I recently purchased a new computer. It came with "60 day trial" of microsoft office. I not really wanting to spend $100 for Word/Excel/Powerpoint. It seems I recall someone discussing a free download of "openoffice" or something like that? Does anyone have information about this? Opinions/etc?
openoffice ??
- Thread starter larrybob33
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I have it on one of my computers, and it seems to work fine so far. Files convert from and to Microsoft applications just fine. If you don't need it for work, I think you will be pretty happy.
Website with info and downloads is here:
OpenOffice.org - The Free and Open Productivity Suite
Website with info and downloads is here:
OpenOffice.org - The Free and Open Productivity Suite
I have OpenOffice 3.0 on one of my computers. I would strongly recommend it. It does everything I need it to do. If anything, download it, install it, play around with it. Then make the decision as to whether or not it meets your needs. But as I said...I am satisfied with it.
For home users, I think OpenOffice is just fine. If everyone in the world used it instead of MS products, I think most everyone would be content with it.
I install it on computers that don't have any office software, but I still prefer MS Office.
I install it on computers that don't have any office software, but I still prefer MS Office.
Like jumbo said, OpenOffice is perfect for nearly all home users. It will do everything a basic user needs to do and interfaces with Office just fine. I use it at home and have no reason to switch back.
I started using when MO was "acting up" on my office computer. Works great. Just a slight learning curve from MO, but if MO2007 frustrates you, give Open Office a try.
OK. So I downloaded it last night and it works great. My wife sent me an openoffice writer document from home to my work computer today. I cannot open it with Microsoft word.
A "file conversion" box pops up asking me to select the "text encoding" that makes the document readable. None of the possibilities make it "readable" though. Am I doing something wrong?
A "file conversion" box pops up asking me to select the "text encoding" that makes the document readable. None of the possibilities make it "readable" though. Am I doing something wrong?
You need to save any documents in Open Office as the Microsoft extensions(.ppt, .doc, .xls, etc.).
You more than likely got a .sfx or whatever the OO extension is.
So when you save a doc, make sure you select from the list the MS 2003 document (or appropriate). I don't know if there is a way to make these the default document type, anyone know?
Tools -> Options -> Load/Save -> General
Then you can change the default document format for each type of document - but openoffice will complain if you choose to save everything to an MS format.
