Anyone ever use OpenOffice?

pyper

It really isn't. If I open a 71 page Word document in open office it expands to 77 pages. There are a variety of formatting differences. It doesn't do borders, it doesn't do graphics under text. It has numerous differences in tables, particularly with rotated text. The table of contents is implemented differently.

None of these things matter if you're only producing documents for yourself, but if you're collaborating or redistributing the documents, then any complicated formatting gets messed up, which makes it essentially useless. OK for finding out what something says, but not OK if you need to know what it looks like.

Also doesn't run MS macros. No big deal for an individual, but in a business environment this is a non-starter. You might argue that if everyone in the organization had it, then it would work, and that might be somewhat valid, but the problem is our clients have MS stuff, and we need to open their documents and also send them ours.

Believe me, I hate MS and their lame approach to Office, which hasn't seen any substantial improvement in over 10 years. Open Office is a great thing to have, and I have it at home primarily to open docx and xlsx files, but it has real issues in the contexts that I mentioned.

desiree_furman

It sounds Good to use the Open Office I want to try these software.thanks everyone for the idea. What is the difference between Open Office and the other Word Software?

mickey cassiba

I used OpenOffice at work for a couple of years, and had no gripes. To get the icon on your desktop go to 'all programs', right click on the particular app you want to use, select 'send to', and when the next dialog box opens click desktop. This will create a shortcut on your DT. If you are sharing a document with folks that don't use OO, you have the option of saving said document in different formats. When your document or spreadsheet, instead of simply closing the item, go to 'save as'...this will open another dialog box with several options, including MS formats. Things may have changed some, its been a couple of years since I used OO, but the procedures should be the same.
Hope you get it worked out.
Go here http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/...umentation/FAQ to check it out

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Mickey

One of these hammers will fix it.

rgsgww

I've used it before, the only problem I had was formatting issues in rtf documents.
Its very nice if you don't want to shell out on word.

puddinpaws

I've used and don't like it. Poor formatting, weak compared to office. You get what you pay for

mahjohn

The development team that coded OpenOffice has now left Oracle and has since released "libreoffice". Development will continue and this will now be the standard release issued with Ubuntu Linux. OpenOffice/LibreOffice is good for individual usage. For work its MSOffice

sdsester

I have the Microsoft Office Suite on here but seldom use much of it. Gimp and Gimpshop are giving Photoshop heart attacks. Inkscape does anything Illustrator can and Komposer rivals Dreamweaver and the list goes on. Sweet Home 3D is as good a simple floorplan program as I have found. I have donated money to the causes rather than pay exorbitant prices for other software.

By the way, for Open Office fans (and I have been using it since first available for Windows) keep an eye on Libre Office. It seems to me to be a mirror image but with the acquistion of OO and a certain company threatening to start charging for it under some circumstances.

dapperdraker

I've used it before. The best thing of Open Office is ITS FREE, also support various popular document type. But many people is hard to adapt to its GUI, coz they are getting use to MS Office. But if you have a patient to learn and become familiar to Open Office, you will find that free software is tasty

poppameth

Libre Office is definitely the way to go at this point. Development has pretty well shifter to that branch of the project. OO may be dead in the water before too long. I still think MS Office is the better program but not by a great deal. The main problem I have is compatibility. There are still enough formatting issues when opening documents from one program in the other one to cause a business some issues.

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sdsester

Articles circulating this morning as a matter of fact on Libre Office. Open Office has been donated and all but abandoned at this point so most working on the open source code have shifted to the Libre Office product. Right now it seems to function identically to Open Office.

I don't seem to experience the formatting issues others do between Open Office and Microsoft Office but I can see how such could be annoying. I do know the spreadsheet in OO will not run some older Excel macros. And I honestly have not messed around with database compatibility---Access is clunky enough being compatible with itself (Visual basic underlying much of it for example) that I just leave such things alone. I was relieved when it finally started trying to let Word handle some report format generation. It is like trying to watch something roll on square wheels though.

I do get a lot of mileage out of the draw program in OO/LO. I also like that any OO/LO components seems to write decent PDFs and since my prayers that it go away are not being answered, that saves some time. In fairness, the PDF writing add on in Microsoft Office has worked when I needed it to as well.

And again, at the end of the day, OO/LO licenses are free within the parameters stated. MO office academic and site licenses are affordable too but heaven help the honest consumer trying to legitimately license the suite at $800 or whatever!

bignezzy74

when you download a file to the document folder and your done with it how do you delete.

sdsester

Fastest way on a Windows machine is to go to the file directory that holds the file using Windows Explorer. Highlight the file, and RIGHT mouse click. There will be an option in the menu that appears to to delete the file. LEFT click on that option.

As with any file, if you want to be sure you got rid of it you will need third party software to completely eliminate deleted files.

rpulley825

Start over. Download OO3.3 again. when pop up asks "run" or save--click on "run". The program is from Oracle. Chances of viruses etc are zilch. Register w/prompted. Will place an icon on desktop, open it and you will see a screen letting you choose docement, spreed sheet and others. A very short time getting used to it and walla'. I love it

sdsester

If you are considering reloading the software you might think about downloading and installing LibreOffice instead of Open Office if you are prone to large software company paranoia. LO is a mirrored spin-off that happened when Oracle threatened to start charging for OO. It functions identically and you will recognize the components as the same. I guess in theory it now has its own open source development folk enhancing it separately from OO.

06Honda

I use Open Office on a MacPro works fine with no issues at all.