advice iro OpenOffice - too good to be true?

[mccrackenj]

Hi all

I've just bough a PC for home at long last and it has Microsoft Works 8.0 installed. (OS is Vista home premium). I use spreadsheets a lot in work (accountant) and we have Micorsoft Office 2003. At first glance the spreadsheet within Works 8.0 on my new PC seems to be of very limited functionality - in fact utter, utter pants. Functions I thought were pretty basic simply seem not to be available and I just know I'll not be able to use it without getting very p!ssed off very quickly.

Now, problem is that I'm not prepared to spend £100 or £200 or more on Office 2003 or 2007 for home - so I've stumbled accross the Open Office version.

My question is - is it any good? Will I have any problems installing it on my PC? Are there any pitfalls I should know about?

Please note that I am not at all knowledgable on hardware & software technical issues - the nice chaps from IT just plonk a PC on my desk and take it away and replace it every few years, so I don't have to understand too much about it!

Thanks for your help

John

[Zumbruk]

Why not try it and see? It's dead easy to install (and uninstall...)

I've never found a Word document it won't open (all the documentation I do for work is done with it, and no-one's ever noticed), but I've never played much with spreadsheets - it works fine for the simple ones I've tried.

[ThePassenger]

OpenOffice.org (OOo) is an utter breeze to install, it's this hard:

• Download.
• Double click the .exe you downloaded
• Sip cool beverage. Click 'next' a few times.
• Jobs a good `un.

Some things to be aware of: We are UK English, make sure you download dictionaries/localisation files for UK English or it'll wander off and tell you colour is spelt wrong.

That's it. It's pretty much Office 97 in terms of looks so the icons and layout of things should be pretty familiar, it also has extensive help and documentation if you get stuck.

The only thing to keep an eye on is that OOo like to use Java for things so if you haven't done so already install Sun's Java packages, I think, if you hit www.java.com it'll give you links to do so automatically; other than that, you're golden and your computer will run it easily.

Edit: And yes, it's quite good. I use it exclusively at home for the main reason you state; not forking out £300 for a bloody word processor

Edited by ThePassenger on Monday 4th June 17:04

[mattley]

Depending on the office licence version you use, you can probably use your work licence on one machine at home, (It might have to be a laptop, but most people put they're laptops on their desk )

[mccrackenj]

Thanks for the advice guys. I'll def give it ago, nothing to lose.

Good suggestion Mattley, but as maybe 99% of stuff I do at home will be non-work related, I'd rather keep the 2 worlds strictly separated.

Cheers

[Road2Ruin]

Definitely give open office a go. I have used it for about a year now at home and I forget that its not even Mirosoft office.

[ginettag27]

I think the _only_ issues you may get are when trying to share files with people in Excel and they
start using formulas or other bits that OpenOffice just wasn't aware of... I think I might have
used an older version of OpenOffice and it just didn't recognise some bits.. Some of it is down
to "coding style" as well - I think the person I was working with just used as many Excel specific
bits as he could, whereas there were some more portable ways of coding the end result...

[jamieboy]

Is there a database that's file-compatible with Access in OpenOffice yet?