Discussion
I use it on my private computer and I've never experienced problems with it. It is easy to understand when you're used to MS Office, and there are already some people in my surroundings that exchange the native file format.
At work, it is the standard for UNIX/Linux workstations, and I've never found any limitations there too.
At work, it is the standard for UNIX/Linux workstations, and I've never found any limitations there too.
It takes a while to get used to, but once you've used it a few times it's just as good as MS for the basics. I can't really comment on the more advanced stuff as I don't use it that much, but a quick look at the function list on Calc (Excel) shows the list is about the same as Excel.
There are a few compatability annoyances with changing from OpenOffice to Word documents, but they're not huge (the main ones I've found are having to put an extra line on every page and the page counter thing not working properly).
There are a few compatability annoyances with changing from OpenOffice to Word documents, but they're not huge (the main ones I've found are having to put an extra line on every page and the page counter thing not working properly).
FunkyNige said:
Cheers for the responses guy's.
Just downloaded the stable version and will be spending a while getting used to it.
I've never had any trouble with the Beta version, is does have more features though I believe.
Once i get used to using it i will probably start using the Beta version's if they offer anything better.
docevi1 said:Slow??? That's surprising - in my experience over the last few years, it's always been faster than MS Word on a given machine.
I find Open Office is slow, buggy as hell and doesn't have any compatability with Word at all. Strange how it goes eh
Bugs - not found any myself, but I can imagine there may be a few. As to Word compatibility, I've found it compatible with more versions of MS Word than any one version of Word itself.... (I have found a few formatting funnies though)
Put it like this though - it's far better at outputting MS Word docs than MS Word is at outputting OpenOffice docs
docevi1 said:No - it's the other way round: MS Word can't open OOo Writer documents
I find Open Office is slow, buggy as hell and doesn't have any compatability with Word at all. Strange how it goes eh
OpenOffice opens and saves MS Word, Excel and Powerpoint documents.
And the killer: OOo doesn't have that annoying paperclip thingymajig
Don't get me wrong, it's not something I wouldn't put up with since it's free. Indeed it's a darn sight better than most free alternatives, but it just doesn't cut the mustard for me.
Starting it up takes for ever, when actually using it everything is very slow and takes ages to work. Formatting compatibility is non-existent with Word and many features that I use in Word at Uni simply don't work in Office (things like equations and characters). The printing options suck compared to Office... I'm not a big fan at all whilst I can use Office.
Then again, Office isn't all it's cracked up to be - there are plenty of bugs and annoyances in it as well, just it seems to do what I need more of the time.
Starting it up takes for ever, when actually using it everything is very slow and takes ages to work. Formatting compatibility is non-existent with Word and many features that I use in Word at Uni simply don't work in Office (things like equations and characters). The printing options suck compared to Office... I'm not a big fan at all whilst I can use Office.
Then again, Office isn't all it's cracked up to be - there are plenty of bugs and annoyances in it as well, just it seems to do what I need more of the time.
docevi1 said:
Starting it up takes for ever, when actually using it everything is very slow and takes ages to work. Formatting compatibility is non-existent with Word and many features that I use in Word at Uni simply don't work in Office (things like equations and characters). The printing options suck compared to Office... I'm not a big fan at all whilst I can use Office.
What version are you using? OpenOffice 1.1.x is pretty bad but the 2.0 betas are much different....
I went half way and bought Star Office.
It is Sun's version of MS Office and from what I have found does everything MS does and like Open Office saves and reads MS files.
£69 from PC World a year a go
Oh and my brother is a Sun reseller so I get all the support i need (except I haven;t needed any)
I love it and along with my Firefox application its one in the eye for Mr Gates!
It is Sun's version of MS Office and from what I have found does everything MS does and like Open Office saves and reads MS files.
£69 from PC World a year a go
Oh and my brother is a Sun reseller so I get all the support i need (except I haven;t needed any)
I love it and along with my Firefox application its one in the eye for Mr Gates!
vex said:Now you only need to migrate your computer to Sun Solaris 10 for x86 or the Sun Java Desktop, which is their Linux distribution. MS free, if you like it
I went half way and bought Star Office.
It is Sun's version of MS Office and from what I have found does everything MS does and like Open Office saves and reads MS files.
£69 from PC World a year a go
Oh and my brother is a Sun reseller so I get all the support i need (except I haven;t needed any)
I love it and along with my Firefox application its one in the eye for Mr Gates!
OpenOffice's codebase originally derives from Sun's StarOffice who made their code open source a few years ago. Sun now uses OpenOffice's source code, from which they build the new versions of StarOffice. StarOffice compared to OpenOffice has a few different features, support from Sun and is optimised for commercial use.
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