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OpenOffice.org Is 4 Today

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the older-than-my-niece dept.

craigaa writes "OpenOffice.org turns four years old today. A press release on the announce list giving an overview of the project has been issued with a link to the birthday page. What have your experiences been with OpenOffice.org over the past four years? Has the project and software met your expectations? What are you expecting in the years to come?" An interview at NewsForge (also part of OSTG) poses the same kind of questions (and others) to Louis Suarez-Potts, the project's Community Manager. Suarez-Potts notes some specific ways to help the OO.org effort (especially if you are a Cocoa expert to help with the move to Aqua), and talks about the recent Sun-Microsoft agreement.

78 of 333 comments (clear)

  1. shame on me by mirko · · Score: 5, Interesting

    What have your experiences been with OpenOffice.org over the past four years?

    I carefully considered its monolithism and decided to use lighter tools such as Abiword...

    But I am glad that OOo exists because it's still a nice Free Trojan when it comes to infiltrating corporations with Free Software, so, Happy Birthday, OOo !!!

    --
    Trolling using another account since 2005.
    1. Re:shame on me by iplayfast · · Score: 2, Informative

      Well said. I too, use lighter tools like the koffice suite. But I have used Open Office in the past. And found it to be clunky, but useable. My kids use it on thier XP game machine for school work.

    2. Re:shame on me by TykeClone · · Score: 2, Funny

      Travesty! Using a gaming machine for actual work. You should be ashamed of yourself for allowing that!

      --
      A fine is a tax you pay for doing wrong and a tax is a fine you pay for doing all right.
    3. Re:shame on me by Pxtl · · Score: 2, Informative

      Dunno, some of us like the extra features that OOo brings. After struggling with Dia to make simple organisation charts, OO Draw is a dream (and much nicer than any of the MS office products for drawing unless you splurge for the newest office with Visio).

      Just wish OO Draw could import Dia shapes.

  2. well... by dash2 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    .... The spreadsheet native format takes an age to save. Writer is way too slow on my P266 laptop. Menus are unintuitive, user interface design is lacklustre. Presenter is a pain. They've even managed to clone Clippy, with an annoying lightbulb thing that gives you pointless advice. (Oh, and the help system for that advice takes an age to load.)

    BUT it allows me to use Linux on the desktop, and for that I am truly grateful.

    1. Re:well... by Libor+Vanek · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Sorry, but using P266 you shouldn't expect any good "interactivity" using OOo. Use some other tools (which are "profiled" as single usage small footprint - like Gnumeric, Abiword etc.)

    2. Re:well... by hackstraw · · Score: 2, Funny

      .... The spreadsheet native format takes an age to save. Writer is way too slow on my P266 laptop. Menus are unintuitive, user interface design is lacklustre. Presenter is a pain. They've even managed to clone Clippy, with an annoying lightbulb thing that gives you pointless advice. (Oh, and the help system for that advice takes an age to load.)

      BUT it allows me to use Linux on the desktop, and for that I am truly grateful.

      If that makes you happy, I'd hate to see what you would do if you considered yourself a masochist.

    3. Re:well... by ClippyHater · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Ah, but a critical component wasn't discussed: his laptop's available memory vs. your desktop's available memory. Also hard-drive performance will probably have an effect, especially in low memory situations.

    4. Re:well... by dash2 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Er, I was complaining that openoffice was slow? I fulfil all the listed requirements by quite a long way - what's your point?

  3. My experience by AKnightCowboy · · Score: 2, Insightful
    What have your experiences been with OpenOffice.org over the past four years?

    My experience with it is that it segfaults opening the one Word document that I need to edit on a regular basis. Office XP Pro and Office 2003 Pro handle the document just fine though.

    Oh, I guess you meant what positive comments do we have with this product... well, it sort of renders most Word documents half-way decently, although checkboxes and such look like crap compared to the real Word from Microsoft. Basically it's a usable free word processor, but it's definitely no Office 2003 replacement.

    1. Re:My experience by LnxAddct · · Score: 5, Insightful

      well, it sort of renders most Word documents half-way decently, although checkboxes and such look like crap compared to the real Word from Microsoft

      Oh and how well does Microsoft render OASIS? Oh that's right... it doesn't. Try doing everything in OOo's *native* format and you'll see its real power. Sure it can handle most Word Documents, but it wasn't designed nor ever intended to be a drop in replacement for MS Office. When using MS Office do you save as a RTF? Nope, didn't think so. Why? because you'd be losing alot of potential features and capabilities. Sure MS Office can read and write to RTF, but it wasn't designed with that in as its main use. In that same light, sure OpenOffice can read and write MS Word documents, but it was *not* designed with that as its main use and as a result, some functionality may be lost when using those formats. There are many features in OOo that don't have an equivalent in MS Office, and vice versa, so you should really be using the format that was designed for the Word Processor you are using so you are using its maximum potential(no matter what word processor).Stop feeding into Microsoft, break free, and use the open format that its supposed to use.
      Regards,
      Steve

    2. Re:My experience by orasio · · Score: 2, Interesting

      If the main feature you use from MS Word is reading MS .DOC, oowriter might have problems replacing it (many fewer on 1.1.x than on 1.0).

      I, on the other hand, use it as a word processor, and I am very happy with it.
      The only problem I have is that its GUI is too much of a copy of MSOffice's. In the points it differs, for example the math editor, 10x the writing speed I good with MSWord's, it's far superior. Happy me I just need a word processor, and that I can read everybodys .DOCs just fine.
      If I couldn't, of course, I would just need a .PDF or .PS, easily produced by any version of MSWord.

      In the small niche of cross-editing MSWord documents, between different people, maybe you need MSWord, but it only lets you work with people who have the same version, on the same platform. That's not doable in a bussiness where the main activity is not editing MSWord documents.
      It would be a much sensibler choice, in compatibility, productivity and cost, to use openoffice everywhere, using a standard, documented format, for important documents, instead of a format that is too closed for real world needs.

    3. Re:My experience by JanneM · · Score: 2, Informative

      Writing Japanese sort of, kind of works. Opening documents written using kanji with furigana, however, craps out every single time. The kanji loses its baseline and the furigana is lost altogether. And even documents written with just straight kanji+hiragana will get the wrong margins, mysterious rendering errors and mixed-up fonts.
      And here, that is "average, ordinary" documents. Abiword is actually better (though still not at all good) at opening such documents - it doesn't support writing it at all, though.

      So yes, OOo is nice to have. Here it's not yet a viable solution, though.

      --
      Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
    4. Re:My experience by arhar · · Score: 2, Interesting

      This sounds great but unfortunately, rarely works in the real world. Most people create documents for others to view, and in today's corporate environment, that means .doc format. As simple as that.

    5. Re:My experience by 0123456 · · Score: 4, Informative

      "Most people create documents for others to view, and in today's corporate environment, that means .doc format."

      Maybe my employer is strange, but most documents I get to view in my corporate environment are .PDFs...

    6. Re:My experience by shepd · · Score: 2, Interesting

      >This sounds great but unfortunately, rarely works in the real world. Most people create documents for others to view, and in today's corporate environment, that means .doc format. As simple as that.

      And, if your whole company is using OpenOffice... what then? Scrap Microsoft Office? Sounds great!

      I run a company and apart from having to install Word/Excel/Powerpoint viewer (free) to deal with other companies files, I've never actually had any reason to buy Microsoft Office. At over $1,000 a seat, I think I'll stick with OpenOffice and spend an hour or two a month dealing with editing the occasional foreign file that doesn't import all that well. If it ever came to the point where I really had to deal with MS files all the time from other companies, I'd probably buy one or two seats of MS licenses (not one for each computer) so that people can use it to massage the document back to reality (RTF) when its needed. Besides, there's always wv when you're stuck, which is far more versatile than MS Office.

      All in all, it just works out cheaper. Especially for small businesses.

      --
      If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
    7. Re:My experience by thepoch · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Let me get this straight, what you are saying is:

      1. OpenOffice.org doesn't open Word documents very well.
      2. If OOo does open these, it doesn't render well.
      3. You can't use OOo for this *single* document that you edit on a regular basis.

      and by this, you immediately conclude that it's not an Office 2003 replacement?

      1. & 2. You can help by submitting to OOo's bug tracking system documents you've found to not render properly. This will help developers figure more things out about the document format.
      3. If your most important document is this single Word document you talk about... to me it seems a little too much to have to buy Office XP Pro and Office 2003 Pro just to open this document. Couldn't Office XP Pro suffice? Is Office 2003 really a requirement for that one document? Did Clippy suddenly gain new features that helped to handle that document?

      I'm sorry but these arguements don't sound "Insightful" to me. OOo isn't just a "usable free word processor" that isn't a "Office 2003 replacement". OOo is a full-featured office suite, that aims to replace nothing, but to only give you a broader choice.

      To be honest, I've seen Office 2003, and it's no Office 2000 replacement. There doesn't seem to be any new features that warrant a "must buy". It renders Word documents well enough, but it doesn't seem to handle the OOo documents I throw at it that we regularly use in the office these days. Hey look I just saved the company 90,000 (my currency) from having to buy 6 copies of Office XP SBE.

    8. Re:My experience by Ubergrendle · · Score: 2, Interesting

      With Sox404 and other corporate compliance issues, i think we'll see the rise of .PDFs in a big way. Yes you can protect Word documents, but .PDFs are considered a much more immutable form. The volume of .pdfs has increased 10x in the past 18 months as we've relied more and more on outsourcing... the best way of confirming exactly what you sent and external unit.

      --
      John Maynard Keynes: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?"
  4. It's better than TeX for WP, but... by melonman · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It really isn't Word. I use it in our cybercafe, and we have endless compatibility problems, plus the delightful feature whereby saving an OO document as a .doc and loading it straight back into OO often adds spurious bulletpoints everywhere. The PDF exporter prints the footers in the middle of pages... As a way of opening the occasional Word document or typing a letter, it's fine, but anyone who says it's a drop-in replacement for Word is not using many of the Word features.

    Wasn't it Linus who said that the open source model works better for OSs than for WPs?

    --
    Virtually serving coffee
    1. Re:It's better than TeX for WP, but... by halivar · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The PDF exporter prints the footers in the middle of pages. ...
      anyone who says it's a drop-in replacement for Word is not using many of the Word features.

      Apparently my eyes have glossed over the PDF export utility that comes with MS Word. Can you show where that is in the menu?

    2. Re:It's better than TeX for WP, but... by strictfoo · · Score: 5, Funny

      Wasn't it Linus who said that the open source model works better for OSs than for WPs?

      Yes, because, since Microsoft Office is a closed source project it is much more difficult to steal source code from it than from, say, SCO Unix.

      --
      I've just signed legislation that'll outlaw Russia forever. We'll begin bombing in five minutes.
    3. Re:It's better than TeX for WP, but... by mdfst13 · · Score: 3, Informative

      "Ctrl+P Choose Acrobat PDFWriter as printer."

      That's not in MS Word... That's an add on.

    4. Re:It's better than TeX for WP, but... by unapersson · · Score: 2, Informative

      And you need the full version of Adobe Acrobat to get access to that add on. It's also not just for Word, it's acts as a print driver to the OS so is usable from any application that can print.

    5. Re:It's better than TeX for WP, but... by Planesdragon · · Score: 2, Interesting

      OO's built-in PDF exporter needs work--but if you get the enhanced PDF exporter, you get a product just about as good as Word + Acrobat. Maybe better.

    6. Re:It's better than TeX for WP, but... by mopslik · · Score: 2, Informative

      And you need the full version of Adobe Acrobat to get access to that add on.

      Or you could get a free version here.

      But yes, PDF Export is not native to MS Office.

  5. How about emacs key bindings?? by freelunch · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I created some a couple of years ago and they worked quite well in writer. Efforts to import those bindings in recent versions have failed.

    How about some official support?

    Big complaint, eh? Openoffice rocks.

  6. Starting Page Number by jak163 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It's great, except there's no good way to change the starting page number. Unless the starting page doesn't exceed the length of the document, you have to force a page to do it, so if you have any serious editing left to do, you have to edit it without the actual page numbers if the document is part of a larger project (e.g. a dissertation chapter). This is quite ridiculous and I just can't understand why it hasn't been done better.

    1. Re:Starting Page Number by Lehk228 · · Score: 2, Informative

      actually you can set the page offset.
      R-Click - Fields (last context menu item) fill in the box for offset. (set as a negative number to start numbering on a page greater than one)

      --
      Snowden and Manning are heroes.
  7. For the past four years... by halivar · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I have gone without using Microsoft Office, and have not missed it one bit. OO.org is simply that good. I now prefer it to MS Office when I am forced to use it at work.

    Thanks, OO.org!

    1. Re:For the past four years... by Reducer2001 · · Score: 2, Insightful
      I don't know where you work, but here almost ALL documents, spreadsheets and presentations are collabortive efforts. I tried using OO as my primary Office suite, but after the 20th complaint I went back to Office 2003.


      I still use OO at home though.

      --
      When you get to hell -- tell 'em Itchy sent ya!
    2. Re:For the past four years... by zelbinion · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Compatablity with Word is the difference (IMHO) between a corporate WP, and a personal WP. Where I work, even if I generate the document myself, it usually needs to be based on a template generated by someone else, and nearly always, someone else will need to edit the documents I create, and they will expect all of the formatting imposed by the template to work properly. This makes using OO.o unusable at the office.

      At home, pretty much the only thing I need is a word processor. I don't generally give presentations to my house mates, so OO.o works fine. At work, however, I can't get around the two most irritating things (IMHO) about open office:

      1. There is too much white space between the last letter you typed and the cursor.
      2. With most fonts, there is too much white space between each letter, and not enough white space inserted with a space character.

      With the first problem, I am CONSTANTLY deleting characters because it looks like there is a space where there is no space. In every other application where I edit text (Word, notepad, web forms, kopete, konsole, xterms, etc. etc.) the cursor is rendered directly behind the letter so that you are never fooled into thinking there is a space between the cursor and the character immediately preceding the cursor.

      With the second problem, I often can't tell the difference between there being one space between two characters and no space between two characters, or the difference between two spaces and one space.

      I realize switching to "online layout" mostly fixes this problem, but "online layout" mode (in my experience) really screws up the formatting of a lot of the Word documents I need to work on (the text flows across the full page width [right past the margins] and this hammers much of the formating). So, I have to choose between screwed up formatting, or screwed up kerning. Neither is acceptable for day-to-day use, so I'm stuck on Word... Also, where is the option to FORCE "online layout" mode for every document? (I'm speaking of OO.o 1.1.0 on linux here, so maybe the newer versions fix this, but anyway...) The company I work for will not likely switch to OO.o anytime soon. So until OO.o can deal with some of the more complex formatting in Word while at the same time getting the text rendering right, it will continue to be a non-viable option.

    3. Re:For the past four years... by theguyfromsaturn · · Score: 2, Informative

      Ditto on that. Equation editing and graphics handling (as well as master document arrangement for largis things like theses) are the big seller for me. My supervisors both use MS Word and I must say that I have not problems exchanging docs with them... as long as I remember that I cannot use the builting "Caption" feature for images. This little problem I work around by using an auto text which inserts a "Figure " followed by a counter for the figures in a paragraph style called FigureCaption that is preceded by a paragraph of style Figure... this "Figure" paragraph style is set so that it will not be separated from the next paragraph... so the caption will always follow the figure. It is best then to anchor the image as character. This is not a limitaion, however, since I have noticed that MS Word can only add Image counters and captions for images that are inserted inline with text anyways. My only grip is that the counter does not seem to be saved nor retrieved from .doc format files which are necessary to exchange files with my supervisors. Also, I love the context menu in OO.o. You can do so much so easily from them. Particularly form image anchoring, etc. It's just a breeze, and way better than the clumsy image dialogue-based only interface in MS Word. As a rule I prefer the way things are done in OO.o. I also love the fact that you can include dimensions in the drawing format of OO.o, and that you can set the physical scale of the drawing, and change the units displayed by dimensions in a given style. That is sooo cool. The only suggestion I would have with respect to dimensions is the addition of angular dimension, and leader type dimensions for circles, where they would not be defined by 2 points but by pointing to a circle. More sophisticated object snaps to endpoints, intersections and center of objects would also bring it very close to an actual 2D CAD drawing package. I've been using it for just that, and if I ever find some time to write a macro to this effect I will. With some time. My main grudge is that it is not as simple to switch themes as let's say Mozilla. Using KDE, Gnome, and Mozilla, I have come to realize how important the seemingly trivial ability to change and create themes can be for the vitality of a program.

      --
      I like my dinosaurs feathery, and my pterosaurs hairy (or is it pycnofibery?)
  8. I dropped MS Word by angryflute · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It was about 3 years ago that I decided to totally drop Word and start using OO's Writer instead. And writing/editing is my profession. In all these years, I haven't had any client/editor tell me they had a problem loading my OO-produced documents, which I regularly export into various Word version formats.

    1. Re:I dropped MS Word by AKAImBatman · · Score: 2, Informative

      Agreed. I do a lot of writing (mostly articles) on my Macintosh, and I've found it more pleasant by far to use NeoOfficeJ instead of Microsoft Word v.X. Microsoft's software *looks* better on the outset, but NeoOfficeJ is actually more readable, faster responding, more usable, etc. The anti-aliased fonts are wonderful, and I've *never* had a NeoOfficeJ crash that caused me to lose work. (The Java layer they added to OOo traps the error and forces a save before close.)

      The only compatibility problem I've ever had was with a mismatched font. Apparently I had accidentally used a Mac Font that my editor didn't have. It was no big deal for him to fix, and he only mentioned it in passing.

      Even the OOo spreadsheet program is better. I recently did some rough calculations on the cost of doing a Moon Shot today and found NeoOfficeJ SpreadSheet to be WAY more usable than Microsoft's. I've got to hand it to the OOo & NeoOfficeJ guys. They're doing amazing work. :-)

      --
      Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
  9. Re:OOo Four already! by jon855 · · Score: 2, Funny

    OO can out live MS, they're ver powerful and nice... I just wish that it would be more stable and have lots of features that MS Offcie has right now. It's getting there.... Nobody is perfect, I am nobody.

    --
    May /. rule the /.ing realm
  10. Thoughts from an Excel user... by MrFenty · · Score: 5, Insightful
    I am currently pondering taking the MOUS Excel 2003 exam (to help pad out the CV), so I bought the MS Excel Step-by-Step book as a learning aid. One thing I quickly realised is how little Excel I actually know, and I thought I was pretty knowledgeable - I really do only know about 10% of what it can do, although I am a local expert in my office.

    What does this have to do with OOo ? Well, I like OOo, and use it on my Mandrake/KDE box at home. For future features/direction, I'd suggest that rather than adding in yet another additional funky feature that less than 1% of people will ever find/use, I'd ensure rock solid filters to import/export from MS Office. I still find OOo's ability to handle complex MS Word docs poor (tables, inline graphics, etc) and this is an issue preventing me completely moving across to Ooo. Some things are great - PDF creation, for example, is a killer feature for me. But rock solid MS Office import/export would be sooooo useful.

    And yes, I do appreciate that it is difficult, given the lack of open specs from MS, and the fact that the format themselves is such a messy PITA.

    Iain.

    1. Re:Thoughts from an Excel user... by micromoog · · Score: 2, Informative
      I'd suggest that rather than adding in yet another additional funky feature that less than 1% of people will ever find/use, I'd ensure rock solid filters to import/export from MS Office.

      Part of "rock solid" import/export filters is supporting every funky feature. When importing an Excel document that uses some marginal feature, the filter must be able to handle it somehow. This is part of why creation of the filters is difficult; there's a shitload of weird features that must be handled somehow.

  11. Re:OOo Four already! by AKAImBatman · · Score: 4, Informative

    FWIW, StarOffice has been in development since 1986. That makes OpenOffice more like 18 years old. Only the name and the Open Source project "OpenOffice" have been around for four years.

    --
    Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
  12. Strip it down by zenmojodaddy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    OOo is solid, and it's free. This is good. It's also a great big resource-hungry lump. This is not good. I'd love to see the applications separated, kinda like Firefox and Thunderbird, so there's no need to install the spreadsheet if all you want is the word processor.

    That would be nice...

    1. Re:Strip it down by pubjames · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Absolutely. Not only that, but I would love there to be extensions that can be installed as easily as the Firefox ones, and an extension manager that notifies you when there are new ones available.

      There is loads of room for innovations in the office suite area. I think that because everyone has become so used to MS Office, we've forgotten to question the design of office suites. Come on openOffice team, innovate! Or even better, make it so that openOffice is easily extensible so others can create innovative extensions!

    2. Re:Strip it down by thepoch · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I've been such a loudmouth with regards to calling for a separate "reader" app for OOo documents, that this idea has slipped my mind. Definitely worth the "Insightful" rating. It sounds like the Apple approach, where you have separate apps for separate types of documents. Where each app only loads the functionality it needs. Why install a spreadsheet, presentation app when my employee only needs a wordprocessor. Sweet.

  13. Improving.... by 4of12 · · Score: 2, Informative

    As a Linux user in a corporate world full of Windows site licenses, is it possible to make it easy for OO.o users to take advantage of the Windows fonts for which they already paid?

    Not a 12 step program involving grungy details of xset fp , but something in the form of an easy script that looks around and automatically does the Right Thing.

    Powerpoint presentations are decipherable under OO.o, but frequently look ugly, mostly from the font problem.

    OO.o has gotten a lot better over the past few years; I'm looking forward to it improving even more.

    [But I still think a cross-platform, SVG+MathML editor with TeX-like math rendering would be a nice way to publish both web and paper documents, much better than the WYSIWYG word processors most people abuse.]

    --
    "Provided by the management for your protection."
  14. High hopes for the linguistic parts of OpenOffice by joeykiller · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The Open Office software is OK, but what I actually have high hopes for is the parts of Open Office that's not just code, i.e. stuff like thesauruses, dictionaries, determining prefixes and suffixes, and so on.

    In short: I have hopes for this part of OpenOffice, since I can see that it can become incredibly useful for other kinds of applications, search applications especially.

    Open Source search implementations are held back because they know little or nothing about grammar or common spelling errors, and until they do they will never get the same quality as Google or Fast's products.

  15. Singapore Def. Ministry uses OpenOffice on 5k PCs by mandreiana · · Score: 5, Informative

    One of the birthday gifts: The Defence Ministry of Singapore installs Open-Office in 5,000 new computers as an alternative to proprietary software

  16. Re:Face the reality by JUSTONEMORELATTE · · Score: 2, Funny

    And if OpenOffice started getting reasonable Word and Excel filters, it might actually become useful.
    Now now, very few four year olds can read. Wait until it's 7, then if it still can't read we can talk about remedial education.


    --
    What would it take?

  17. OO.o saved my client's behind by Rick+Genter · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I have a client who uses Excel extensively. They've built a spreadsheet that they've been steadily adding to over the past year. Yesterday, Excel just rolled over and died on them. This was a 6,000+ row spreadsheet with formulas, various flavors of highlighting, etc. that contained a year's worth of data. I don't know how they managed to save it, but if you tried to open it with Excel you'd get the friendly(?) "Microsoft Excel has encountered a problem - do you want to send a bug report to Microsoft?"

    They were desparate: they (of course) had no backup except for the original source data, meaning it would take them days to re-assemble the spreadsheet. They asked me to "fix it." I had had problems like this in the past, and usually saving the file as a .csv then back again as a .xls would fix it, but this time I couldn't even open the file. I figured it was toast.

    Then I tried OO.o. I opened it with "Spreadsheet" (offtopic aside - part of me wishes the OO.o guys had more clever names for their components, and part of me is glad they don't waste their mental energy on such trivialities :-). It opened just fine. I saved it as an Excel 95 format document, then tried opening it from Excel. It opened just fine.

    I'll never get my client to move to OO.o (they are a 10+ year Excel user and are basically computer illiterate and petrified of ANY kind of change), but it's nice to have it as a tool that actually works for those times when Microsoft falls down on the job.

    --
    Don't underestimate the power of The Source
    1. Re:OO.o saved my client's behind by moj0e · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I had a similar problem. My dad, being a preacher, likes to use powerpoint for his sermons. One of his sermons, for some strange reason, kept crashing on a certain slide. OOo however saved the day :)

    2. Re:OO.o saved my client's behind by julesh · · Score: 2, Informative

      I opened it with "Spreadsheet" (offtopic aside - part of me wishes the OO.o guys had more clever names for their components, and part of me is glad they don't waste their mental energy on such trivialities :-)

      Actually, OO's spreadsheet component is called 'calc'.

    3. Re:OO.o saved my client's behind by micromoog · · Score: 4, Informative
      It's an Excel problem, exacerbated by bad user habits. Anyway, Excel couldn't fix the problem, and OOo could, which was the point of the anecdote.

      My own contribution: the other day, one of our account managers desparately needed to send a PDF to a client ASAP. While they were pondering the quickest way to buy a copy of Acrobat, I fired up OOo and solved their problem completely in 5 minutes.

    4. Re:OO.o saved my client's behind by FooBarWidget · · Score: 2, Funny

      "I opened it with "Spreadsheet" (offtopic aside - part of me wishes the OO.o guys had more clever names for their components"

      What the... everybody on Slashdot is always whining that open source apps use weird and undescriptive names, and now people whine that OpenOffice uses a highly descriptive name?!?! This just proofs that nobody should ever listen to Slashdot criticism, ever.

    5. Re:OO.o saved my client's behind by quisph · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Anyway, Excel couldn't fix the problem, and OOo could, which was the point of the anecdote.
      And like most anecdotes, it's pretty much worthless outside of its entertainment value as a story.

      Just yesterday, my wife was trying to edit a Word document in OOo, and it crashed consistently every time she clicked on certain portions of the document. So she copied+pasted the whole document into Microsoft Works (the only other "word processor" installed on our PC) to finish editing it.

      Microsoft Works could solve a problem that OOo couldn't. So what does my anecdote prove?

      (That was rhetorical; none of these anecdotes prove anything.)

  18. My experience by mks113 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    OO.o works. I'm used to MSWord at work, and transitioning to OO writer is painful. It is about learning curve, not capabilities. I can do most things, but when I try some more complex things (e.g. sections) I cause myself pain.

    I've never had a problem with basic spreadsheets. It does everything I need (which isn't much).

    I use the presenter all the time. The only glitches have been in converting a ppt to it. For creation and display, it is great.

    It isn't MS Office. Get over it. There is a learning curve to it, just like any other transition. It does what most people need. It does what *I* need.

    If only they could get a database program with a decent front end. I ended up "finding" access because I couldn't get a free alternative for some fairly trivial stuff.

  19. High points and low points by Z-MaxX · · Score: 2, Interesting

    On the plus side, OpenOffice has gotten *much* faster since 1.0, and compatibility is remarkably good. I let my dad try OpenOffice about a month ago and he loved it and switched to it for all his office work.

    However, on Linux, OpenOffice looks like *crap*. The interface doesn't match any other apps on my system. GTK apps look tight and clean, QT apps too. But OpenOffice doesn't even look "native" like it does on Windows. It has a look all its own, which is ugly, the widgets are not as responsive as GTK widgets, and it's quirky--especially with respect to input methods, such as Japanese. If they simply used a toolkit such as GTK, they would have *proper* Japanese input, a consistent, clean, customizable interface, and access to any future GTK features.

    --
    Dr Superlove 300ml. I use my powers for awesome
  20. Who needs Word or Excel? by Tom · · Score: 3, Interesting

    OpenOffice is what I use whenever other people pick up word, excel or the other ms crap.

    Funny thing is, at first the MS junkies tried to put me down (even OO does have it's problems, you know). After a while, though, they started coming over, especially after using it for a while.

    I don't use word often, except when forced to at work. Every time I cringe about one of its billion bugs or quirks, I find that OO did the same thing properly, and I rejoice.

    OO isn't without problems, but it's worth a try and so far none of the people I convince to try have gone back to the MS crap.

    --
    Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
  21. Mac Support by mreed911 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    While current Mac/OSX support is decent (you have to use it under X11, but there's easy to use startup scripts for that), I'd love to see a true Mac version. I've been using OOO on my Ubuntu box for a while and found no problems with it for general WP and spreadsheet usage, and I use it on my Mac regularly (mostly with MS Word docs from the office). I enjoy it and think that for a four-year-old product it's a shining example of OpenSource.

  22. Work and leisure by herrison · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I wrote a novel in OO.org. Very pleasant experience. I use it all the time in the office and at home.
    I would love to be able to plug in an xml validator. I'd pay for that. It makes me wish my programming skills were good enough to help out!

    --
    You know what I miss? Leeches.
  23. My thoughts by pubjames · · Score: 2, Insightful


    I love openOffice.org, but...

    I wish they would stop just copying Microsoft Office. There is lots of innovation still to be done in the office suite and openOffice is where it should be happening. I don't want more features, I want well designed user interfaces. They should take a leaf out of the Firefox team's book.

  24. Time flies by wrook · · Score: 2, Interesting

    When OOo first came out, I was working for a certain competitor to MS's office suite. As soon as the program managers found out about it, they were in a tizzy. "How will we sell our product if they're just giving their's away for free?"

    I calmly invited them to my office and showed them OOo (which they hadn't bothered to look at before). They said, "Man, that sucks. Phew, I guess we don't have to worry".

    To which I replied, "We don't have to worry right now, but give it 4 or 5 years and we will probably have a lot of problems". They didn't believe me (in the proprietary world, when software sucks it stays sucky because fixing sucky software is considered unprofitable).

    It's now 4 years later and I no longer work for that company. I will enjoy seeing how OOo competes with them :-)

  25. A Good Tool That Saves Me Money! by blueZhift · · Score: 4, Interesting

    OO is not Word, but if my daughter needs something to write school reports on that doesn't cost me more money, it fits the bill perfectly. Plus it does a decent job of making PDFs to boot, which again means I save money! I use Word for work, but where there's no need for Word specifically OO is a very good value. Not only that, OO has pushed down the price of Word, which means I save money at work too! And beyond money, I can load it or reload it on as many machines as I need to. OO has come a long way since the StarOffice days! Happy Birthday OO!

    --
    To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
  26. Re:It's better than TeX for WP, but. by LnxAddct · · Score: 3, Informative

    Excellent point, you should get modded up. I use the PDF export functionality nearly everyday. I love it and the problems that the gradnparent mentions I've never seen. Maye he's using an old version, or maybe there is something different if you don't use native formats. All I know is that I stick with the OASIS format for all my document writing and editing. Thats what OOo was designed for and thats what I'll use it for. Because of that (using OOo with the format it was *intended* to use) I never experience any of the problems other people complain about and it lets me use and save some of OOo's more advanced features that MS Word doesn't have. People need to start using OOo the way it was meant to be used. The MS Word import features was not designed to be an "end all be all" kind of thing, but rather a stepping stone in your transition to an open format.
    Regards,
    Steve

  27. For me... by niko9 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I does excactrly what I was hoping it would do for me: Print out the lab reports that are only available for downlaod from the college's (a CUNY school)chemistry department website. They are only available in .doc format, and Abiword would choke on even the simplest lab tables. OpenOffice handles the tables, charts and equations fine.

    Thank You OO, you saved me numerous trips to the overcrowded computer lab!

    P.S. I'm sure Abiword would have worked if the .doc was properly documented as some sort of standard. Here's wishing that .swx becomes ISO!

  28. New version by madth3 · · Score: 2, Informative

    And there's a new version to celebrate: http://download.openoffice.org/1.1.3/index.html/

  29. Got Me Through Graduate School by TeachingMachines · · Score: 2, Interesting


    I was a starving graduate student (literally, my idiot advisor dropped my funding), and I couldn't afford a new word processor. This was terrible, as I had a lot of graphics in my dissertation that MS Word 97 COULD NOT HANDLE. OpenOffice to the rescue! I ended up writing my dissertation in OpenOffice, and my dissertation committee was none the wiser.

    P.S. An undergraduate had introduced me to Slashdot at the same time, and that was basically my social life :) The pathetic things is that it still is :(

    --

    The Death Penalty: Killing people to show others that killing people is wrong.
  30. You missed a chance there... by aug24 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Why not return it to the client in OOo format complete with an install disk for OOo, and say "I recovered it into a more stable format - OpenOffice" ;-)

    J.

    --
    You're only jealous cos the little penguins are talking to me.
  31. A year ago I lost my MS Office installation.... by ajdecon · · Score: 2, Interesting


    Last year I had a hard drive crash shortly after heading up to school for the year. I had to start over with a completely new system, reinstalling everything... and discovered that I had left my Office CDs at home, with a paper due the next week. So I installed OpenOffice as a stopgap measure, figuring that I'd write this paper with it and then retrieve my Office CDs when I went home for Thanksgiving.




    It's been more than a year now, and still I've had no need to reinstall MS Office. OpenOffice does everything I need it to.

    --
    "Science is a way of trying not to fool yourself." -Richard Feynman
  32. Advice for OO.o by amichalo · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Partner/Invest/whatever to get OO.o running native with Aqua under Apple OS X.

    Why?

    Because this is a user group that:
    (1) has a proven track record of going against the trend
    (2) has gotten a great deal of attention in the same 4 years for their movements towards opensource development & compatibility
    (3) would be a customerbase with proven record of paying a prmium for good products
    (4) is outspoken and
    (5) is known for setting trends inthe industry

    With these benefits, OO.o would generate both revenue and critical market mass to gain momentum in the land of Linux and pentially even move in on Microsoft's Windows.

    Without making a strong showing in the Apple OS X landscape, it is my opnion that OO.o will continue to make marginal strides (yes, I give them a "good" rating on a scale of "failing", "marginal", "good", "very good", "excellent", and "market leading") and will eventually make a couple or three desprate calls for donations before being bought and turned into a marginal product or dispanding as anything other than a weekend hacker effort.

    --
    I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
  33. Formula Editor and PDF by Finuvir · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I had three requirements for a word-processor last year: the ability to easily add complex formulae, the ability to save or export to a near-universal file format, and a price tag of 0. Open Office matched all three.

    --
    Why is anything anything?
  34. Mac support OOo & NeoOffice/J & Forrest to by the_webmaestro · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The Mac support for OOo1.1.2 is great although it requires X11 to be running. Not that big a deal, since it's on the Panther XCode install CDs. And if you don't want that running, NeoOffice/J allows you to run OpenOffice.org1.1.2 without X11: http://www.planamesa.com/neojava/en/index.php/

    I also love the Forrest support:
    http://forrest.apache.org/docs/oowriter.html/

    (but beware that if you delete a style from the sample OOoWriter file, you can't get it back...)

  35. The code is completely innaccesible by Qwavel · · Score: 5, Interesting

    As a C++ developer I have found OOo to be pretty useless as an open-source project.

    It uses all its own frameworks and conventions, so it is innaccesible.

    If it used the STL, Qt, GTKmm, wxWindows, then I would know where to start with the code.

    It would be really great if one of the cross-platform frameworks (GTKmm, wxWindows, FOX, the Mozilla runtime) could get the extra boost of having OOo run on it. That might consolidate effort around one of them. And it would be nice to be able to write an application (eg. an xml editor) on the same 'platform' as OOo.

    How about AbiWord? What libraries does it use?

    1. Re:The code is completely innaccesible by uwog · · Score: 3, Informative

      AbiWord on *nix uses Gtk2, wv, libpng, libxml2, zlib, fribidi popt, and libiconv. All of which are available in all new distro's, except maybe for wv. If you use the GNOME version, it uses several GNOME libraries as well, such as libgnomeprint.

      The Windows version uses the same libraries, except for of course the Gtk2/GNOME libraries, since we use the Windows native widgets and print systems on every platform. Same holds for the native MacOSX version.

  36. Much slower than MS Office on Windows by dara · · Score: 2, Interesting

    My experience with OpenOffice is almost all on Windows. Occasionally some interface item will bug me, but I can accept that I'm just used to doing it the MS Office way. What is most disappointing is the speed.

    Speed to start, open a file, save a file, and perform certain operations is painfully slow compared to Office. I've played with the 1.9.51 branch a bit, and it doesn't seem 2.0 is going to be enough of an improvement to compete with Microsoft on the speed front.

    I used to think that Moore's law will take over, but I'm now using a brand new P2.8 with 1 Gig of RAM at work, and after editing a presentation file with some large images I couldn't edit a slide with only text (don't ask me what OpenOffice was doing in the background with those pictures - it couldn't be autosave, since the problem was constant). I also used to think that OpenOffice should keep adding new features (e.g., macro recorder, which is in 1.9.51), but now I wish they would just optimize the hell out of it and add no new features for a while.

    Perhaps it doesn't feel as slow on Solaris or Linux, but I doubt it - my Linux machine is pretty anemic, but it used to run Office reasonably when it had Windows on it. Now I don't even try to use OpenOffice on it as it is unbearable. When Koffice becomes file compatible, I may try to use that program on this machine.

    The two free cross-platform software projects I use most are OpenOffice and Mozilla (Seamonkey or Firefox). Of course Mozilla's task is completely different, but it works reasonably fast compared to Internet Explorer (faster with some tasks, slower with others). I look forward to the day I can say the same thing about OpenOffice.

    Dara

  37. Re:what niche is OOo filling? by ip_vjl · · Score: 2, Informative

    If you only need text processing, Notepad/Wordpad

    Wordpad isn't bad ... but the lack of a spell checker and only extremely simplistic paragraph formatting make it useless for anything more complex than a letter to a friend or a recipe.

    cheaper/leaner MS Works

    MS Works actually ships with the full version of Word.

    Abiword

    I've downloaded Abiword, and I like that there's another alternative, but in fonts don't show as nicely (odd letter spacing) and I've had troubles with placed graphics that I just don't have in OOo.

    I can't see a reason to use OOo except when you feel the need to have a million "collaboration"/"compatibility" features (in which case your time is better spent on the guaranteed compatibility of Word proper with erm.. Word files)

    You don't see a reason ... good, then don't use it. I *do* see a reason, and therefore I *do* use it.

    I own a copy of Office 97. While it works, it is getting dated. I don't really want to spend the money to update to a newer version of Office because I only need to occasionally use files that I get from other people (my main business is in design).

    Writer ... OOo does just as good of a job with most Word files as Office97 does. Sometimes O97 is better, sometimes OOo is better at preserving the original document ... it really depends on what version the original was authored in - but having Office itself is no guarantee of exact compatibility either.

    I own Acrobat, but I appreciate the built in PDF capabilities of OOo. In fact, I once needed to create a PDF of a Word doc for work. I opened in Office 97 and created the PDF through Acrobat. I also opened in OOo and did a direct PDF create. The resulting PDF was actually smaller from OOo with no loss of quality in the PDF (I'm guessing that Word was embedding metadata or some other filler which made their document larger)

    Calc ... I don't do too much intensive spreadsheet work. For what I do, either Office97 or OOo will do.

    Impress ... I'm not a big PPT fan. Impress doesn't handle all PPT files correctly ... usually it messes up things like wacky transitions and animation effects (which I wouldn't use anyway) so it doesn't affect me, but I could see where someone who is into that kind of stuff would be set back.

    I own and use Illustrator for most graphic work, but I actually like using OOo Draw for flow diagrams and such because the drawing tools are geared toward that kind of thing. (I wouldn't use it over Illustrator for illustration, though)

    --

    ... strong enough that you refuse to spend the initial outlay on the Word license to make up for the number of problems you'll have in using feature-filled Word files.

    I don't see too many 'feature-filled Word files' ... most people use the basics - just enough to make Wordpad incapable of doing the job (which is by design, I'm sure). OOo does a great job for me so I see no need to spend hundreds of dollars to upgrade MS Office. I'd rather use that money to upgrade something more useful to what I do.

    If it doesn't work for you, fine. But it works for me and I'm sure quite a few others, so I use it.

  38. Re:Speed issues? by Oxide · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Well I have a P4 3.06 Ghz with 1 GB of ram and a Geforce4 video card and I still say OpenOffice is sluggish.

    Even running MS Office on CrossOver office was less sluggish than the natively linux coded OpenOffice

  39. Good Enough and Cheap by jusdisgi · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Well, I've been using OO for a long, long time. Actually, since before it was OpenOffice, back in the StarOffice 5 days. It used to be almost entirely unusable. Now it's good enough to limp on. It keeps getting better...

    I completely defenestrated over 2 years ago at both home and work, and this is one of the pillars holding that up. I use it almost every day; mostly on documents I created, but also a good chunk of time on .doc and .xls files. I have occasional problems...either someone's .doc file gets misformatted (or, very rarely, won't open) or I hear that a document I sent doesn't look right. It doesn't happen often, and when it does I typically just save to .rtf or something to get around it. I also send out all contracts and things that the recipient won't need to edit (and shouldn't!) in .pdf instead. That solves a lot of the display issues. Only maybe once or twice in the last year have I been forced to get a document over to one of my co-workers Windows machines...highly embarrassing, that. But then, I've been asked to untar something more often than that ;-)

    But compatibility isn't my main OpenOffice gripe. Editing is a pain in the ass. Autocomplete will fight you to the death, the onscrean display of text frequently just goes "all weird" so my cursor is away from where the text is appearing and there are blank spots and lines sometimes get crunched together (but these problems don't appear in the printed document). And what's with the text just randomly changing font size while I'm not looking? I can usually force it back to what I want...but man, what a pain in the ass.

    So, in summation, I hate OpenOffice. But I absolutely can't live without it. Which makes it pretty much exactly like every single other Office suite I've ever had to use regularly. Somebody mentioned at some point that a piece of software doesn't need to be the best thing out there to be successful...just good enough and cheap. Well, OpenOffice fits the bill for me.

    --
    Given a choice between free speech and free beer, most people will take the beer.
  40. Re:Speed issues? by dash2 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I recall using MS Office (Word, Excel, et al.) on Windows boxes in the late 90s. There were no speed issues at all - it was easy to get my work done. Chip speeds and memories were slower than what I have now.

    I can't blame the openoffice developers for not focusing on the low end when "most people" have much faster machines. But I can accept that MS Office got it right a lot earlier.

  41. OO is like all free software by schmiddy · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I've been using OpenOffice ever since I've moved exclusively to Linux on the desktop. For me at least, Linux is "good enough" already so that its benefits (flexibility, easy software installations/updates, security) outweigh the few downsides (less polished, not being able to run Windows programs).

    But one thing that's always struck me about both OO and the Linux operating system is that it's always getting better. Right now I'm using Debian, and with its excellent package management it's quite easy to always have fairly current (or trade whiz-bang for stability if that's your thing) software packages. Every time I move up an incremental upgrade of OO, i notice a few improvements here and there. Same with all the shiny GUI tools, KDE gets better every time I upgrade.

    I've used nothing but OO for all the lab reports and essays I've had to make over the past year and a half, and frankly I don't miss Word at all. It's annoying as hell when professors just post .doc files online of handouts instead of something a little more universal like PDF's/RTF's, but I'm managing fine as it is. In a few areas, such as being able to export to PDF, OO even outshines its rival.

    Here's to another few years of the Linux desktop experience only getting better. Keep scratching those itches, developers.

    --
    http://cltracker.net -- powerful craigslist multi-city search
  42. Consolidation of Some Points and my $0.02 by Devi0s · · Score: 3, Interesting

    OpenOffice's storage format is not .doc. Just like MS Word saves documents by defualt in it's (proprietary, closed-source) native format, .doc, to leverage all of Word's features (instead of .rtf or .xml or .sxw), OpenOffice needs to store documents in it's native (non-proprietary, open-source) format, .sxw, to leverage all of it's features.

    You should not expect OpenOffice to perfectly store or perfectly open complicated Word Documents. However, it does a good enough job to allow someone to work with an MS user. It also allows you to PDF your documents to share.

    By the way, use Word and don't want to install OpenOffice to make PDF's for free? Check out the free, open-source PDFCreator software at http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/.

    OpenOffice has been a wonderful solution to my need for an office suite while in college. I've never had anyone complain about my documents, and there was not a Word document from a classmate or teacher that I could not open.

    Someone pointed out that it would be great if they would take the Firefox-like approach and package the different components as non-monolithic standalone applications. I thought that was a great idea.

    OpenOffice is a great tool to give to developers, IT staff, and anyone else that does not have to collaborate with clients/executives/managers by passing around Word .doc files. A simple PDF of their sxw document will do and it's a hell of a lot cheaper (free).

    Have you ever noticed that Excel is limited to 65,535 rows? Ever notice that OpenOffice is not?

    OpenOffice is a viable and more than capable replacement for an expensive office suite. It is not a viable replacement for someone who collaborates by passing around files in Word's .doc format.

    --
    - Have you ever noticed that the more you learn about technology, the more stupid you sound trying to explain it?
  43. Wrote my Master's thesis using OO.o - successfully by juanfe · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I had to negotiate dealing with MS Word tracked changes and inline comments created by my thesis advisor while wanting to keep my Mac as a Microsoft-free zone. Ended up trying AppleWorks [not quite an office package as an OfficeSpace package... why hasn't this dog died yet?], TextEdit, TeX (no patience for that critter), AbiWord, ThinkFree Office (slower than your average Republican president) until I learned there was an X11 port of OpenOffice for Mac OS X.

    Have to say that it tackled the job superbly for what was about as complicated as a document gets--a book-length work. Tracked changes worked almost seamlessly, even when these changes were made in MS Word versions of the docs. Export and import to/from MS word caused no noticeable difficulties, not even when dealing with paragraph formats, TOCs, styles, graphics, tables, charts and the like.

    In all, I was very impressed with its robustness and more than pleased by the price.

    My only beefs:
    - one somewhat minor problem dealing with section formatting and heading numbering when you use a master document with subsection documents--well known apparently in the OO.o discussion forums
    - no native support in EndNote for the OO.o format--made dealing with citations and bibliography a bit tricky (had to save from that format to RTF to run through doc scan to export as RTF and then re-format citations in OO.o document to make us of Bibliography). Then again, that's an issue not with OO.o per-se but with the folks who make EndNote having their heads up their Microsofted tuchases.
    - occasional crashiness/quirkiness when dealing with tracked changes--sometimes the UI would jump forward many pages and bail out when trying to return. I found that there were mouse and keyboard sequences I should just avoid when navigating that UI.

    All around though, the final product turned out very well from a pure text formatting perspective. Contentwise? you be the judge.

    --
    ***Foucault is watching you..***