Open Office

[Bill S]

Reading Alan's posts about a new computer build got me thinking about MS Office software. I am using the most current versions of word, excel, etc... but if I had to purchase a new machine I wonder if it is possible to skip the MS products and just use Open Office. Is anyone doing this? I'm curious how well it converts existing MS documents and spreadsheets and if anyone has run into any problems?

 

[jdbiggers]

I have both MSOffice and OpenOffice. The reason is that sometimes I find OpenOffice to be a bit quirky when converting some docs, especially when I need them 100% identical. For the most part, it reads the files correctly as for the text and formulae, but sometimes formatting is a bit off.

Nevertheless, OpenOffice is an excellent suite for documents you create on your own.

I am actually working on embedding OpenOffice as "OLE" (to use the old term) documents within my forms program so that any documents created (spreadsheets, word processor docs, even presentations) can be displayed and edited within NCVForms itself: this also means that the data is maintained in a single workfile.

JD
NCVSoftware

 

[EDWARD BERRY]

I Use Mlxchange MLS And Export 1004mc To Open Office-works Fine.

So Older Docs In Russian Were Easier To Open With Openoffice Than Msword.

 

[CindyR]

i agree - have switched all pc's to openoffice and am perfectly satisfied. it is a bit more quirky and is not idential to the high-dollar products so if you have a need for the identical look, feel and functionality you may be disappointed. If you just need word processing and spreadsheets it is great.

 

[Fargo1]

I have used OpenOffice for the last few years with no problems. As JD mentioned, when you first convert a form, sometimes the formatting might be off a little. But its usually pretty easy to correct. Once you have saved it under Ooo (OpenOffice.org) you shouldn't have any further issues. I have been saving all of my documents with the open format .odt (open document text) instead of .doc and for spreadsheets .ods (open document spreadsheet) instead of .xls. Hopefully using open standards will resolve any issues of using a different office suite down the road, as these standards are a freely available open format. I believe Microsoft has a plugin for Word that allows you to open .odt and .ods files. I'm not sure if MS allows you to save as an .odt file or not. If it does, this might help with any formatting issues.

Also be aware that about a year ago OpenOffice was split into 2 different organizations. There is now OpenOffice and LibreOffice ([url]http://www.libreoffice.org/[/URL]). Both are open source projects. OpenOffice as a name is owned by Oracle and I believe they are still controlling the office suite.

As found on LibreOffice's website "LibreOffice is community-driven and developed software which is a project of the not-for-profit organization, The Document Foundation. " However, they are still sponsored by companies such as Google, SUSE, Red Hat and others.

I haven't personally done a head to head comparison between the two, but it is my understanding from reviews that I have read, that LibreOffice is currently the better of the two offerings. Providing more advanced features.

Also, IBM's Lotus Symphony office suite is based on OpenOffice as well. Just to give you another option. I don't know much about Symphony beyond that.

From the 3 that I have mentioned I would download LibreOffice and give it a try. It is my understanding that LibreOffice is currently the best and progressing the fastest.

JD, glad to hear you are integrating OpenOffice into your software, that should make for a nice setup. As I mentioned here, you may want to look at LibreOffice as well if you haven't already. The underlying code base should be the same, but it might give you more features.

 

[Terrel L. Shields]

I am using the "ancient" Word Perfect program, as one person described it. I do so because I can embed mini-spreadsheets in the templates, and those are far superior anything found in Word or Open source WPs.. It is quirky under Microsoft, but so superior to Microsoft Word, I like it very well.

Sadly, I also own 2003, 2007 and 2010 versions of Excel, Powerpoint, and Word. IMHO, the 2003 version is superior to the other. I absolutely hate programs that attempt to predict what you are about to say when you are doing technical writing.

 

[Fargo1]

I am using the "ancient" Word Perfect program, as one person described it. I do so because I can embed mini-spreadsheets in the templates, and those are far superior anything found in Word or Open source WPs.. It is quirky under Microsoft, but so superior to Microsoft Word, I like it very well.

Out of curiosity, have you ever checked out the newer versions of WordPerfect? Do they still do what you are doing? I've never really looked into it since I use Open Office, but I like WordPerfect because it will open ODF documents out of the box.

Sadly, I also own 2003, 2007 and 2010 versions of Excel, Powerpoint, and Word. IMHO, the 2003 version is superior to the other. I absolutely hate programs that attempt to predict what you are about to say when you are doing technical writing.

Can't you just turn off the feature that predicts the words you are typing?

 

[RSW]

I had a problem converting a power point file from ms office to open office. I'll stick to ms power point when doing presentations.

 

[Tom Woolford]

I tried it a couple times and was somewhat disappointed. I do a lot of graphing, and found the results to be very amateurish looking.

 

[Tim The Enchanter]

I have some .xls spreadsheets that are pretty complicated with macros and such. Works awesome with MS Excel. Doesn't look right and doesn't work in Open Office. So, I stick with the software from the evil empire.