Open Office (free) v MS XP Office

petlew · ‎30-08-2007

After many years of using MS Office in all it's guises since v7 I think. Since changes of employment mean I no longer need all the elaborate options in MS Office, I've taken the plunge and downloaded Open Office (free edition) Currently both are installed on my PC's, but am considering which to keep.
So I have a couple of concerns:
Is there an alternative to MS Outlook that will seamlessly integrate with my HP Mobile PDA which has Windows Mobile? Or should I retain Outlook alone?
I can't see how to change and retain my choice of font and size as default in Open Office WP? it continually defaults to Times New Roman (which I don't want)
Is the spellchecker in Open Office as "good" as the MS one?
2nd edit;
One of the reasons for considering a change away from MS office was the supposedly bulky size of MS Office, but whilst checking the options in Open Office I notice that given a currently similar setup, that Open Office is actually not that much smaller after all. So my quandary continues...Which one to save and which to ditch, as size alone is not really an issue.

Experience; is something you gain, just after you needed it most.

When faced with two choices, simply toss a coin. It works not because it settles the question for you. But because in that brief moment while the coin is in the air. You suddenly know what you are hoping for.

the_groundsman · ‎12-08-2007

I've thought about this too and have stuck with office but taken a conscious decision not to upgrade any further Im running Office 2003.

jazz · ‎06-04-2007

I've run the two together for about a year but now ditched MS Office. In September Open Office will be launching Open Office 3.0 (now in final beta testing) which promises to be nicely improved on the current version. I'm afraid I don't know the answer to your MS Outlook question as I've never used it.

paulh · ‎30-07-2007

[quote="petlew"]I can't see how to change and retain my choice of font and size as default in Open Office WP? it continually defaults to Times New Roman (which I don't want) I'm running v2.4 and this worked for me:
Tools -> Options -> OpenOffice.org Writer -> Basic Fonts (Western)
Change the fonts to what you want (Franklin Gothic Book is nice)
Click OK
Gave up MSOffice ages ago.
I find OO a bit annoying in some ways but not as annoying as the amount of money MSOffice would cost (or pirating it of course which brings its own moral conundrums)
paul

petlew · ‎30-08-2007

Ah! thanks for that paulh.
That deals with the default font, just the Outlook and spellchecker to go.

Experience; is something you gain, just after you needed it most.

When faced with two choices, simply toss a coin. It works not because it settles the question for you. But because in that brief moment while the coin is in the air. You suddenly know what you are hoping for.

VileReynard · ‎01-09-2007

MS Office is usually misconfigurated to do US spellchecking.
I haven't used it much for years.
Open Office spellchecks in English - but it will also do English as written in other countries as well.

"In The Beginning Was The Word, And The Word Was Aardvark."

petlew · ‎30-08-2007

Great, thanks axisofevil.
Anybody know about the Outlook thing?

Experience; is something you gain, just after you needed it most.

When faced with two choices, simply toss a coin. It works not because it settles the question for you. But because in that brief moment while the coin is in the air. You suddenly know what you are hoping for.

itsme · ‎07-04-2007

You could try this. I will be testing it later this week

samuria · ‎13-04-2007

The choice is really down to money do you want to pay £XXXX pounds or nothing? If you already have MS office your ok for now but at some point you will need to upgrade.
The way forward is you wont need any software installed on your pc you will just use Google web apps to do everything you want.
Most people us office as its what they use at work but if you are like me just retired then you dont need to worry about what is used in business anymore.
Have you looked at Thunderbird for email and calendar? There must be lots of freeware that will do what you want and anything is better than outlook as its the main target for virus writers

petlew · ‎30-08-2007

Hi Samuria, Thanks for that. It's no so much I'm recently retired (a couple of years to go yet) I just changed course away from the drag of office work, and yes you're quite right, I don't "need" MS office now. I don't use Outlook for email, have been a Thunderbird man (and Firefox) for sometime now, but I do use Outlook to sync with my Compaq pocket PC with Windows Mobile, as there doesn't seem to be a lot of other options for this.
I was already aware of the Thunderbird Calendar, although I don't use it as it doesn't sync with the Compaq, unless somebody knows differently? there are a myriad of extras and plug-in's for Thunderbird, maybe there is one there I haven't spotted yet.
Should there be so, I would ditch MS Office, as I quite like what I've seen of Open Office so far.

Experience; is something you gain, just after you needed it most.

When faced with two choices, simply toss a coin. It works not because it settles the question for you. But because in that brief moment while the coin is in the air. You suddenly know what you are hoping for.

realafrica · ‎21-07-2008

I'm using Win XP, so I'm not 100% certain, but I believe that Win Vista has synching included which may or may not work for your set up.
I ditched MS Office about 18 months ago after running MS Office 2007 alongside OO for a while. OO does all I need and is a very good alternative to MSO.