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Thread ID: 90609 2008-06-09 13:53:00 Open Office - Good Enough ? learning (5137) PC World Chat
Post ID Timestamp Content User
676835 2008-06-09 13:53:00 I dont wanna use MS Office simply coz i cant spend that kind of money right now.

I have heard about Open Office as an alternative. I need a Word processor and spreadsheet editor

Is it really good enough? or is it full of bugs and issues.

Right now for all i care, I want to be able to Type up word documents and do occasional so is Open Office good enough for this? Will i have printing issues for Word documents?

Also more importantly will OO be able to open and edit MS Word documents and also the documents i type in OO will they open alright in MS Word?

Any other suggestions on this?

Thanks
learning (5137)
676836 2008-06-09 13:57:00 Nope, OO is fine. Not many bugs and issues, its been developed quite a lot.

And yes, it can open MS Word documents and OO documents can be opened in MS Word/Excel but not sure if it can read Office 2007 .docx formats.

Have you considered using Google's word processing and spreadsheets solution (Google Docs)?
beeswax34 (63)
676837 2008-06-09 14:30:00 Open Office will work fine.

BUT it also rather depends as well.

If you wish to share files with other people then it is best to use File> Save as> then choose RTF (Rich Text Format) Get the person sending from MSWord to you to save the document in RTF then OO will handle this.

Most word processors will open an XXX.rtf file but you may lose some formatting and or features.
Sweep (90)
676838 2008-06-09 17:27:00 It was very good a few years ago, so should be excellent now. Greg (193)
676839 2008-06-09 20:48:00 YUP . . . OO is great . . . can't say enuff good about it . I have Corel and M$ stuff, but use OO instead of either of the other two .



:clap HIJACK WARNING! :punk


Nice to see you back Greg . How'd it all go?
SurferJoe46 (51)
676840 2008-06-09 21:27:00 OO is good but if you want to send a file to someone else, be aware that most people will not have OO so you need to SAVE your document in a MSWord compatible document. The last time I used OO there were various options that can be used such as DOC and RTF files.

Just this morning I received an ODT file from friend - I could have downloaded a free converter to get it to a DOC but instead I got her to convert it. I no longer have OO - I liked it but was more used to MS and therefore found it easier to use.
Strommer (42)
676841 2008-06-09 22:06:00 I was using OO for a couple of years but did find it quite annoying at times when I had to convert files to send them etc. Other than that it was basic enough and did its job O.K. Could be just me but it did shut down and freeze a lot. But it does work and its free. When I first brought my PC the young and very helpful guys at the shop told me not to waste my money on anything else as OO was great.

I now have (since last night) Office pro 2003 which I am hoping will be sufficient enough. :waughh:
never-u-mind (6500)
676842 2008-06-09 22:15:00 In Open Office:

Tools/Options/Load-Save/General.

Then change Writer, Calc and Impress to save in the format of Word, Excel and Powerpoint.

Then it's very very user friendly.
wratterus (105)
676843 2008-06-09 22:41:00 As usual - just an opinion, YMMV. For word processing and spreadsheets, OOo is just as effective as the expensive options. It is better than MS Office at saving files in various iterations of MS file types, it is a little different in use to MS Office, but not hugely so. The interpretation and display of PowerPoint files is not perfect, but adequate.
Mostly, the differences are negligible for what you need.
R2x1 (4628)
676844 2008-06-09 22:41:00 While Open office is free, I have also had a lot of customers complain about it because they are used to using Office 2003 at work and the difference between open office and MS means they have to learn two systems .

In those cases I suggest Ability office ( . ability . com/v4/pricing . php?ln=en" target="_blank">www . ability . com) - its not free, but is dirt cheap, and looks and works exactly the same as office, the only thing you have to do is when saving ( like open office) save it in a MS format if its being shared .

How MS have not Killed this program I dont know, its SO CLOSE to office 2003 you would swear it was a direct copy .

Every thing you do in MS 03 you do exactly the same in Ability, maybe the odd icon looks slightly different but thats all .

Take a look at these example - Word and Ability Write ( . imagef1 . net . nz/files/Word_and_Write . jpg" target="_blank">www . imagef1 . net . nz) and Excel and Spreadsheet ( . imagef1 . net . nz/files/Excel_and_Spreadsheet . jpg" target="_blank">www . imagef1 . net . nz) and PowerPoint and Presentation ( . imagef1 . net . nz/files/Powerpoint . jpg" target="_blank">www . imagef1 . net . nz)
wainuitech (129)
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