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anyone uses it? if you are on a linux platform, it's supposed to be compatible with word etc.
how compatible is it really? say you create a document with openoffice, and then open it on an other machine with word/excel whatever, does it look the same?
if you create say a .doc, when opening on openoffice, is it ok?
I've used it pretty extensively in windows and linux and never had a compatibility issue with microsoft office.
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mcoker
Going from OpenOffice to Word doesn't generate problems except for a few font faces.
Going from Word to OpenOffice however is problematic for most of Word's built-in macros. For example, the auto-numbering and bulleting feature used in outlines in Word will have the wrong size font and font face when opened in OpenOffice.
Other than those minor inconsistencies, OpenOffice is the way to go... it's FREE.
OpenOffice is OK, but just OK. You can open and read Word documents, but the formatting isn't always right. Works the other way as well. The more tricked out the formatting, the worse it gets.
We ended up binning it and installed Office on Citrix for our Linux/Solaris users.
At school I've had several times where it can't even open it's own documents.
However, I endorse it when I can. *Part Time Unix user since all technical software is on this platform*
What's the battle plan for next year? Google, another uni?
Cheers,
Daniel
The question of who is right and who is wrong has seemed to me always too small to be worth a moment's thought, while the question of what is right and what is wrong has seemed all-important.
-Albert J. Nock
several options...will see what happens.
Good on ya mate. Hope you're healing up nicely.
The question of who is right and who is wrong has seemed to me always too small to be worth a moment's thought, while the question of what is right and what is wrong has seemed all-important.
-Albert J. Nock
[reply] *Part Time Unix user since all technical software is on this platform*
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Really? You sure about that? ;-)
Just say No to OpenOffice.
Talk to your IT department...you can either get Word via your EA agreement, Home user (work) EULA or via Teacher license. First two are free, the second is around $50.
justification?
you work for MS?
Tell you what, if MS offers me a job, I'll use Office XP suite ;-)
univ. doesn't want to give a copy of MS office suite for a personal computer. (no comment...)
Sometimes Word doesn't open Word documents either. If you are running a fairly simple document (and in my opinion 99.9% of documents created in Word are simple) then Openoffice is a good, free and open solution.
good point. it's not only free, it's open source...
you don't like something, you can change it yourself (provided you know a bit though)
have you looked at staroffice at all? it had potential at one point, but I'm not sure what Sun has done with it.
well they did openoffice with it ;-)
I use OpenOffice as it is the default on my RedHat workstation. I've had to go back and forth between MS office and OpenOffice with both spreadsheet and word documents and have not had issues. However, my documents are pretty simple so I will defer to the others on formatting quirks. You didn't ask about the presentation software but I'll add that I have not had any issues there with taking what I created in OpenOffice/IMPRESS to MS PowerPoint.
So are you contemplating a switch from Microsoft to Linux?
I use it and haven't had problems going from it to Word but a few format issues with opening Word documents (bullets and the like)
Jim
**Note above poster works for a retailer selling bikes and related gear*
I use both office suites on a daily basis and have found OpenOffice to be more backward compatible with MS Office than newer MS Office products.
Yeah, but they were supposed to continue the enhancement of StarOffice to be more compatible with MS Office - the corporate version of OpenOffice, if you will. Not sure if they ever did anything along those lines or if they are just charging $$ because they can...
Hence the reason I endorse it. I was honestly mentioning a quirk of the system, not a deal breaker. As I spend a lot of time on Unix/Linux boxes, it's something I use pretty regularly.
I pretty much write lab reports, so yeah... simple documents with the occasional graph added in for good measure. Sometimes it get's whacked a bit on a reopen, but usually it's a change in font and a reset margins away. A sacrifice I'm willing to make.
I think it's a solid peice of software that is now coming into mainstream a lot more -- which means bugs and revisions will be ironed out much quicker now.
The question of who is right and who is wrong has seemed to me always too small to be worth a moment's thought, while the question of what is right and what is wrong has seemed all-important.
-Albert J. Nock