OpenOffice - Any good?

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mjyoung

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Nov 28, 2007
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First off, I sincerely apologize if this subject has already been beaten to death. I was wondering if anybody has any experience using OpenOffice?

How is it compared to the Microsoft Office suite? Is it compatible with Office 2000-2007 documents/spreadsheets/ppt presentations? Can it read MS Office documents, and vice versa, can MS Office read OpenOffice documents?

Thanks for any info you have to offer =)
 
upriverpaddler said:
My wife refuses to use it (40yo college student) because it doesn't have spellcheck.
Click to expand...

It has a spellcheck.


Anyway, Openoffice is compatible with a lot of different formats including Microsoft Office (not sure about Office 2007 though). This includes reading, writing, and creating many of these file types. However, some advanced features or formatting in a Microsoft Word doc (created in Microsoft Word) might be a little off.

Openoffice is free, so there's no harm in trying it out.
 
I used to use it a little bit when it was version 1.x It's stacks up pretty well for a free program to MS Office. Most of the functions and features are there. However, the interface is kind of clunky and not as intuitively designed. In addition I remember clearly the graphs wizard in the Excel equivalent straight up stinks. Very limited options on what can be displayed and how the data can be presented.
 
I prefer it to MS Office for the most part. It is less bloated and I get to pass up on any Adobe software for PDFs. That kills two bloated birds with one stone ;) That said I mostly use my Mac and iWork for that kind of stuff so I don't spend a large amount of time with any of the PC Office suites anymore.
 
MattyC said:
I prefer it to MS Office for the most part. It is less bloated and I get to pass up on any Adobe software for PDFs. That kills two bloated birds with one stone ;) That said I mostly use my Mac and iWork for that kind of stuff so I don't spend a large amount of time with any of the PC Office suites anymore.
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Office 07 does pdf's. You just need to download the free addon from MS.

Anyway I used it years before it was open source as open office. Have used star office on spac boxes for a while now. Overall it is a nice package but it is not as good as ms office. Your standard user will be fine with it though. Also I feel the last time I used it that it was slower to startup then ms office.

As someone elce said it is free. Give it a try.
 
IMO comparing it to MS office is like comparing The Gimp to Photoshop. Not as powerful, but still has many features and does the job for most people.
 
Lets put it this way...

It is the best free alternative to Office Suite, if not the best alternative to Office Suite....but it still is NOT Office Suite :p


It works particularly well if you just do basic word processing, spreadsheets, etc. In fact most people could probably get by on it just fine as people barely use ANY of the features in Office a lot of the time.

But for a work environment or with a more demanding user, go for full Office. It still is the best IMO and it is really powerful under the hood. I also would say you are crazy not to get it for $59!

http://theultimatesteal.com/home.asp
 
swatbat said:
it is not as good as ms office. Your standard user will be fine with it though.
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I dunno if good is the word I would use there, but I do agree with you. If you are just an average user then OpenOffice will easily fit the bill. If you really are a power user of the suite (and some people really are) then you need MS Office. Nothing else is really going to do it because... well, it is still the (bloated) king ;)

The same can be said of iWork. I love it and it does all I need, but I have noticed many features (particularly in Numbers) that while I rarely use, a power user from MS Office would sorely miss. It really just depends on your needs. If it is someone that truely uses all the bells and whistles of Office, accept no substitute. However, if you just need a nice word processor, presentation, and spreadsheet app, then make sure you consider the alternatives. Either way OO is free so trying can't hurt as others have mentioned.

As for the PDF bit, I didn't know. Thanks for the info. I might have to give the newer version a download since I 'pay' for it anyway via MSDN. I only briefly toyed with the newest version (as I mentioned before).
 
I've been using OpenOffice for a while now. I only do basic stuff for the most part so I have no trouble with it. As others have said, for normal tasks it should do just fine. It's just when you get into the "power user" group that you would have trouble. OpenOffice doesn't have all the features of MS Office but most of them are advanced features that the majority of people do not use.

 
GN85 said:
IMO comparing it to MS office is like comparing The Gimp to Photoshop. Not as powerful, but still has many features and does the job for most people.
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You hit the nail on the head. I have both OpenOffice and Microsoft Office, and OpenOffice is very nice, especially considering it's free. However, in my opinion, it's just not as good as Microsoft's office suite. I think for a lot of people it'll do everything they need it to, but it is either missing some nice features, or certain tools are hard to find, that you know exist in MS Office. If I could only use OpenOffice or MS Office, at this point I'd take MS Office, but OpenOffice is a very capable office suite.

Like the others have said, considering it's free, just download it and try it out.
 
Well, I've used openoffice for years. And it is perfect for me.

Can't say I tried MSOffice since office XP, so I don't know what I am "missing"
 
I think Microsoft is setting the bar as far as office suites go. Both good and bad I guess, but this is why freebie stuff like Open Office will NEVER be as good. Microsoft implements all these new features- and Open Office is then behind the times (especially with Office 2007 now).


Like most have said: If you need the basics, OO works fantastic. I've recommended and helped deploy it at a school before. Works fine for kids.

Works fine for anyone who just needs to type a letter up, as well.

However once you get into the Business world, need all the features Office has, and compatibility (To my knowledge OO does not support the new .docx formats, .docx being Word), nothing better than Office.
 
Unless you live in a city with openoffice deployment
Or a country with ODF as their standard.
 
OpenOffice is a solid product, and can fit the bill for most people. Some exceptions I see is where people have to have Access for development (shudder) or Outlook (usually for MS Exchange Server).

Good analogy between Gimp and Adobe, btw. ;)
 
Being a buisness major, I need to use MSOffice for certain things. Excel also has features that my classes require.

I've tired OpenOffice, and found it ok. If you're looking for a free Office Suite for general usage it's perfect, but for a business or anything professional I'd suggest MSOffice just because of it's richer feature set.

The one thing I love about OpenOffice is it's Math program. It's great for making cheat cheats for Econ and Stats. I download and install this seperately.
 
I've used it for quite some time now and love it. Especially for schoolwork; the equation editor is ten times as good as anything Microsoft's ever put out.

I can respect that some people prefer the interface of MS Office, but I've yet to run across anyone in my experience who found anything they couldn't do in OO. Granted, I don't hang out with your typical CEO-type, but in my experience anything (word-processing-wise) MS Office is better than OO at you should be using LaTeX anyway.

Spreadsheets, I'll admit that Excel kicks the crap out of Oo_Org, but OO's spreadsheet is still good enough for most users.
 
I wouldn't use it for resumes or spreadsheets for work, but for viewing/minor editing at home, it beats the crap out of the huge premium you will pay for MS Office...
 
I like it a lot, has a lot of features of MS and is free. I'm cheap and it works fine. I'm not about to pay even half the retail of MS office. But if they were both free I would take MS office.... lol.
 
Every computer I have uses it. Much better than MS Office I think (price to performace ratio that is).
 
GN85 said:
IMO comparing it to MS office is like comparing The Gimp to Photoshop. Not as powerful, but still has many features and does the job for most people.
Click to expand...

^ Hits the nail on the head.

It's a good free alternative, but I find it to be far too clunky and unintuitive to be of use over MS Office if you have the option :)
 
King_Pariah said:
I wouldn't use it for resumes or spreadsheets for work, but for viewing/minor editing at home, it beats the crap out of the huge premium you will pay for MS Office...
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Resume in MS Word 2007 Exported to PDF: 800K

Same resume saved in word format, opened in OO, exported to PDF: 51.4K

As such, I've done my Resume in Oo_Org for quite some time now.
 
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