This is obviously computer Sunday. Has anyone tried Open Office and how does it compare to Micro Office?
Office vs. OpenOffice
- Thread starter jaretac
- Start date
I like Microsoft Office better but Open Office is nearly as good and is free. I guess it depends on what you're using. To me the Excel and Word applications are just as good. I use thunderbird for my email application and I don't use Powerpoint at home.
I have Micro Office pro, so I don't need OpenOffice, but was curious if it was better or worse than Office. If it better, I might think of downloading it to see what it's like.
Without the price argument, I wouldn't say that it's better. It is definitely catching up, but not an equal yet.
A word of warning, if you are using the Windows 7 beta, Open Office has some issues with saving. Whenever I tried to save any file the program crashed. Maybe they have it fixed now, but make sure you try it out before working several hours on a file.
I have been using Open Office for over a year and it does everything I need it to do.
I put Open Office on computers that don't have any office software (i.e. the wife's) and it works just fine.
There are some niggling compatability issues between the two, but it's no big deal for most things.
I'd say where O
rg falls down is when it comes to creating complex documents and then sharing with MS Office users.
If you're just creating word documents and editing them and whatnot it's fine. If there's any major doubts about sharing something, and the other party doesn't really need to edit a document, just see it, use pdfcreator and print the document out as a PDF and send that.
There are some niggling compatability issues between the two, but it's no big deal for most things.
I'd say where O
rg falls down is when it comes to creating complex documents and then sharing with MS Office users. If you're just creating word documents and editing them and whatnot it's fine. If there's any major doubts about sharing something, and the other party doesn't really need to edit a document, just see it, use pdfcreator and print the document out as a PDF and send that.
I use Microsoft Office at home and Open Office at work and am equally happy with both. I doubt that I will ever pay for Microsoft Office again however. Free programs that work are always a big plus with me. I use Firefox and Thunderbird at home and at work. Someone will have to give me a very good reason or I will never download IE 7.
It wasn't just an openoffice issue. I'd heard that one of the builds of Windows 7 beta had that "feature"
Security is reason to download IE7.
IE6 and older are abysmal. The latest version of IE7 is much better in that regard.
IE 8, on the other hand.....
