then when I update to a new version it keeps all my settings intact). I used to be like Kitrax and kept OO for the "I need something that works moment", then when I realised that OO was more compatible with Office than Office is with itself I ditched the latter entirely. Never want to go back. Not to mention Office 2007 is so painfully slow...

 

Office 2007 is not only painfully slow, it also has a horrible UI. I got it through my school when taking the computer tech PSD, and I hated it so bad I ditched it.

And Office compatibility with Office always brings me a chuckle.

 

I shine away from new Microsoft products as they always tend to require more hardware than is needed, but they do offer a ton of features.

I am personally using Office Pro 2003 and it does more than what I need out of a office suite.

I like Access 2003 as it allows me to use the .net programming langauge and interface the DB of Access into other applications I create with ease.

I'm not sure about Base, but with Acess you can have the DB online in a few simple steps.

I prefer Access as I have been using it since the 97 release and continue to use it in my computer with Access 2003.

As for cost of MS Office, I am lucky as I only had to pay $20 for Office 2003 and the copy of Office 2007 that is sitting on my desk unopen cost me $25. I receive a discount because it is a b2b employee discount program.

If I didn't get MS Office so cheap I would be using Open Office.

 

It's not so bad with Office XP and up, but Office 2000 was the absolute worst joke in terms of compatibility with itself. I lost count of the number of Excel sheets that would open fine, save fine, and then not be openable ever again. In any version of Office. I lost far too many hours of work back then before I finally gave up and went back to good old fashioned pen and paper.

The question is, how much do you need these features? What I require out of my office suite is the basic stuff, and while MS Office has tons of extras I don't need any of them and don't want them at the expense of speed. It wouldn't be so bad if Office at least did the basics right (anchoring images in Office is an absolute nightmare with the default settings).

 

Open Office has worked fine for me so far (I didn't want to shell out the cash, even at the school discount of 85 bucks...), although I get a bit peeved at the spacing it tries to make me do when I hit the 'enter' key... and the fact that it does not have a built in thesaurus when I right click, like Microsoft.

But I like free.

 

The thesaurus is not too far away Saber. Try [Ctrl]+F7 with the word of choice selected

You can access it the long way by going Tools > Language > Thesaurus.

 

Woah, thanks man. Saves me trouble of having to go to thesaurus.com everytime I want to make sure I have the right word...