Open Office Vs Microsoft So thinking of dumping Microsoft Office?

[xboxrulz 0]

It runs fast and swift on Linux, it takes only 1 minute of loading.OpenOffice 1.1.3 (KDE version)SuSE Linux 9.2 (kernel-2.6.8-default)xboxrulz

[bjrn 0]

[OpenOffice] runs fast and swift on Linux, it takes only 1 minute of loading.

One minute? oO
There are very few applications I will allow to take one minute to load, and a word processing application is definitely not among them.

[moldboy 0]

I primarly use MS office simply because that is what I started using. I hear that the new version will have much better support for shapes and microsoft in general. I do have OOo installed and use it on the linux computers at school. It is quite slow, that I must say. I like the equation editor in OOo, something I don't think is availiable in MS yet (correct me if I'm wrong) As far as a standard file format appeatrly OOo 2.0 used the open document format rather then the sx* format. And I believe that it is XML based.I would (and have) recomend it to friends who can't/don't have the ability to use MS office. Even if something happens to OOo in the next few years, it has definatly started to make MS sweat, just like the Gmail in the world of email!

[Odyssey 0]

I do hear that Open Office is a really neat Office suite. But I think I will stick with Microsoft Office because it took me a really long time for me to learn all of the features that it offers.But I will try Open Office, and see what it offers, from the looks of it, it seems like people enjoy using Open Office.

[Kiko_Way 0]

I'm a bit lost, so Open Office is the Linux version of Microsoft Office? I am getting Linux soon so I have not used Linux- ever...

[Inspiron 0]

Open Office is NOT the Linux version of Microsoft Office..It's just that OpenOffice is free and Microsoft Office is a paid-to-use software...Since Linux is a free and opensourced Operating System, therefore it also using all other free sources of software that also operatable on Linux..So Linux becomes 100% free with all software included...Unlike Microsoft, you buy Windows Operating System without software included..On top of that, you still need to purchase them to use on Windows Operating System..Furethermore, Windows Operating System is a very good target for virus writers to write and destroy user data on Windows OS..So Linux is always the better choice in the case where it is free to use and still quite free of virus..However Linux is not quite good for business that does publication, because it's open-sourced so people can edit to suit their requirements and so there are alot of "standards" out there...

[JaVe 0]

So what, in my opnion, microsoft office will always (and is now better) better than open office. Sure, open source is better in ways but open office in terms of formatting the text etc. loses points - i havent used it in ages but i remember i didnt like it. I use microsoft office now, oh well.

[LeAnn Rimes My Angel 0]

I have used Open Office 1.0, and it was nice to have a program that was backwards compatible with Microsoft Office. However, it was/is not a elegant. Not a big deal, but the alternative is a good option if you prefer to have something legal.I have a copy of Microsoft Office 2000 Premium that I use, and I see no point in ever updating it to anything else as long as it works.

[minimcmonkey 0]

Microsoft office is undoubtedly the beter of the two;open office has several drawbacks:-textured backgrounds look terrible, animated dont work properly.-Lots of the animations wont work.-It also doesnt have a good clipart.-It has a feeble attempt at wordart, but looks nothing like as good-the autoshapes arent as goodthey are just end result looks drawbacks.but there are many more drawbacks.Microsoft office works a lot faster on my PC.But considering the price, is it really worth paying so much for something which you can get a nearly as good version of, for free?

[rtoot3 0]

For all of you saying that you cant send other people documents because its not the same as theirs, yes you can actually. theres a number of things you can save it as, and one of them is .doc for sending it to peoples with Microsoft word. also something that i think is cool about open office is that you can export powerpoints(actually called open offic presentation) as flash objects.

[thorne 0]

OpenOffice definitely has a major drawback in that it's much slower than Microsoft Office (I believe it was written in Java, where as MS is written in C), but if you don't want to pay for MS <or download a bootleg>, then it's definitely a good choice. It performs all the functions you'll most likely need, and can create MS compatible documents. Hopefully it will be able to render these formats much closer to how they appear in the actual MS software; I think that once it can do this, its popularity will increase dramatically. The main reason I don't use it is because I never know how my documents will look when I open them in Word, and also because I'm impatient and hate waiting for it to load.The open source movement is still relatively young in that there are many, many people who don't know about it or take advantage of it. As more people get involved, products will hopefully improve to the point where corporate ones, such as those produced by MS, will become almost obsolete.

[williamm 0]

Microsoft office is undoubtedly the beter of the two;open office has several drawbacks:

-textured backgrounds look terrible, animated dont work properly.
-Lots of the animations wont work.
-It also doesnt have a good clipart.
-It has a feeble attempt at wordart, but looks nothing like as good
-the autoshapes arent as good

they are just end result looks drawbacks.

but there are many more drawbacks.

Microsoft office works a lot faster on my PC.

But considering the price, is it really worth paying so much for something which you can get a nearly as good version of, for free?

you would want to use Microsoft office because you need it for work, or school. For when you need more out of it. Now you would use Open office, for like your thumb drive or something, something you can use to type up some quick notes, or write something down quickly. I personally dont like open office. It doesn't give you all the properties that you would have if you used Microsoft office. Sure it's expensive, but i think it would be totaly worth it later on if used it as much as i said above.

[varalu 0]

Have never really paid much attention to desktop suites, but built my first Linux box and threw Open Office http://www.openoffice.org/ onto the computer and it's awsome. I don't see why all small/mid size companies and individuals would ever buy MS again. I'm just as happy to download a better office suite for free than to buy one for $200. Really getting sick of Microsoft.....

You mean to say that "Open office" is awesome... ??

What the hell is wrong with you... Your post kind of struck s me hard in the neck.

 

I was(is) also using open office for quite some time now... It runs in parallel with the ms office in my system and i should definitely say its not even close. MS office is far far ahead.... the amount of bugs that's there in open office is so much and does not let me do even some of the basic formatting's. The present open office is kind of grand father of the past generation to MS office 2007. It does not match the 2003 office itself.

 

i know its hard but that's the truth and no one can deny the fact.

I should say MS office users are more happier than open office users and things are done much faster.

 

the next generation

And by the way... the next generation is not with the desktop apps... Everything that runs inside a browser have got some appreciation and the worlds turns back.... Browsers are the next generation of platform independent application frameworks and google and few other companies are doing a better job out there...

[rwperkinsjr 0]

I too use OpenOffice... Well it is actually us Go-oo: http://www.go-oo.org/. It is based on OpenOffice but loads faster and has some great features not included in the OpenOffice Suite.

 

The only thing I would like to see is a way to convert or import complete Microsucks Access databases to OpenOffice Base. I have worked for years on my company database but it is all in access.

 

If anyone knows of a tool that does this please let us all know so I can make the complete move to Go-oo. After all it is free and yes all small business should make the move. The suite is more powerful then the alternative and is WAY cheaper. As Tom Peterson would say: "Free is a VERY good price!"

 

http://www.openoffice.org/

http://www.go-oo.org/.

 

Try It You'll LOVE it!

 

BTW: If you want more clipart try this: https://openclipart.org/

Edited July 18, 2008 by rwperkinsjr (see edit history)

[bittr 0]

Software for free... it's a cute idea, but let's be serious.Microsoft Office 2007 looks and works way way better then OpenOffice. I'm not a Microsoft fan, but still I don't like when people say bad things about something just because everyone else does.I had to use OpenOffice at work (for about one year) and it was terrible. Basic formatting, that was ok, but a lot of things easily done wits MS Office were really stressful in OpenOffice. Tables, margins and paragraphs.. not saying that if I did some drawings it was a big chance they were formatted another way when I opened OO the second time.In few words, MS Office is a professional software. OpenOffice is just a freeware you can't rely on. Not counting that it's on some parts based on Java and thus pretty slow.And about PDF generator, you can do that in MS Office 2007 too.