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Openoffice

Bob_Milton
Grafter
Posts: 688
Registered: ‎31-07-2007

Openoffice

Has anyone experience and/or thoughts on this please?
http://www.openoffice.org/
16 REPLIES 16
Cliff_Jordan
Grafter
Posts: 228
Registered: ‎01-08-2007

Re: Openoffice

Been using it for some time now (2 years?) and earlier this year I stopped using MS Office in preference to this. The reasons - its free and to update my ageing version of MS Office would have cost me money. Also as I'm now retired I no longer need for complete compatibility with software used at work. Having said that I find it will read everything that I previously did in MS Office.
It probably does not do all that MS Office does but with my present needs I have not found these limits yet.
Cliff
Peter_Vaughan
Grafter
Posts: 14,469
Registered: ‎30-07-2007

Re: Openoffice

Does it support the Office 2007 file formats yet - docx etc?
chillypenguin
Grafter
Posts: 4,729
Registered: ‎04-04-2007

Re: Openoffice

Go for it, its free and very well respected.
I use it on my Linux machines, and would use it on my Windows machine it I did not already have a copy of Office.
There is a slight readjustment curve, as some of the menu placements and how you do things are a little different. But no more that when you upgrade MS Office.
Chilly
chillypenguin
Grafter
Posts: 4,729
Registered: ‎04-04-2007

Re: Openoffice

Quote from: Peter
Does it support the Office 2007 file formats yet - docx etc?

Or should the question be, does Office 2007 support open document standards?
Cliff_Jordan
Grafter
Posts: 228
Registered: ‎01-08-2007

Re: Openoffice

Quote from: Peter
Does it support the Office 2007 file formats yet - docx etc?

Yes and no Undecided
see:-
http://www.regdeveloper.co.uk/2008/03/28/openoffice_update_two_four/
Cliff
Prod_Man
Grafter
Posts: 287
Registered: ‎04-08-2007

Re: Openoffice

Open Office is a good compromise for 90% of people.
Most don't need the other things that Office Supplies, such as VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) and Macros (unless OpenOffice really has caught up with their own equivilants?)
All current Microsoft Office 2007 Documents saved in their new native format, Document Type X, are just ZIP's with XML files in folders.
So long as you have a ZIP Program, you can explore it and get the data out in a semi-readable form.
You would get the same effect using older Office formats and just bunging them in a ZIP File in the first place,
and would be much simpler.
It's still not a problem,
because you can convert/open either way between Open Office types and Microsoft Office types.
Jim,
jazz
Grafter
Posts: 240
Registered: ‎06-04-2007

Re: Openoffice

I switched to OpenOffice a few months ago and have been very happy with it.  An initial learning period was required getting used to slightly different screens but I've been very happy with it - I certainly wouldn't bother paying for MS Office
Bob_Milton
Grafter
Posts: 688
Registered: ‎31-07-2007

Re: Openoffice

Thanks very much for your comments folks.
MickKi
Grafter
Posts: 543
Registered: ‎30-09-2007

Re: Openoffice

I've been using it for years now.  At work we are an MS shop, which has given me many opportunities to test transfers between the MS & Open Office suites.  OOo is not as feature rich as MS Office, however, unless you are a serious power user you will not know/notice the difference.  The only slight incompatibility that I have found is between MS Powerpoint and OO Impress.  Sometimes, I have noticed that the font size in OO Impress appears larger.  Other than that I did not have problems working in word documents, spreadsheets and presentations interchangeably in both suites.
Note that you will need to also install Java (in case you haven't) to utilise some of the OOo extended functionality; e.g. databases, conversion to Palm PDA formats, etc.
Hope this helps.
God
Grafter
Posts: 1,112
Registered: ‎30-07-2007

Re: Openoffice

IMHO Office 2007 has raised the bar and OO will eventually copy as usual. That is not meant to be a dissing of OO, just a statement of fact. ‘Office’ is one of the few areas where m$ does genuinely appear to innovate.
MickKi
Grafter
Posts: 543
Registered: ‎30-09-2007

Re: Openoffice

They have to innovate!  That's where they primarily make their money.  That said, I can't really see much of a difference from previous versions, other than a slightly more polished gui and the absense of the help assistant which I used to always disable within the first two minutes.
BTW, there's more Office Suites out there, that some people may find of use:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_office_suites
PS.  In older versions, I used to be able to go to Files/Properties and see details of the file I was working on.  Where's that function in MSOffice 2007?
God
Grafter
Posts: 1,112
Registered: ‎30-07-2007

Re: Openoffice

Yes they do have to innovate, does that mean that OO doesn’t, they get an easy ride because the template is already there, so they have no need to think outside the box? I am not a power user of office but I have to say I find it a whole lot easier to find some features with the new interface that I didn’t know about before, it is a vast improvement. In fairness it had to be! No one was going to want to shell out for a new version that didn’t add anything.
Ref your PS:  What info did you get? If you can tell me I will try to find it on Office 2007.
Cheers
MickKi
Grafter
Posts: 543
Registered: ‎30-09-2007

Re: Openoffice

Quote from: God
Ref your PS:  What info did you get? If you can tell me I will try to find it on Office 2007.

Do you mean under Properties?  It shows the name of the file, the name of the author, the path where the file saved, dates for created, modified, saved and some other statistics.  I use it often to check if the version I am working on is on USB stick or on the hard drive.
Denzil
Grafter
Posts: 1,733
Registered: ‎31-07-2007

Re: Openoffice

The Open Document format is a zipped set of XML files, but M$ being M$ they have to create their own different zipped XML format Roll_eyes Incidentally, that offers a way of hacking the stuff you can't normally change in a DOC, like the author, creation dates etc. Open in OO, save as ODT, unzip, change the appropriate XML file in a text editor, then zip, reopen and save as a DOC. Cool
i have used MS Office 2007, and OK, it looks prettier, but at loadsamoney versus free there is no contest. The first time I used 2007 it took me ages to find how to print a document, because they have hidden all the basic stuff under an unlabelled icon at the top left.