Open Office Vs Microsoft So thinking of dumping Microsoft Office?

[Galahad 0]

Well, I've been using OpenOffice for several months now, and can say that for me, it works flawlessly... I mostly used OOo Spreadsheet, for a VERY serious work, I wrote some macros, and what did I get? everything I needed... It even looked the same in Excel... Workd with OOo Word Processor, and it also does great work... Let's face it, when you have a company, you're not writing childrens books, you're writing reports, contracts, and other serious stuff, hence, no need for clipart, and what-not...For people who prefer aesthetics, fine, go with M$ Office... Sure, it can beat OOo in shiny and glittery stuff, but when it comes to serious work, it performs exactly the same as M$ Office... Companies and people in DTP area don't use M$ Office anyway, so, why try and to that with OOo?And those comments, "I tryed it a year ago, and it sucks", are just dumb... Open Software advances every day, because people work on it actively... And OOo is nowhere near as bad as it was (yes it was bad at one point)...Anyways, I'm not trying to convert anyone, I use OOo because it works exactly what I need, and I don't want to pay poor old billy a ton of money, for something that doesn't work, and most importantly, for something I don't need...

[eman 0]

In my opinion OpenOffice is very good but it takes hell long to load on my pc because its coded in JAVA so it has to start up JAVA. But it does the same thing Microsoft Office does which is like 200 bucks. So in the long run OpenOffice is better.

[adamswapitshop 0]

I'm not really a microsoft fan either, but office 2007 looks great, and the office system is the most widespread (and most people know about it or know how to use it).Openoffice is free, sort of easy to use, but it isn't as powerful as 2007....

[pedro-kun 0]

I'm not really a microsoft fan either, but office 2007 looks great, and the office system is the most widespread (and most people know about it or know how to use it).

Openoffice is free, sort of easy to use, but it isn't as powerful as 2007....

On Office 2007:

About that thing where most people think that Office 2007 looks great... well, I can't seem to get along with the new user interface. I think this time Microsoft really went way faster than it should. The interface radically changed... that's not very productive. I mean, if you only use functions like bold, italics, and such, it's ok... But when you try to use the very features which make MSOffice worth using, you just discover they've been hijacked to someplace else you don't know about.

 

So... Yes, I must say I'm not very fond of the new interface. Also, this change means we need even faster computers to run it! I don't like that very much, too. And of course there's the whole layout of it; If you use Windows XP, for example, Office 2007 just looks plain wrong! *Every* app looks different! It gets worse when you fire up things like Publisher 2007 or other parts of the suite that have an interface somewhere in between the 2003 and 2007 versions.

If you happen to use Vista (and are lucky to own a computer capable of running it smoothly under stress tests), Office 2007 looks better... Even so, there are a couple of things that bug me... Like the "ribbon", taking up a fair amount of screen real-estate... not all of us have great TFT screens and fast PCs...

 

There's also that teeny thing about document formats... especially the fact that the default 2007 format is completely backwards-incompatible with the 2003 version. They could've made them compatible... Oh, and let us talk about OOXML for a bit (well, guess it's better not to).

IMHO, Office 2003 beats Office 2007 everyday, in every possible way. Software like that isn't made to please the eye!

 

 

...and on to OpenOffice:

I see that many of you are good FOSS supporters... that's nice I really love the philosophy and such... but I simply can't agree when people say that OpenOffice (OOo) is better than MSOffice (MSO). Being a linux user and all that, I have been using OpenOffice for ages now, and there are several things that I love in it, as well as some things that are pretty bad.

OOo is open, free, and multiplatform... Also, it adheres to document standards, which is a big plus! However, when we compare OOo's performance with that of a decent version of MSO, like MSO2003, OOo just sucks! I mean, the programmers have done a pretty damn good job with OOo, but it's just not that ready. OOo is *slow*, the interface (on Linux) has little irritating bugs, and the overall experience is pretty below the one MSO 2003 provides.

 

I'm not saying I'd rather pay for MSO than use OOo; for most people, OOo is enough.

 

 

So, if you really happen to be able to pay for it, and use Windows, just buy MSO 2000 or 2003... skip 2007, and use OOo only if you have to. Being open and standards-compliant won't get you great documents, at least for now Well, if you barely use Word and don't care for spreadsheets, buying MSO would be a total waste, of course... and 85% of the people I know waste money like that lol...

[iggnimutal 0]

i think open office is still good even much people feel it was dumped from microsoft, the good point is when the computer we use is not installed with microsoft office, i mean it works better use the portable version of open office. still, the microsoft office is better than open office. is there any competitor beside open office which maybe we feel it dumps microsoft office else? give me report.

[Erdemir 0]

Open Office is free and can do whatever Microsoft Office can do. Microsoft Office has no freeware program even Microsoft is the richest software company. And sometimes Microsoft Office wants you to insert the Microsoft Office CD in your CDROM drive again, and makes you angry at least for me. But Open Office does not. You install it and use it without any problems. And Open Office is opensource, but Microsoft Office is not. Open Office supports Microsoft Office document formats, but Microsoft Office only supports its own document formats. Open Office.org can save your documents as PDF formats. Open Office can work in every Operating Systems, but Microsoft Office needs Microsoft Windows.All these alternatives why should I use Microsoft Office. Of course I select Open Office.org .

Edited August 2, 2008 by Erdemir (see edit history)

[10jamest 0]

I have used both Open Office and Microsoft Office. My opinion is that Microsoft Office and open office are very comparable and neither of them have any features that really puts it above the other(except open office is free). Currently I am sticking with Microsoft Office because I own it and it is what I am used to, but when I have to pay to buy microsoft office again I will just switch to open office.

[pedro-kun 0]

OpenOffice can't open all of Microsoft Office's formats. I mean, OOo can open them, but doesn't render them correctly. Try composing a mildly complex document in MSO and them open it in OOo. The formatting is either gone, or else it is wrong (sometimes only subtle imperfections, but other times there are huge differences from the original version of the document).Also, MSO runs far faster than OOo. The interface feels less sluggish and everything seems to be in the right place. OOo is a mess in terms of code (and not only in terms of code). Okay, I know, it is free, and for most people, it has all the features they will ever need except ONE hugelly important feature: compatibility with MSO. All my teachers at the university prepare slides for their classes and then give them away for students to study them. It's rare for me to find a powerpoint slide which works flawlessly. RARE. Also, things like arrows and such are poorly rendered (and I won't even talk about how slow transitions in OOo are).OpenOffice's major problem is that porting documents between it and MSO is not a perfect science. And some peoples grades/jobs depend on correct documentation, etc... Imagine what it would be to be a scientist who prepared a presentation at home in OOo and then at the congress he had to use MSO... the formatting could be all wrong... even though this would not be the end of his life (lol), such mess would obviously have an impact in what others might think of him.So, when comparing MSO with OOo, please don't just go ahead and say they both have the same features. They can behave almost the same for simple text processing and other small things... But when compatibility and presentation matter, it's a safer bet to just use MSO. "It's not free" -> oh well, many things in life aren't. If you want support, performance, and some guarantee of quality, MSO is the way to go, at least for now.Oh, and that PDF-export thing... it's not a real advantage.. you can have that on MSO with third-party free software. I know it's built into OOo, but who cares?Also, MSO works on all platforms to... Windows and Mac, at least. We all know that most people who use office suites work on those same platforms. OOo works on *nixes too, but *nix people who want good documents use LaTeX/TeX anyway. Spreadsheets and databases are the ones without alternative lol.PS.: I think some might think I'm against OpenOffice... I'm not. I use it!. However, I'm aware of its imperfections. I'd love to be able to say "OpenOffice is the best!!", but unfortunately, it's not. Not yet. Well, at least for now, I can say "it rocks!", but I hope the developers improve it more and more... there's still a lot to do to make it stand beside (or surpass) MSO.

[saitunes 0]

I'd take Open office over Microsoft office, I prefer open office. Its WAY cheaper, i think it works just as well, and its compatibility is pretty good (in my experience, then again its only been simple word and excel stuff)But being a mac man I've got the option of apple's iWork, Pages kicks words butt, Keynote runs circles around powerpoint, and as for numbers vs excel. I haven't really tried numbers that in depth. but it all looks good.

[hitmanblood 0]

It is completly illogical to make statement like that open office against Microsoft. It can only be open office against Microsoft Office. Or something like that at first I thought that Microsoft or open office are sueing each other

[jopak134 0]

haven't tried openoffice but have tried another free one and basically... Sucks! so ill not change it now. but microsoft works is a free one or is it just a reader???

[rvalkass 5]

but microsoft works is a free one or is it just a reader???

Microsoft Works isn't free, but many OEMs tend to throw a free copy in with new PCs. The theory is that most people don't notice the difference between Works and Office until after they buy the PC, then go back to the retailer to buy Office. I think it might be able to read Office documents, and maybe save in them (I'm not sure - it's years since I used it) but they are not the native Works format (Microsoft gave Works its own weird collection of file formats all of its own).

Personally, I'll be sticking with OpenOffice.

[miladinoski 1]

MS Works sucks, and the biggest thing why it blows that much, is because it has its own formats (proprietary ofcourse) - which cannot be read and aren't supported by a lot of office productivity suites.

I had Works once on my laptop (when I ran XP on it - my PC had loads of stuff that the OEMs ship with - including licenced Works and OneNote 2003, though the Office 2003 was included it wasn't licenced), and it has a terrible UI, an UI which was so bad that I haven't seen that kind of for years (ah well, maybe in Win 98).

So, my point is, stick with OOo it's great, it's free, and the best thing it's open-source, it's format is open-source (no hiding the code in secure safes like MS does) and as I tend to agree with what rvalkass said, I'll be sticking with OpenOffice.org myself, for the reasons mentioned above.

[saitunes 0]

To be honest, if money's a bit tight (or you can't get a copy of office) I think Open office is a great alternative. I will admit powerpoint beats open office impress, but Apple Keynote beats powerpoint IMHO. They say compatibility is an issue with MS office files, If you're working on it in open office, save it an use it in open office's format, and if you need to submit, just print it as a PDF or as a hard copy, That's what I do with all my assignments that aren't web pages, and I don't use open office, I use iWork, I still have to upgrade to the new one with numbers, an excel equivalent. For basic word processing, simple workbooks and basic presentations open office is great. If you're worried about compatibility, just download the portable version and take it with you on your USB.

[shddgfgc 0]

open office is definitely better than MS office for the simple reason that u get similar features for absolutely free...it is open source so u can download it n number of times