Open Office?

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What do you think of Open Office? Is it better than/equal to/not as good compared to MS Works? Can one have both?

Can I use it to work with Word documents? What are its advantages/disadvantages?

I'm currently using Works 2003 & don't like it very much. also I've had trouble with Excel & Works spreadsheet. Changing spreadsheet fonts often results in having to shut down completely and reboot - this was a problem with Works 2002 & I thought it and various other difficulties would be solved by installing 2003. HA! Further, I can't always copy Excel & Works spreadsheets; there doesn't seem to be any consistency, and I've lost serious info because of this. And anyway, I can't go back & reinstall 2002; it simply refuses to be installed.

For what the information is worth in this context, I use an HP a1550y, & OS XP Home.

I tried it a number of years ago, but it didn't work out too well. I assume that by now it has made serious improvements.

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@Tomkitten,

Tomkitten wrote:

What do you think of Open Office?

Nothing too special. But it's free.

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Is it better than/equal to/not as good compared to MS Works?

I'd rate them about the same, but I think a casual user might find MS Works easier to deal with overall.

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Can one have both?

Yes.

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Can I use it to work with Word documents?

Yes, with caveats that there are some compatibility issues.

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What are its advantages/disadvantages?

Open source software advocates might get pissy about this but I honestly think Open Office is an inferior productivity suite to Microsoft Office, with the only advantages being financial and theoretical in that it's free and it's open source.

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I'm currently using Works 2003 & don't like it very much. also I've had trouble with Excel & Works spreadsheet. Changing spreadsheet fonts often results in having to shut down completely and reboot - this was a problem with Works 2002 & I thought it and various other difficulties would be solved by installing 2003. HA! Further, I can't always copy Excel & Works spreadsheets; there doesn't seem to be any consistency, and I've lost serious info because of this. And anyway, I can't go back & reinstall 2002; it simply refuses to be installed.

Well, you can have such difficulties with any of the software. You may want to give the online suites a try. I've transitioned most of my productivity software to the web, and personally use Google Docs and there are other such free online options. It takes a bit of getting used to but you never need to worry about the software yourself, and all your files are available from any internet-connected computer.

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@Tomkitten,

Thanks for your detailed answers. (I would have thanked you earlier, but as is mostly the case lately, I never got the notification.)

I think I'll stick to Word 3 - I have to work with stuff generated on other computers, and don't want to run into any incompatibility difficulties.

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I don't mind Open Office, or Google Docs, as a replacement for Microsoft Word.

But Microsoft Excel is, in my opinion, a much better piece of software than the OO or GD options.

I absolutely cannot stand the spreadsheet app in GD.

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I love Open Office (I guess I might be one of the "Open Software" advocates Robert was talking about).

I use the Word Processor professionally (since I do development on Linux and don't like to switch OSs). It reads and writes the Word documents I need (including inserted pictures, but not including objects) and I haven't had difficulty sharing with co-workers.

I don't use spreadsheets very often. I have found OpenOffice Calc fully sufficient for everything I have used it for.

I don't think it is valid to compare OpenOffice to Microsoft Works, OpenOffice wins hands down in this comparison on functionality alone.

I have found the latest version of OpenOffice to be quite robust and mature. I haven't had any problems using it.

I am sure that there are advanced uses which require Microsoft Office. I can't imagine why most people would pay hundreds of dollars for the Microsoft product.

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@ebrown p,

I am an OpenOffice user. However, I really can't speak of its usability, or feature set as compared to MS Office. I use it so rarely, and for so little, that anything is good enough.

All I can say is I've never had it get in my way, or have a compatibility issue with it. However all I ever get is basically plain text word documents, or csv files (no macros, formulas, etc.)

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OpenOffice is Okay. For most tasks, it's on par with MS Office, but it comes short in some features, especially with spreadsheets. If you can, I recommend trying it out just to see if free software is adequate - you'll never haver to pay for it!

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