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May 08, 2009 02:30 PM
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I wrote my second novel in Open Office, it was no harder than my first book, which I wrote in MS Office v.X Mac. If you have weird needs for page naming, margins, etc. it is no more frustrating than MS Office, but the results are extremely nice (the "master" PDF for the print version of my second novel was generated in Open Office).
It really comes down to what is it that you need it for. If you are in an office and you get hit with Word and Excel attachments all day long, it may be safer to stick to Office just to avoid some moron from trying to peg it on you when a document doesn't look "right."
If you are a student or a home user, then there's absolutely no advantage of using Word and Excel over the Open Office word processor and spreadsheet applications.
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I mostly care about being able to pass on Office files to others (using MS Office).
This is where the mixed results come in. Sometimes the conversion is quite accurate, but other times there are over sized fonts and slightly off layouts.
If you are not so concerned about Office compatibility, then you will probably be happy with Open Office.
Open Office also provides a few nice additional features such as "save to PDF"
And of course you can't beat the price!
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There can be some occasional conversion issues, but these are rare and usually on documents with very complex formatting. There are some features that are in Microsoft Office that aren't in OpenOffice and vice versa.
To me the main downside is if you need Access. While OpenOffice has a database, it is not really similar to Access, so if you need that, stick to Microsoft Office.
At the price (free) there's really no reason not to try OpenOffice. You will likely be pleasantly surprised at how much it can do.
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How does OpenOffice compare with Microsoft Office?
What functionality does OpenOffice not provide that MS Office does?
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| May 08, 2009 07:31 PM |
It really comes down to what is it that you need it for. If you are in an office and you get hit with Word and Excel attachments all day long, it may be safer to stick to Office just to avoid some moron from trying to peg it on you when a document doesn't look "right."
If you are a student or a home user, then there's absolutely no advantage of using Word and Excel over the Open Office word processor and spreadsheet applications.
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• If open office is good enough for a novel, it probably will work for business documents.
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May 08, 2009 02:50 PM
It is a bit mixed for me. I have never been a power user of MS Office. I mostly care about being able to pass on Office files to others (using MS Office).
This is where the mixed results come in. Sometimes the conversion is quite accurate, but other times there are over sized fonts and slightly off layouts.
If you are not so concerned about Office compatibility, then you will probably be happy with Open Office.
Open Office also provides a few nice additional features such as "save to PDF"
And of course you can't beat the price!
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May 08, 2009 03:00 PM
Again, I am an occasional user of both (web developer),
but my experience is:
Yes, you an save in .doc format, or just about any other common format, but the actual layout of the contents might not be 100% accurate.
Yes, I believe there is a spell check.
Yes, Word 6.0 and almost any other office format will import, but as with exporting, 100% accuracy might not occur.
I am currently using NeoOffice which is a fork of Open Office for the Mac.
They very recently released a new version and I believe that means Open Office updated as well. So some of the conversion issues might now be cleaned up.
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but my experience is:
Yes, you an save in .doc format, or just about any other common format, but the actual layout of the contents might not be 100% accurate.
Yes, I believe there is a spell check.
Yes, Word 6.0 and almost any other office format will import, but as with exporting, 100% accuracy might not occur.
I am currently using NeoOffice which is a fork of Open Office for the Mac.
They very recently released a new version and I believe that means Open Office updated as well. So some of the conversion issues might now be cleaned up.
May 08, 2009 05:07 PM
Do you feel Open Office is worth risk, if the exported doc will not correctly import into MS Office?
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May 08, 2009 03:16 PM
Open Office is a very powerful program, comparable to Microsoft Office rather than Works or WordPad, etc. For 95% of users, it would do anything they need without any significant issues. It will read and write Microsoft formats and some newer open formats that Microsoft is adopting in Office 2007 and later. It does have spell checking and MANY MANY features, it is not a basic word processor in any way. There can be some occasional conversion issues, but these are rare and usually on documents with very complex formatting. There are some features that are in Microsoft Office that aren't in OpenOffice and vice versa.
To me the main downside is if you need Access. While OpenOffice has a database, it is not really similar to Access, so if you need that, stick to Microsoft Office.
At the price (free) there's really no reason not to try OpenOffice. You will likely be pleasantly surprised at how much it can do.
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Does Open Office files save in .doc format?
Does Open Office have a spell checker?
Do existing Word 6.0 files import correctly into Open Office?