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BS: OpenOffice - Anyone Use It?
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Subject: BS: OpenOffice - Anyone Use It? From: Ebbie Date: 01 Nov 09 - 03:08 PM It's a long, sad story- involving a move, a mouse port gone bad, necessitsting a new tower, 'old' printer not having 'new' USB feature on the tower, necessatating the purchase of a new printer, no available cable in new abode, necessitating switching to a wireless server- This, on top of my old cat making a needed visit to the vet- to the tune of more than $275- in other words, an expensive month. Thinking to save money, (MSWord is $151.00 purchased at the shop) I checked into online word processors. Ended up installing OpenOffice, free of charge and with most of the features I'm familiar with. I'm h appy about that. However, there are anomolies. Does anyone here use it? I think I'll get used to it- but it appears to be almost as bad as WordPerfect when it comes to memorizing keyboard shortcuts and learning my way around. And it simply refuses to do some of the tricks. Any suggestions? |
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Subject: RE: BS: OpenOffice - Anyone Use It? From: Lox Date: 01 Nov 09 - 04:32 PM I use it. I don't know any keyboard shortcuts, I just use my mouse and It works like a dream for me.. It's just as good if not better than microsoft word yet free. Once you're familiar with it you won't look back. And you can save documents as word documents which can then be opened in other peoples word software without any fuss. You won't regret getting it. |
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Subject: RE: BS: OpenOffice - Anyone Use It? From: Stilly River Sage Date: 01 Nov 09 - 04:38 PM I have it installed and use it on occasion. I think you can get by with it and in some aspects it is much more civilized that the various Microsoft products. Take a look into free versions of the Microsoft products. I've heard rumors that they're going to make some available in lite flavors. SRS |
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Subject: RE: BS: OpenOffice - Anyone Use It? From: Bill D Date: 01 Nov 09 - 04:44 PM Open Office does 94.076% of everything Word does.... the other 5.914% you don't need anyway. |
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Subject: RE: BS: OpenOffice - Anyone Use It? From: Dave the Gnome Date: 01 Nov 09 - 04:50 PM I use it and find it great but must admit I rarely use any shorcuts or particularly advanced features. I did however find the mailmerge feature much more efficient that Microsoft Worm and the ease of integration with Database/Spreadsheet and WP was a doddle. Cheers DeG |
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Subject: RE: BS: OpenOffice - Anyone Use It? From: Lox Date: 01 Nov 09 - 04:52 PM what about the other 0.01%? Is that for calculations? |
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Subject: RE: BS: OpenOffice - Anyone Use It? From: Bill D Date: 01 Nov 09 - 04:55 PM I KNEW someone would ask.. *grin*...No, it's the part that doesn't have that silly paper clip. |
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Subject: RE: BS: OpenOffice - Anyone Use It? From: Jack Campin Date: 01 Nov 09 - 04:55 PM I've used the Mac version. Memory hog, runs like a drain and sometimes manages to lock the machine up. I only use it when I'm sent something AppleWorks or a text editor can't handle. I doubt the real Microsoft alternative would be much better and I've got no intention of shelling out the dosh to find out. (Word 98 was okay - the last version of Excel I could stand was version 4 for the Mac). |
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Subject: RE: BS: OpenOffice - Anyone Use It? From: GUEST,j Date: 01 Nov 09 - 04:59 PM |
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Subject: RE: BS: OpenOffice - Anyone Use It? From: Stilly River Sage Date: 01 Nov 09 - 04:59 PM You're wrong there, Jack. It looks and works more like WordPerfect on PCs, and is I think a bit faster and more responsive than the Word software and it's mates. SRS |
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Subject: RE: BS: OpenOffice - Anyone Use It? From: GUEST,jts Date: 01 Nov 09 - 05:00 PM you can't beat this for free. Proven software from Lotus/IBM Symphony |
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Subject: RE: BS: OpenOffice - Anyone Use It? From: GUEST,.gargoyle Date: 01 Nov 09 - 05:20 PM It IS free - it works.
It is virtually identical to MS Office2000.
If you have used the one - you will have NO PROBLEM using it. It is GUI interfaced and fully mouseable. It is Nothing Like "word-perfect" which required a templete to remember keystrokes.
For the price - you cannot beat it.
You will be comfortable with it - inside of an hour.
You will find it at "openoffice.org"
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Subject: RE: BS: OpenOffice - Anyone Use It? From: Rapparee Date: 01 Nov 09 - 05:33 PM And I, a Word Perfect nut, completely agree with Garg on this. It's a good product, works well, does what it's supposed to do (you can't beat THAT!), and like everything you have to give it some time to learn it. That said, I think you'll like it when you learn it. (Of course, I think Word Star 1.0 was better than Word 2007 and ancestors....) |
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Subject: RE: BS: OpenOffice - Anyone Use It? From: Rasener Date: 01 Nov 09 - 05:40 PM Blimey I didn't realise Symphony was still around. I used to teach that to advanced level as well as Lotus 123, before Microsoft took over. Symphony is a wonderful integrated application. |
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Subject: RE: BS: OpenOffice - Anyone Use It? From: katlaughing Date: 01 Nov 09 - 05:58 PM I have just started using it and really like it, Ebbie. My Rog will use nothing else at the station and that means all of the reporters, writers, editors, etc. use it. He cannot sing its praises high enough! |
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Subject: RE: BS: OpenOffice - Anyone Use It? From: ranger1 Date: 01 Nov 09 - 06:04 PM I really like it, and I'm a serious technophobe. My seriously techie friend Blaine swears by it, too, by the way. |
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Subject: RE: BS: OpenOffice - Anyone Use It? From: Rasener Date: 01 Nov 09 - 06:29 PM Most people only ever use about 20% of the applications capabilties. Open Office will handle most of what MS Office can do. I prefer MS Office. I have Office Enterprise 2007, which has about 10 applications, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, Publisher. It cost £35 from Software4Students. Click on this link http://www.faldingworthlive.co.uk/ and then click on Software4Students. If you have anybody in your family that is still at school or at university, you can buy it legally from them. It only applies to the UK. |
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Subject: RE: BS: OpenOffice - Anyone Use It? From: Tootler Date: 01 Nov 09 - 06:52 PM I have been using it for almost five years now and while the early versions were much more limited than MS Office, it has improved with each version and is now an excellent alternative to MS Office. I started using it in Windows and now use it in Ubuntu Linux and it works fine in both cases. Memory hog it is not, slow it is not. BTW, you can set up your own keyboard shortcuts:
Simples |
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Subject: RE: BS: OpenOffice - Anyone Use It? From: Janie Date: 01 Nov 09 - 06:59 PM I use it on my Mac when I am working on a document at home that I need to be able to open on my office PC, and I did all the forms for my private practice with it. I have no complaints. When I do have to switch around between OpenOffice and MS Office I do lose some formatting sometimes. It is probably fixable, but I haven't messed around with it to see. |
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Subject: RE: BS: OpenOffice - Anyone Use It? From: frogprince Date: 01 Nov 09 - 08:04 PM I'm running XP Media; I have some old stuff from ME, including that version of wordpad, under "old drive". I had been getting a bunch of documents related to art association business that I could only open right by saving them and using the old wordpad version; I also got some stuff in legitimate emails that I couldn't open at all. I got open office on a friend's recommendation, and it has opened everything I've received since. |
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Subject: RE: BS: OpenOffice - Anyone Use It? From: BK Lick Date: 01 Nov 09 - 08:06 PM OpenOffice for the Mac is NeoOffice 3.0.1. I think it's grand. In addition to Microsoft Word documents, it can open, work with, and save Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint documents. —BK |
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Subject: RE: BS: OpenOffice - Anyone Use It? From: Ebbie Date: 01 Nov 09 - 08:41 PM Amazing that I had never heard of it before I went looking for alternatives. Nobuddy tells me nuttin'. I followed links and read reviews and finally decided that I'd give it a try. I especially liked that it claimed that if I did not like it, it could be easily removed. (Incidentally, I also came across the $11.95 OpenOffice offer but on further reading it became apparent that it was an entreprenureal (sp) effort by someone else.) OpenOffice claims that it is compatible with Word documents already in existence so I'm off to check the contents of my external drive. I sure hope so- I used the external as a backup but with the loss of my desktop tower the external has the only copy of everything I had. Thanks to everyone for your reports. |
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Subject: RE: BS: OpenOffice - Anyone Use It? From: katlaughing Date: 01 Nov 09 - 08:55 PM Ebbie, I just copied an MS Office doc on my regular PC to thumb drive, took it to the new mini that has only Open Office. Plugged it in to the usb port, went into Open Office, told it to open a doc and where. Easy-peasy, no problems at all. You should be fine.:-) |
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Subject: RE: BS: OpenOffice - Anyone Use It? From: EBarnacle Date: 01 Nov 09 - 10:37 PM Am I correct in my recall that it can also create Adobe Acrobat documents? |
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Subject: RE: BS: OpenOffice - Anyone Use It? From: Ebbie Date: 01 Nov 09 - 10:53 PM EBarnacle, I do believe that I read something of the sort. |
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Subject: RE: BS: OpenOffice - Anyone Use It? From: BK Lick Date: 02 Nov 09 - 12:37 AM Yes, 'tis true -- choose "export as PDF." |
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Subject: RE: BS: OpenOffice - Anyone Use It? From: Joe Offer Date: 02 Nov 09 - 12:56 AM I've used both Windows and Linux versions of Open Office, and I really like it. I'm not having much luck getting other people to use it at the Women's Center, but we can get the top version of Microsoft Office for $25 a license - so they're spoiled now. Yeah, I have to say I like Office Professional Pro better than Open Office, but I can't afford it for myself. -Joe- |
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Subject: RE: BS: OpenOffice - Anyone Use It? From: Stilly River Sage Date: 02 Nov 09 - 03:07 AM I answered back to Garg earlier, but I see it didn't get through. OpenOffice does look a lot like WordPerfect. I've had to use that a few times to open files a friend sends. I don't know the macros so I have to use the menus. WordPerfect looks like OpenOffice a lot more than Word does. SRS |
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Subject: RE: BS: OpenOffice - Anyone Use It? From: Penny S. Date: 02 Nov 09 - 03:26 AM I use it all the time - but it won't open really old Works or Word docs. I have to convert those on a machine which will. But that's an MS problem as the recent versions of those won't do it, either. The Powerpoint clone isn't so good except on very basic files, if what you want to do is produce a presentation and then show it on an MS machine. Or view an MS type file. Lots of bells and whistles won't cross over. The spreadsheet is OK on basic stuff from or to Excel - haven't tried the fancy stuff, though. Penny |
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Subject: RE: BS: OpenOffice - Anyone Use It? From: Bonnie Shaljean Date: 02 Nov 09 - 04:49 AM I echo what Bill D & Garg wrote. I use both Open Office and Word on a Mac (Word for Mac 2004) and also both programmes on a two different PCs, plus Open Office but no Word on a netbook (XP), and have no problems with any of them - though Open Office can sometimes be a little slower than Word to open (IMHO a small price to pay when you compare it to the cost of Micro$oft Office). Documents made on one computer freely transfer between it and all the others without any trouble. I don't know much about the other programmes in the OO suite, but Michael seems happy enough with the spreadsheet. In fact Neo Office is a different programme, and as BK says, it runs on Macs. But the programme I use now on my Mac is actually Open Office and it's great: http://www.openoffice.org/ When I click the download link on my Mac it automatically takes me to a Mac OSX download (maybe it won't work pre-10?) and the whole thing couldn't be easier. Another way of making .PDF files is to click the Print option on the File menu, the click on the little "PDF" button at the bottom left of the dialogue box and save it as a .PDF. If you want to be able to read Word documents without actually having the programme, you can download either "Word Reader" or "Word viewer" for free, which will "view, print and copy Word documents, even if you don't have Word installed." I have Word Reader on my Word-less netbook and it works like a dream (though I've only tried copying via copy-&-paste, which it does). More here (or you can google those two phrases): http://www.freedownloadmanager.org/downloads/word_reader_2007_software/ Since it costs nothing, try Open Office - you can always fork out for Word if you really, really need to. But I don't think you will. |
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Subject: RE: BS: OpenOffice - Anyone Use It? From: JohnInKansas Date: 02 Nov 09 - 12:05 PM From: Lox - 01 Nov 09 - 04:32 PM I don't know any keyboard shortcuts, I just use my mouse and It works like a dream for me. (Opinion) If you don't use any keyboard shortcuts, you likely aren't using many of the most powerful capabilities of the program. From: Bill D - 01 Nov 09 - 04:44 PM Open Office does 94.076% of everything Word does.... the other 5.914% you don't need anyway. (Opinion) Bill D means that Open Office does 94% of the Word features that Bill D knows how to use.(?) From: David el Gnomo - 01 Nov 09 - 04:50 PM I use it and find it great but must admit I rarely use any shorcuts or particularly advanced features. (Opinion) See Lox and Bill D above. From: The Villan - 01 Nov 09 - 06:29 PM Most people only ever use about 20% of the applications capabilties. Open Office will handle most of what MS Office can do. (Opinion) Most people use less than 2% of the application's capabilities, particularly for previous versions of Word. Open office will handle most of what most people will know how to do with MS Office. For Word 2007, Microsoft found themselves one of the "two-percenters" and put her in charge of "redesigning" Word. This made Word 2007 exceedingly "cute" and – perhaps – "user friendly" for those who don't need more than a text editor; but it made it nearly impossible to use most of the advanced features that are essential for professional level word processing. Quite obviously, Microsoft wanted to attract those "most people" who don't need, and don't care about, advanced features, but in doing so they made it useless for the 5% or so of people who need and want a real word processor. In its "2007" incarnation, Word is perhaps slightly inferior to Open Office for "most people"* and is virtually useless for anyone who needs any of the advanced features that Word used to do best. Since Word 2007 is designed to be used only by "idiots"* and is useful only for "idiots" it is quite obviously that Microsoft expects only "idiots" to pay the price to buy it. Microsoft failed to recognize that the "idiots" aren't willing to pay the price for a professional level program (even if it hides and prevents use of features needed at a professional level) and that the "idiots" are smart enough to soon find that a better program for their use is free. * "Most people" and "idiots" are interchangeable terms for "those who don't need professional level features." The terms are used here in the admittedly "elitist" sense one might expect anyone highly skilled in a particular activity to use for those of "lesser skill," and are not intended in the literal and conventional sense. It is quite obvious that Microsoft believes that most of those in its customer base are idiots, in the conventional sense of the word. Microsoft has adopted the attitude that most people who use their products have very limited intellectual capacity, and thus that it's more important to be "cute" than useful. If you have Word 2000 or Word 2002 that will still run on your OS, and need to use Word's more powerful features, it is likely that Word is still "better" than most alternatives. (Since these are no longer supported, they can be expected to "crumble" as new OS updates are installed.) If you think Word 2007 is ok, you aren't using many advanced features and you probably are as well off with Open Office. You might as well save your money. If you must have features that only Word has, and are willing to work out how to defeat the program to use them, then Word 2007 is about the only thing you can get that will run many of the advanced functions on the newer Microsoft Operating Systems. (Defeating the program to use many advanced functions can be quite difficult.) John |
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Subject: RE: BS: OpenOffice - Anyone Use It? From: GUEST,watcher Date: 02 Nov 09 - 12:34 PM Something that might be worth considering is the fact that you can put a version of openoffice onto a usb flashdrive/memory stick and take it with you along with your documents, then you can use it on any pc. You can download it from http://portableapps.com/apps/office/openoffice_portable |
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Subject: RE: BS: OpenOffice - Anyone Use It? From: Rasener Date: 02 Nov 09 - 01:46 PM >>Quite obviously, Microsoft wanted to attract those "most people" who don't need, and don't care about, advanced features, but in doing so they made it useless for the 5% or so of people who need and want a real word processor. In its "2007" incarnation, Word is perhaps slightly inferior to Open Office for "most people"* and is virtually useless for anyone who needs any of the advanced features that Word used to do best. << John I couldn't agree more with you. 2007 is very frustrating when you want to do anything advanced. However, I am slowly gettting used to it and finding what I need. It just takes time. Les |
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Subject: RE: BS: OpenOffice - Anyone Use It? From: Bonzo3legs Date: 02 Nov 09 - 02:20 PM Which is why we use Office 2000 premium at home! |
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Subject: RE: BS: OpenOffice - Anyone Use It? From: Rasener Date: 02 Nov 09 - 02:53 PM I bought 2007 to give my daughters the latest version for their future, but I agree Bonzo, 2000 was a very good version :-) |
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Subject: RE: BS: OpenOffice - Anyone Use It? From: GUEST,Lox Date: 02 Nov 09 - 03:00 PM "Which is why we use Office 2000 premium at home!" What do you use at the office? |
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Subject: RE: BS: OpenOffice - Anyone Use It? From: Rasener Date: 02 Nov 09 - 04:16 PM Office 2007 |
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Subject: RE: BS: OpenOffice - Anyone Use It? From: Geoff the Duck Date: 02 Nov 09 - 05:17 PM GUEST,watcher mentions Portable Open Office. The whole PortableApps Suite is worth looking at. I have been using it since 2006 (Old Thread BLICKY ). It contains a bunch of applications which can be downloaded and run separately, but are also bundled with a launch menu that allows you to add new applications when available. It is designed to run from a USB stick without anything installed on your computer. That said, I have found it useful kept as a permanent feature on my computer. The fact that it does not "Install" or add registry entries means you can just copy the lot into a folder, which can be moved to ANY drive, fixed or externally attached to the PC and it will work from where you put it. Included in the bundle are portable versions of Audacity (Sound recording and editing), the GIMP (Graphic editing and Manipulation), firefox browser, instant messaging, Music/video player and lots more. You can add as many or as few as you wish to use, and if you want to "uninstall" one, you just delete the folder it is in. Quack! Geoff the duck |
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Subject: RE: BS: OpenOffice - Anyone Use It? From: BK Lick Date: 03 Nov 09 - 01:55 AM For Mac users: This page compares NeoOffice 3.0 to OpenOffice.org Aqua 3.0.1 and Microsoft Office 2008. |
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Subject: RE: BS: OpenOffice - Anyone Use It? From: JohnInKansas Date: 03 Nov 09 - 03:59 AM Advice to those who have Office 2000 or other pre-2007 versions. Office 2007 conceals all of the shortcuts available in earlier versions. So far as I have been able to find, it is NOT POSSIBLE to turn on the "show hints" that underlined the "quick key" (Alt+underlined char) labels in menus. Microsoft in fact states that you can't turn them on (although many of us do lots of things that Microsoft says can't be done - I'm still looking). All of the shortcuts from prior versions do seem to work in Office 2007, but many of the menus you can get to using the old shortcuts do not appear in Office 2007 menus, and are NOT ACCESSIBLE using the Office 2007 menus. Even if you know the "first keys" Office 2007 will not display many menus until you enter a "next option" so you need to know what the opening menu looked like in order to display the next step(s). WHILE YOU STILL HAVE A VERSION THAT DOES IT ALL I would strongly urge that you go to Word Help, search on "Keyboard" and "Shortcuts" to find all of the "quick key" combinations you can, and PRINT THE HELP SECTIONS so that you'll be able to look up how to get to/through the menus that Office 2007 hides. Screen shots of the menus you use now wouldn't be a bad idea, since Office 2007 will not display many of the "top level" second-tier menus. I was forced to Office 2007 a couple of years ago when several functions that I used frequently in Office 2002 (Office Business version in WinXP) simply quit working due to non-support in WinXP updates. Fewer functions apparently have been "broken" in Office 2000, but one must assume that eventually they all will cease to work and we'll all be forced to use the 2007 (or later) versions - or (where it's adequate) Open Office. John |
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Subject: RE: BS: OpenOffice - Anyone Use It? From: Bill D Date: 03 Nov 09 - 10:37 AM I suppose that, after most folks buy Office 2007, they will generously 'fix' it with some kind of patch....? Otherwise, why bother to have the features still there? |
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Subject: RE: BS: OpenOffice - Anyone Use It? From: John on the Sunset Coast Date: 03 Nov 09 - 01:37 PM I have been using Open Office for about six months. I also continue to use Word (and occasionally Excel). When editing articles off the web--and I do that a lot--some operations are easier in OF than Word, and vice-versa. So far there have been few problems in converting my Word docs to OF. I am in process of converting to Laptop, as my PC is tres old and creaky. My employer put Works on my PC for his convenience, but being now retired, I'll not have it on the laptop. |
