Opinions On OpenOffice.org Please?

sunking737 · Fri Jan 14, 2011 10:18 am

Has anyone used this program. I was going to down load it but I thought I get opinions from others before I did.

Thanks in advance.

gosimeon · Fri Jan 14, 2011 10:33 am

I use it on occasion and it is great. You can format your files as Word files when sending them too, so no worries about other people not being able to open your files when you send them.

slz396 · Fri Jan 14, 2011 10:42 am

It's great...

Its really identical to windows office, but for free and as others have said: it is 100% compatible with it as it let's you save your files as word or excel documents if you want.

I don't see why anybody would still pay for windows office really!

Airstud · Fri Jan 14, 2011 10:48 am

I use it and endorse it heartily.

I still have Micros|_|ck Office installed (my $200 used laptop came with it installed; I would never ever let one penny of mine end up in Micros|_|ck's pockets) for survivalism's sake; but OpenOffice has taken excellent care of me.

There's a very gentle learning curve, as many of the menus and keyboard shortcuts are the same ones you'd find in Office.

The macro facility is far superior to VBA; you can write macros in OpenOffice Basic (which again has a low learning curve if you're VBA-conversant), and the super thing is, there are API's so you can also use other languages like Python to interact directly with your OOo documents.

OpenOffice.org kicks ass.

Edit: One frustrating thing is that Base, the database applimacation, doesn't support an ODBC driver; and ODBC is the only way I know how to pull data straight out of databases into my BASIC programs. So I've had to install MySQL and use it as my database server of choice, using SQL functions in my OpenOffice programs to interact with it. I still haven't figured out how to make this JDBC thingy work... Confused

[Edited 2011-01-14 03:24:31]

flanker · Fri Jan 14, 2011 11:21 am

Just like MSoffice. use it all the time

ajd1992 · Fri Jan 14, 2011 12:28 pm

I use it all the time. Mainly because microsoft sucks, but mostly because I'm now an ubuntu user and I don't have a choice

Actually, at college where we have Windows XP, I do have the choice and I still pick OpenOffice.org. I hate hate hate office.

My only gripe is that there's not a program similar to Publisher, but for how often I use it, it's not a big deal.

JJJ · Fri Jan 14, 2011 12:29 pm

Use it all the time. Free and works perfectly, if you are going to send something who doesn't use openoffice, just save it into .doc or .pdf format.

MS-Office 2010 supports .odt docs as well now.

sunking737 · Fri Jan 14, 2011 1:25 pm

Thanks for the reply's. I guess I will download it, and see how it works.

hka098 · Fri Jan 14, 2011 2:35 pm

I think it is great also. I'd rather give them some cash than Microsoft.

DfwRevolution · Fri Jan 14, 2011 10:56 pm

It can get the job done if your needs are basic.

Quoting slz396 (Reply 2):
I don't see why anybody would still pay for windows office really

More/better tools
More/better formatting styles
More/better collaboration features
More/better integration between products
Want to be taken seriously in the real world

Again, OOO is great if you just need something to make simple text documents or spreadsheets. Since it is free, there's no reason not to try it. It's absolutely not an Office "killer" that fulfills everyone's needs adequately.

[Edited 2011-01-14 14:57:13]

hka098 · Sat Jan 15, 2011 1:14 am

Quoting dfwrevolution (Reply 9):
It's absolutely not an Office "killer" that fulfills everyone's needs adequately.

Microsoft Office isn't sweating OoO, but to say it fulfills everyone's needs may be a bit of a stretch. I almost had to quell a small revolution when we migrated from Office 2003/2004 to Office 2007/2008. Clearly Microsoft did not do the UI homework there. 90% of people only use about 10% of Office's features. Despite being Microsoft's bread-winner, MS Office is overpriced and not appropriate for every use case.

flyorski · Sat Jan 15, 2011 1:15 am

As an Ubuntu user, I use this for everything. Its great, I have never had a problem with it.

elbandgeek · Sat Jan 15, 2011 4:39 am

Openoffice is great if you only use it for basic stuff and can't justify the cost of MSOffice, but otherwise it's a bit too behind the curve for my tastes, particularly in terms of performance. Office 2010 takes about 2 seconds to load on my machine and OpenOffice takes over 30. Plus they're still using the archaic Office 03 style UI. I know people hate on the ribbon, but once you get used to it, it's really hard to go back.

seb146 · Sat Jan 15, 2011 4:39 am

I have open office too. As the least knowledgable person about computer stuff, it is very easy to intall and easy to use. I have had to convert those files to .pdf which was easy. Good stuff!

Gemuser · Sat Jan 15, 2011 4:48 am

I have open office, but it does NOT have an English spell check dictionary, only an American one, which makes it pretty useless for me. Are there add on to add other language dictionaries and where do you find them?

Gemuser

cannibalz3 · Sat Jan 15, 2011 5:20 am

Ok, I'm going to be the lone (gentle) dissenter. For day-to-day stuff it's just fine if you take the time to learn the menus, shortcuts and capabilities. However, at one point in my college career I had to do some pretty heavy statistics, things which were very simple in Microsoft Office but really, really cumbersome in OpenOffice.