Open Office software

[triumphrider-1]

Is anyone using open office software? What do you think of it? How does it compare to Microsoft Office? Any draw backs, dislikes, etc?

Thanks.

 

[Sunk]

I've used it a fair amount and I have installed on my computer right now, but I don't use it much anymore. I used the word processor mostly, and it was pretty comparable to Word in terms on interface and use.

 

[Die.Fledermaus]

http://www.openoffice.org/
I use it at home, it is not bad, maybe 25% of the frills of MS-office.

I find the UI a little harder to understand, some of the power excel offers are not available, but to create average documents and spreed sheets it is well capable.
Installing is a non-issue, about the only annoying dependency is Java runtime. I see no harm to install and try for yourself.

 

[alexpmcmurphy]

you may want to check out libreoffice (a fork of open office). its not owned by sun and is updating faster. heres a link to a comparison

http://olex.openlogic.com/wazi/2011...g-showdown-for-best-open-source-office-suite/

as far as open office goes, ive had some problems with the format opening Microsoft documents, and spreadsheets, nothing major, just stuff that would have to be fixed before it could be mass emailed for business purposes

 

[Mark_88]

I've used it in a pinch at the library...if you're preparing docs from scratch it's just as good as any other software...it does have issues with MS formatting so keep backups of documents you're trying to open and edit...

Otherwise the interface is fairly straight forward...I sometimes get confused between versions of MS Word and have to poke about to find what I need...only used one version of Open Office so not sure if they've kept the same UI over the years...

 

[Twister]

Its decent software. It is easy to get use to and pretty much operated like MS office. I used it for about a month before i acquired a copy of MS Office 2007.