OpenOffice 2.0 vs. MS Office Review

trewornan writes "There's an interesting, if partisan, review of OpenOffice 2.0 in comparison to Microsoft Office over on Real Tech News. Open Office gets a general vote of approval, as you might guess from the title 'Open Office 2.0 Kicks MS Office Around The Block'" From the article: "My primary use for OpenOffice has always been as a word processor and I believe this is an area where it excels (so to speak!). For anyone used to MS Office, the difference in the two interfaces is minimal. In fact, I find it easier to use OpenOffice's interface than MS Office's for various things such as inserting a header and footer. To create or change a header and footer in MS Office XP, you must go to the "view" menu. I'm not sure why something like a header or footer would be placed in the "view" menu before it is actually part of a document."

Comments

Who uses Office XP anymore?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would you compare it to the older version? Office XP is almost 5 years old. Why not be fair and compare it to 2003?

Re:Who uses Office XP anymore?

[Anonymous Coward]

It is also found under "View" in Microsoft Office 2003. The differences between Office XP and 2003 are also pretty small.

Re:Who uses Office XP anymore?

[NcF]

What's the real difference between the versions? I mean, M$ doesn't really change too much between versions, nor does any software for that matter. If the guy has XP, why pay $200+ for 2003 or whatever, when the only real improvements are in the GUI's looks! Maybe when XP starts using truely open document format specifications, then I might support them....

Re:Who uses Office XP anymore?

[toddhunter]

I still use my copy of office 2000 I got with a computer way back when. None of that activation rubbish and it does *everything* that I would ever want it to do.
Which is why incidently, I don't use open office either.

Re:Who uses Office XP anymore?

[Com2Kid]

Well, you are definently uninformed.

See, Office XP is a load of garbage. Unusable, horrible UI, and the load time is horrible.

Office 2003 is a nice speed up from XP (although still not as fast as Office 2000), has features that actually work, and can do some downright amazing things.

Are the differences earth shattering? Taken alone, no, but on the other hand, XP is almost unusable, where as 2003 is rather nice to use.

Speaking of load times, that is the one BIG thing that is keeping Open Office from being widely accepted. Until the load times get under 3 seconds (Pentium 4 3.0GHz+ systems with 1GB+ of RAM should NOT be talking over 3 seconds to load a word processor!), OOo is going to go the same way as Winamp3, sure it may be superior, but does it feel good to use?

Re:Who uses Office XP anymore?

[ZakuSage]

True enough. I, for one, run AbiWord on my Linux box despite how reletively bad it is (especially when inserting images...) simply because I don't want to wait for OO.org to load, and then still lag for a bit after it seems loaded.

Re:Who uses Office XP anymore?

[computerjunkie]

Uh, no IMAP? Hmm.. maybe I should tell my customers to turn it off now since it's not there :)

Re:Who uses Office XP anymore?

[Comatose51]

Office XP = Office 2002. That makes it 3 years old, not 5.

Re:Who uses Office XP anymore?

[KillShill]

why not image the office cd and use a virtual cd program to mount it?

not only do you never have to worry about finding the cd, but the accesses will be much faster from the hd.

Re:Who uses Office XP anymore?

[dotcher]

It's not exactly a solution when all the preloaded bits are swapped out within half an hour anyway - it still takes just as long to load. Besides, what if every program tried that solution? You'd be well into the swap file before you'd finished logging in.

I've looked into OpenOffice a fair bit - I don't exactly want to pay the Office tax, but at the moment, Office best fits my needs. OO.o tends to be slower, more crash-prone and missing some features I use a fair bit - so for the time being, I'm sticking with Office. When OO.o matures a little more, I'll look at it again.

Re:Who uses Office XP anymore?

[masklinn]

Speaking of load times, that is the one BIG thing that is keeping Open Office from being widely accepted. Until the load times get under 3 seconds (Pentium 4 3.0GHz+ systems with 1GB+ of RAM should NOT be talking over 3 seconds to load a word processor!)

You'll probably enjoy knowing that without the preloader (which I never use) OpenOffice Writer from the 1.9m122 does indeed load in under 3 seconds on an A64/3000+ (with 2Gb RAM, but I'm well under 1Gb load right now so that ain't an issue).

Loading time seems around 2 seconds on this setup without any software hogging the processing ressources, and the processor barely peaks

You should give it a try again, 2.0 has been a huge step from 1.0.x from the beginning, but with each new beta release it gets stabler AND faster.

Re:Who uses Office XP anymore?

[vspazv]

So the choice is either wait 10-15 seconds for the main program to load or stick a 50MB process in memory and make everything else take 10-15 seconds to load (I'm forced to use OOo on computers running NT4 and Win2k with 256MB RAM)

Also, OOo on NT4 will consistently blue screen when running above 256 colors. Thie problem is independent of any hardware that is installed and has occured on every revision i have tried.

Re:Who uses Office XP anymore?

[Jugalator]

Maybe when XP starts using truely open document format specifications, then I might support them....

Office 2003 XML is an open and royalty-free format. That's just one of the reasons comparing to Office 2003 would've made more sense too.

http://www.microsoft.com/office/preview/fileovervi ew.mspx

Re:Who uses Office XP anymore?

[EvanED]

I'll agree on calc. Excel has two absolutely braindead UI aspects. I don't know what the designers are on over in Redmond, but they must be smoking something pretty strong. They are:

1. If you select a range of cells, copy it, and make another edit, Excel loses what you copied.

I ran into this a TON when I was recording timesheets for a group project for a college class. The times were all kept in a single sheet, sorted by person. As the semester went on and I had to update them, the other members would email me their times as a separate Excel file and I would copy and paste into the master sheet. This, of course, required shifting down everyone's entries by however many lines were in the person's I was adding. Which means I had to open their timesheet, see the number of lines, change to the master timesheet, move down the cells, change back to the person's sheet, copy, change back to the master sheet, and paste. And if I didn't shift the other cells far enough down, I'd have to shift again, change again, copy again, change again, then paste. (There's probably a better way to do this, having it shift automatically, but I don't know it.)

OTOH, Excel's formula editor is nicer. OO color codes cell ranges with the formula as it's displayed in the cell, but Excel also color codes it in the edit box where you type in the formula. (Also, I thought that typing something like '=sum(A1:A3' then pressing enter would make it complain about an invalid entry, but I just tried it and it autoclosed the parens. Maybe it was like that in pre-2.0 OO?)

2. Excel operates in what I call a fake-non-MDI mode. In that it pretends it's not an MDI application, but it actually is. Each document you open shows up in a separate taskbar icon. And yet there's only one window. And if you close that window it closes all your documents. Congratulations MS, you found a way to make MDI even more frustrating. (In fact, I *never* found MDI frustrating before Excel. And yet I can't tell you how many times I've closed all my documents by mistake.)

For these two reasons I've stopped using Excel.

However, I cannot agree that the other applications in OO are up to MS Office's standards, at least in XP. And given that I think everything I've done in Word XP I've done in Word 2K, I think it applies there as well. See another of my posts for the gripes I have with Writer that I could think of at the time.

Finally, at least Writer 2.0 has track changes. I'm almost positive 1.1 has it too because I'm almost positive I've used it, though I don't have it installed anymore so can't be for sure. But in Writer 2, it's under edit -> changes -> record. (However, as I mention in that post, it's substantially inferior to Word's offering. Deleted text is shown strikeout (like, I think, Word 2K) instead of in an external comment (like in XP+). This both is uglier (harder to read, ...) and also messes up formatting because deleted text takes up space, which is probably not what you want. At least based on my use of that feature.)

Re:Who uses Office XP anymore?

[Salvo]

Most of the computers I am forced to maintain are still Windows 98se. Office 2003 only runs on NT-based Windows Varieties.
OpenOffice runs on DOS-based Windows, and XP is the latest version of Office which fits the same category.
IMO, OpenOffice still doesn't have the versatility of MS Office '97. While it may have more features, all most people need is something simple which can run on their ancient hardware. The average user only needs Word '97 and Excel '97. They don't need all the features that OpenOffice offers

Re:Who uses Office XP anymore?

[FredThompson]

2. Excel operates in what I call a fake-non-MDI mode. In that it pretends it's not an MDI application, but it actually is. Each document you open shows up in a separate taskbar icon. And yet there's only one window. And if you close that window it closes all your documents. Congratulations MS, you found a way to make MDI even more frustrating. (In fact, I *never* found MDI frustrating before Excel. And yet I can't tell you how many times I've closed all my documents by mistake.)


You only have yourself to blame for not finding the setting for this. It's on the top of the first tab in the user options.

Tools | Options | View | Windows in Taskbar.

clear that check box.

Yeah, that was real tough, wasn't it?

Re:Who uses Office XP anymore?

[EvanED]

First, I'd argue that that option shouldn't even be present.

Second, it DEFINITELY shouldn't be on by default.

Third, why is Excel and Powerpoint MDI but Word SDI?

Fourth and not least, THANK YOU. That will go on my list of "annoying 'features' to turn off on a new Office install" list, along with clippy, the show toolbars in a single row, menu transitions, and menu item hiding.

Re:Who uses Office XP anymore?

[IchBinEinPenguin]

BSOD is an OS problem, not an application problem.
Applications crashing themselves is one thing, applications crashing the OS is another.
I believe the video drivers were moved from user to kernel space in NT4. A buggy video driver can therefore easily crash the OS.

Re:Who uses Office XP anymore?

[Seraphnote]

That is the question isn't it!

I mean, naturally, the reason to upgrade to Office 2003 is because it is better... so sure, say my employer has 200 users x $300 per upgrade license, that's $60,000.
Of course I can explain in my budget how when we upgraded 3 years ago to XP, assume again for the same reason... "it was better..." that it in 2000 it was just a temporary $60,000 expense, leading up to and preparing us for this EVEN better version in 2003.
OH, but wait, I forgot, just 2 years prior to that we spend maybe $50,000 to upgrade to the 2000 version from the '97 version. And two years prior to that we spent maybe $40,000 upgrading from '95 to '97.

In case you don't have Excel handy, that's...

$40,000 in '97, $50,000 in 2000, $60,000 in 2001/2, $60,000 in 2003 equaling $210,000 in 6 years just on licenses...

THEN there was the amount of time and labor necessary for my IT department to upgrade each of these 200 computers...

And the training time, to make the most of each new version, and teach my company's employees how to work together in the "even better" way that Microsoft has so carefully designed for us.

Plus the memory, and computer upgrades necessary to run the newer versions...

AND with 2003, to MAKE THE MOST OF IT, we needed to add a new server to run SHAREPOINT Server for our 200 people.

Yes, that is what Microsoft and Mr. "Who uses Office XP anymore?"' would have you do.

Fortunately, up until but not including the last sentence, my upgrade story is fiction. We're still using Office 2000. A few are using Office XP. Some of us even use the old Wordperfect and Quattro suite from Corel. And when the Engineering department told us they wanted 2003, I told them NO. (Unless of course they can tell me what features from 2003 it is that they NEED. And I gave them a link to Microsoft's webpage showing the differences between 2003 and XP.)

Now when time permits, we're going to find out just what features our company REALLY needs, and the suite that provides those features best, will be what we will convert the whole company to.
If that is Office 2006, (which of course will be EVEN BETTER, so you ought to go get it NOW if you can!), then so be it, but until then this IT Department is trying the OpenOffice 2.0 beta, and thus far, except for "Convert Text To Columns" in Excel, there has been no need for Microsoft Office.
OpenOffice 2.0 beta works great, has most of the USED features of MS Office, and removes most of the need having Acrobat (full version).

We've already switched most people from IE to Firefox, which most everyone had no problem with, they hated IE's "many" popups and like Firefox's tabs. AND we have MUCH less Virus/Spyware problems now.
 
And as Outlook keeps chewing up people's PST files, they are being moved to Thunderbird.
 
Hmm... before you know it, I may be able to CHOOSE which OS we're going to run too...

Re:Who uses Office XP anymore?

[ozmanjusri]

One could also simply double click the header in Office to edit it. I would think this is what 99% of people do.

That only works if you have an existing header/footer. If you are creating a new document, you still need to click /View/Header and Footer.

Re:Who uses Office XP anymore?

[richlv]

unless ms has silently changed something lately, this is all marketing speech. yes, you can get schemas, but nothing stops you from integrating binary streams in xml - and that's what ms are doing. it's the same format, just in a new box that is tailored to please those buyers who have been swayed by open formats - so ms figured out "let's make it look like open format, maybe slightly change the definition of 'open'... now, done".

actually, ms initially participated in oasis workgroup that developed standard now known as opendocument - but they dropped out.

Re:Who uses Office XP anymore?

[Opinion Dalek]

Or you could customize your menu or your toolbars if it really annoyed you. Good luck to the next person who wants to use your PC and wonders where the option has gone.

Re:Who uses Office XP anymore?

[fishbot]

The only feature that I really miss, though, is Track Changes

Um ... Edit -> Changes -> Record ?? It has change highlighting, accept/reject and the ability to show or hide the recorded changes. Available in 1.1 as well as 2.

From TFA: I've personally never used these new programs seriously, but from the looks of it they could all be useful except for Draw. I haven't yet been able to discern what exactly you're supposed to be able to do with it that warrants its existence.

You're supposed to be able to draw with it? It's a generic vector drawing app with some really cool features, and it's great for creating small diagrams or illustrations.

I suppose in a comparison with MS Office it is a bit out of place because MS Office has NO drawing capabilities worth speaking of, but just because MS Office can't do it doesn't make it worthless ...

Re:Who uses Office XP anymore?

[Komodowaran]

That's a good question indeed. Of course, there are a zillion systems running Office XP - worldwide. But to call you a troll would be sort of cheap. Lemme answer it in some detail then.

Users seldom update their systems. It is even more the case with their software. Therefore, I would be all but impressed learning that the most popular office suite be the aforementioned one, or maybe even Office 2000. There are many instances of Word 97 and Office 8 as well.

OpenOffice positions itself against this base. (Remember the user: those running 2003 will not update. Indeed, they are not in for a change - yet, and might be sticking with their office flavour as long as the hardware goes, much longer than a redmond-based company would favour.) That are those users who run MS-Office 8..10 now, who are targeted by the new release of OOo, because they need to keep running their ageing boxes. Mostly, the want them to run smoothly, and Writer is a smoother ride than Word.

If those users are willing to try Writer now, they will probably ditch their present office suite altogether, and this before long. The question about Word11 will not even be asked. Moreover, because OOo runs under GNU/Linux there will be no need for, say, a secretary to learn new tricks when her employer decides to migrate operating system this way or another.

However, from the purely technical point of view, it would definitely be interesting to learn how OOo 2.0 compares to 2003. I see your point: compare newest release to newest release and all is well. Unfortunately, life does not go this way as far as both competitors are concerned. OOo is wise enough to not compete in the field where there is virtually no demand -- they do very well in those markets, where discriminate buyers double chceck their needs and their means before adopting the best solution.

Frequently, the result is in favour of the Open Office suite, just like the article suggests. Your criteria may be different, but the result will be in many cases the same. If you relay on some proprietary technlology to the point of self-abandonment then it is another cup of tea, but in most cases the bottom line of the article is valid beyond any doubt.

Re:Who uses Office XP anymore?

[Knuckles]

It was called Open Office before, then there were trademark issues, now it has to be called *.org: http://www.openoffice.org/about_us/summary.html

Re:Who uses Office XP anymore?

[Knuckles]

I'd say it's OO.org's problem that it crashes, but entirely MS's problem that it can take the OS with it.

Re:Who uses Office XP anymore?

[YU Nicks NE Way]

You don't know what you're talking about. The only things which are binary in the W2K3 XML format are graphics objects, spell check data, and OLE control initialization data.

Re:Who uses Office XP anymore?

[maxume]

200 people * 6 years * $30,000 = $36,000,000

$210,000 / $36,000,000 = 0.00583 ~= 0.6%

6 * 250 * 200 = 300,000 person-days

$210,000 / 300,000 = $0.6999 ~= $0.70 per day

$30,000 / (2040 * 60) = $0.245 per minute

$0.6999 / $0.245 = 2.856 minutes per day

So, assuming you pay your people shit, office is still a pretty minor expense. If it saves each person an average of 3 minutes a day(who knows!), it is paying for itself in reduced labor costs. Software is cheap, all of it, people are expensive.

Re:Who uses Office XP anymore?

[kuzb]

In many cases, you'd probably be correct. However, the fact that this article does is coincidental - it has already been exposed by another comment that the author of the article couldn't be bothered to get his own copy of office for the review. My guess would be that he grabbed the first pirated version he could find, and officeXP just happened to be it.

It's things like this which make me wonder if stories on /. are picked only for their anti-microsoft sentements. You'd never see "MS Office kicks OO around the block" or "Photoshop kicks gimp around the block" as titles for stories. It's also the same reason Apple is always shown in a shining white light here, even though they've been known to employ some of the same tactics as Microsoft. The editors of /. are too biased.

Re:Who uses Office XP anymore?

[cahiha]

You only have yourself to blame for not finding the setting for this. It's on the top of the first tab in the user options.

Ah, yes, that's the "blame the user" approach to GUI design. It is practiced quite commonly among programmers.

The default mode is wrong. The default mode shouldn't even exist, even as an option, because it violates GUI conventions.

When will OO.org be released?

[I_am_Rambi]

I'm sure plenty of people don't want beta software on their system if they can help it. The question comes, when should I expect it?

Re:When will OO.org be released?

[KillShill]

pssst, all software is beta. and if it's "consumer" software, then all the more so.

Re:When will OO.org be released?

[unboring]

I don't know about that... Plently of people are using Google's beta products

grammar checker

[butterbarrel]

OOffice need's a gammar checker

Re:grammar checker

[crazyvas]

OOffice need's a gammar checker

Looks like you need one too. That would be needs, not need's.

Re:grammar checker

[MynockGuano]

>>OOffice need's a gammar checker

>Looks like you need one too. That would be needs, not need's.

(Score:-1, WHOOSH!)

Re:grammar checker

[crazyvas]

OOffice need's a gammar checker

Looks like you need one too. That would be needs, not need's.

And grammar, not grammer. Fine, I admit it: the joke was lost on me :p

Re:grammar checker

[interiot]

crazyvas needs an automated humor detector

Re:grammar checker

[deaddrunk]

MS Office needs a grammar checker that actually works. I hate the stupid thing, 90% of the time what it suggests is totally wrong so it gets switched off.

It figures. Reviewed by a school kid.

[Le Marteau]

Reviewer says:

I generally wouldn't recommend using them in an environment where it was important to maintain compatibility with Microsoft products.

e.g. in real life. He's a school kid. Yeah, Open Orifice is great for school, where the profs are more open minded than, say a 'client' or a 'boss'.

Then he goes: My school even offers students copies of MS Office for $25 and I never bothered to get one since, for me, it would just be a waste of $25.

There goes all his credibility out the window.

Note: This review was written using OpenOffice.

Wow. What an age we live in. One can actually write a review in something besides MS Office. Wonders never cease.

Biased...

[Anonymous Coward]

He has been a longtime user of the product
Hmm. Sounds to me like the review may be biased a little.

From the article...

[Aranth Brainfire]

"Another nice thing about OpenOffice is that it is actually a complete office suite."

You know, unlike MS Office.

Just seeing a single line like this in an article should immediately tip you off that it's probably not worth the bandwidth you used to download it.

Re:From the article...

[rolfwind]

OTOH,

He kept saying how, while word processor is mature, that the other elements of the suite aren't there yet - not because of it's own features as much as 100% compatibility with MS's products (instead of it's own merits).

While the review had a positive spin - it was hardly glowing as the summary made it out to be - regardless of its title.

Title seems wrong

[SpaceAdmiral]

The title "Open Office 2.0 Kicks MS Office Around The Block" doesn't seem to match the review. The review seems to give Open Office a better grade for word processor, but for everything else the review seems to favor Microsoft. I mean, look at the summary:

Overall, I've found OpenOffice to be a fine MS Office replacement for my needs. OpenOffice's word processor is more than ready for prime time. As for the other components, I generally wouldn't recommend using them in an environment where it was important to maintain compatibility with Microsoft products.

Did they take the title from a different article and put it on this one?

I'd consider it objective

[tekiegreg]

Considering that they gave the presentation piece to MS Powerpoint.

In defense of Microsoft they put in a few neat things in MS Office 2003. The group collaboration is probably better than anything in OpenOffice. Though I admit freely I haven't used any revision tracking or group collaboration features, does it even have either one? I'm using OpenOffice 1.1.4 also and newer things might have popped up in 2.0.

But all the same, for the basics, I'd see no reason to pay the premium for MS Office for basic needs. However for businesses I can see several advantages of MS Office still.

Re:I'd consider it objective

[shanen]

Boy, you touched a nerve there. Actually, the revision tracking and collaborative editing features of Word 2000 are significantly better than in Word XP. This is a area where Microsoft took a downgrade, labeled it an upgrade, and rammed it down our throats. I spent months trying to find workarounds. I'm quite convinced there aren't any. I think Microsoft's real plan is to reintroduce those features of Word 2000 as "new" in the next version.

Yes, there are some improvements in Word XP, but collaborative editing is not one of them.

I haven't used OO enough to assess whether or not there are any comparable features there. I'm basically constrained to use what my customers use, and so far none of my customers has sent me any OO files. I'd be delighted, but...

Difference between OO and Word - Minimal?

[zoogies]

I disagree. I tried hard to migrate to OO, and found it okay for a while, but whenever I had to do anything more complex - even changing colors was a learning curve - I found that it wasn't worth it, that Word would do for now.

I mean, props to Open Office, they have a really good product, and their Powerpoint equivalent saved my life when I found out I didn't have powerpoint and needed a PPT presentation. I learned that program on my own quick enough and well enough for the project I needed to get done.

But switching from Word to OpenOffice? No. It's not that easy. It's like...I guess you could compare it to, Photoshop -> Gimp. Perhaps not that bad, but still it's something that will take time to get used to. At least it did for me.

Re:Difference between OO and Word - Minimal?

[CAIMLAS]

I use OOo exclusively when I need a word processor. I rarely need anything else in the "office" department, so Writer pretty much settles me down.

IMO, the main difficulty from "migrating" from one to the other is getting used to all the default behaviors and context menu stylings.

I don't use a word processor much these days. However, I used to use one profusely - back in 1996 - 1999. For the most part I was using Windows, and I started off with Office '95. I liked its default actions. I stuck with it for as long as I could, and moved to '97 around 1999. The change was marginal, but I was still used to the (fairly minimalist) Word95 setup. It let me get work done.

I couldn't stand all the nag effects in W97 (to some deggree) and to even greater degree in MSO2k, and that's when I went to OOo (or close to it). However, there are still some things which bug me about OOo - one of which is the inability to simply have a "word processor" view, and not a "printed page" view without going into the "Online Layout" option which changes the document type. There are other small things, but for the most part I've adapted to OOo for when I need a Word Processor.

I'm sure this doesn't apply to everyone, but I need fairly minimalistic word processor features. I think this does apply to most people, though. All I really need is:

- Spell check
- formatting like page margins, line formating, indentation, font selection, and the like
- Sub and super scripts
- Occasionally a table mid-page or something of that sort.

AFAIK, these features were met as far back as Word on Windows 3.11. I know I've seen older Macs that were from that era and had that facility.

Terminal Services?

[Anonymous Coward]

How well does Open Office 2.0 work in Terminal Services?

If it doesn't work flawlessly in Terminal Services it will limit its adoption in the Windows world.

Re:Terminal Services?

[pato101]

Don't know about Terminal Services at all. But what I can strongly state is that OpenOffice has always behaved ultra-fast at X11 remote displaying, even under ssh intranet links. The opposite to Acrobat reader, for instance. My guess is that it caches what it has to cache.

Is it just me...

[PrivateDonut]

or has the bias of heaps of these "reviews" been shifted from pro-microsoft to anti-microsoft? This is just as bad! We need un-biased "reviews"!

Made me look

[shanen]

But no, OpenOffice 2 is NOT released yet.

Anyway, I have used the beta 2, though I was basically constrained to do so. The company has a corporate license for Microsoft's garbage, but it's restrictive. Not having Powerpoint on a particular machine, and not wanting to risk any attempt to tiptoe past Microsoft's lawyers (or our own lawyers), I went ahead and installed OO. Unfortunately, I must report that Microsoft is (predictably) still succeeding in protecting their incompatibilities, at least as regards PPT files.

I really dislike having Microsoft products rammed down my throat, and I really would like to switch. Won't happen, however. My employer would have be make a major commitment to support OO. Basically, they'd have to insist on and guarantee that I not be penalized for any impact on my work that came from using OO instead of the Microsoft Office "standard" files.

As it actually worked out in this recent case, the post-OO PPT files were hopelessly mangled, and I wound up working late on several evenings to redo that work on a different machine that has Microsoft Powerpoint on it.

From What Follows Behind

[Quirk]

"...'Open Office 2.0 Kicks MS Office Around The Block'"

Given how long Open Office has been chasing after MS Office, it's about time it got close enough to give MS Office a kick; but, in my experience, Open Office comes off like Charlie Brown kicking that damn football.

I'm not a Windows apologist. I run a wintel box as a multimedia web box because too many formats are locked into MS apps and I'm not enough of a zealot to forgo information.

I've had MS pro copies of Office for many years and I've had years of experience with Linux. My opion is Open Office doesn't yet touch MS pro office, especially Power Point.

I'll keep MS Office Pro because it's not a big expense in terms of the extended latitude it offers.

Does it really matter?

[sedyn]

I've found that people want things that "just work" and as an extention to that, programs have to "just work" in the way that they are used to.

So, like most programs, people don't care about quality, security, or amazingly even cost. In the end, all they care about is doing some task in using the fastest assembly line that they know.

(I like the assembly line comparison because it illustrates the desire for speed, but one can still make the point that if an assembly line produces a terrible product, the job is still accomplished)

A semi-offtopic question here. Does anyone think that the "It comes from brandname X, therefore it must be good." mentality of previous decades still exists? Or are cases like OpenOffice/linux/etc. ones where people are worried about compatibility and such concepts?

Re:It figures. Reviewed by a school kid.

[Gribflex]

I'm not sure baout 2.0, but 1.1.4 wasn't even worthy to use at school. The document format was completely incompatable with MS Word. Sure, the text would transfer fine, and simple styles would remain if you were lucky (bold, italics... anything HTML 1.0 compatable) but if you tried to do anything even remotely fancy, everything went to pot.

Styles, tables, tabs, borders, etc. All of these things were not compatable between MS Word and OOo.

Further, working in a school environment, you frequently need to collaborate with other people. OOo was terrible for that. If I sent a file to a partner (who would be lucky if they could even open the file and get it to render correctly) who edited it and sent it back, I had about an 80% chance of getting garbage back.

Even if that person used OOo I could get garbage; if they used the linux version, and I used the Windows version, the files got mangled.

And submitting to a prof... no way. If they can't open the file, I don't get marks.

OOo is simply unusable until it plays well with others. Unless of course you only need it for editing documents where you are the sole consumer.

FUD

[nighty5]

This is a complete hands-on review from someone who has used the product religiously for years. And I think you'll see why OpenOffice 2.0 truly Kicks MS Office around the block.

It was a one page review with some luke-warm analysis of some of the functions of either product. Nothing really in-depth here. Rambles a whole paragraph about PDF exports which is kind of irrelevent. I have a PDF phaser that I use to export to PDF, let the processor do the real word processing.

I have been using Word as a power user writing on average documents up to 300 pages a shot. Sure, Word has some shortfalls - I have seen times when a doc has shit itself in a few rare occasions. I have tried Oo, its quite good but I think it has a few more years to catch up to anything remote to Word. And I love Linux! Its unfortunate that I am stuck with Office in some respects, although no religious war will win me over when you have no choice but to be 100% collaborative with other Word users on very large documents, the slightest change to the formats can screw you big time, no Word importer will do.

I recently moved to a mac with Office 2004 which isnt bad although I'm still trying to get use to less use of shortcuts that arent consistant with the Windows version. I only moved to the platform for the *nix backend and to ability to contine my c++/dev hobbies outside of working hours on a platform built for development.

Saying that I think Oo has a real chance, especially in areas of the free market, small business, students and home users.

My OpenOffice Experience

[Wavicle]

This summer I interned at a national lab and part of the requirements of the internship was creation of a scientific research style poster highlighting what I did. The people in charge of the posters were of the belief that there were only two correct tools for creating a poster: MS Powerpoint and Adobe Acrobat.

Unfortunately the poster people didn't mention such requirements to the IT people who had the interns all set up with Fedora Core 2 systems. Fortunately OpenOffice was installed on these systems. I could only hope Impress was on par with Powerpoint.

I was a little skeptical going in, I knew that the OOo guys had worked fairly hard to make their tools as good or better than the commercial products, but this was a fairly unusual niche requirement. I was creating a single 48x30 inch slide with all graphics being very high quality so they don't look like crap when blown up.

The results were superb! I used Calc to do graphs, and cut-n-paste between Calc and Impress worked flawlessly. I used Draw to do line art graphics, and once again cut-n-paste worked perfectly. Throw in a touch of gimp to clean up some of the graphics being used and the whole thing had a professional look to it on par with any of the Powerpoint posters from years past.

The only thing that didn't work was exporting as .ppt. Exporting as pdf worked perfectly though.

Microsoft Falling From Power

[Cash202]

Ever since the big court case, Microsoft has been losing their power and control over general computer software and this is just one of those steps.

This process will continue until Microsoft will just be one company, amongs many, who have major holds and controls over various aspects of computer science. Thought this will probably still take quite some time.

Re:HEY!

[Gribflex]

I dunno. I kinda sympathize with the guy.
I'm totally sick of reading pro-OpenOffice.org articles on Slashdot. The community is far too biased.

The product is really not of the same calibre, I'm sorry. However, every time there is an article about OOo, the only comments that get modded past +1 are pro-OOo. Anything that speaks ill of the product gets demoted to 0 or -1.

It's unfortunate that the product can't receive even remotely objective coverage.

This report is a waste of time...

[spagetti_code]

From TFA:

This is a complete hands-on review

Which is then followed by 4 paragraphs, which can be summed up as: "tried one. tried the other. liked it". Then a paragraph each on calc and impress.

This is a complete waste of time and does not merit the front page of slashdot. C'mon - did Zonk even look at TFA?

Just off the top of my head, there is no:

• comparison of file sizes
• analysis version tracking
• comparison of printing/preview capability
• review of scripting capabilities and availability of scripts
• review of the style system
• interoperability of: templates, objects etc

I am underwhelmed.

No grammar check is NOT a feature

[Darth Cow]

OpenOffice also supports all of the major features of MS Office (and a few of its own) except for the grammar check. I'm personally fine with not having a grammar checker since it has given me the opportunity to actually learn the English language instead of relying on my word processor to make my sentences coherent. Erm... and I trust he's also personally fine without having a spell checker for exactly the same reason? And pocket calculators weaken my mind because I should be able to do it in my head or on paper? What world is this guy living in? I like my computer programs to be smart and do things for me by noticing, say, subtle flaws in the document that my proof reading might not pick up. Word's grammar check can indeed be useful at times, especially with some of the few slightly more obscure grammatical checks it has that we may not pick up from everyday usage but are still good to know.

Re:No grammar check is NOT a feature

[otomo_1001]

I think his point was we should learn the grammar of our language. Not depend upon a computer to catch "errors". Am I the only one that just gets annoyed when word thinks my sentence is wrong when it cannot determine the context?

Spell check is more of a grey area, but less of a crutch in my opinion. Almost all of the things it catches are errors in typing since I typed too fast.

As always, proof it before you send it. Read it aloud if you need to. Or at the worst have a co-worker/classmate look your writing over.

And no my grammar isn't perfect, this is /. :)

Re:No grammar check is NOT a feature

[EvanED]

From what I have seen when teaching classes, even having a grammar checking tool available--and turned on by default--is not sufficient.

Neither are spelling checkers.

Eye halve a spelling check her;
It came with my pea sea.
It plane lee marks four my revue
Miss steaks aye kin knot sea.

Eye ran this poem threw it
Your sure reel glad two no.
Its vary polished in it's weigh,
My checker tolled me sew.

And yet I think almost anyone agree that they are very useful.

The idea is not that Word will proofread your document, no matter how much some people think it will. The idea is that if you make a typo, there's a fair chance that it will catch it for you.

And if someone uses it as if it were a proofreader, all I can do is hope that someday their ineptitude will catch up with them.

On several occasions, it has made incorrect 'suggestions'.

I've had it make cyclic suggestions. (Saying sentence form A is wrong and suggesting sentence form B, but also saying sentence form B is wrong for which it suggests a change to sentence form A.)

For those who write at and above a truly professional level, grammar checking should be disabled

I disagree unless it's reporting a particularily high percentage AND number of false errors. I still maintain it's useful for typo catching.

Re:No grammar check is NOT a feature

[FidelCatsro]

Grammar checkers are also there to catch spelling errors/typos that a spelling checker would not.
for example "its" when you mean "it's" .. now that could be caused by a lack of understanding or a simple typo .
Proof reading important documents is always a good plan .Though when you have a something that is 30,000 words or so to check then any help is gladly accepted.

A Better review, quicker.

[Puchku]

I have used OOo for ages too.. In fact i used star office before OOo was launched. Here's a quick review.

First few versions sucked in terms of compatibility, ugly UI, and general bugs. Most MsOffice users, including me, played around with it and went back to Office.

The first really usuable version was 1.1. This really rocked in terms of compatibility, and though it still had some bugs, was infinitely better with word docs and general usability.

Upcoming version 2 is slated to be real good. the beta I'm using is nice, with much improved UI, better word compatibility, Database tool etc.

Writer is the best. Calc follows. Impress and Database app need some work, though impress has improved a lot in the recent version.

Office has MUCH better version tracking, sharing and collaborative features. OOo can't touch it here. Writer is catching up with Word in terms of pure Word processor features, in fact has some features that are better than word. (predictive typing)

OOo is suitable for SOHO operations where word processing is major app. Larger corporate users need to stick with Office for many reasons. You know what they are.

The article is more like a comparision of Writer with word, and it totally ignores the advanced features of word..

I love OOo, and use it every day, but that doesn't mean that I can't see where Office kicks OOo's ass...

Here's a longer review I did a while back.

Re:A Better review, quicker.

[throx]

"Why couldn't you pair with subversion for all that?"

I take it you've never used Office's version tracking and collaboration features?

svn will store versions of the files, sure. It might even be able to diff things (depending on the file format you choose to save in). What it won't do is give you the "at a glace and as you type" version change information that Word does a fantastic job of, especially the later versions that use margin callouts to show you exactly where, how and who changed things, right down to the formatting.

OO+svn won't hold a candle to that.

Shallow Author?

[Anonymous Coward]

The author of this article seemed to judge on very easy to solve problems. He chose Powerpoint because it came with included clipart and backgrounds? He also seemed to like Open Office because of easily accessible buttons? Not a very useful article.

Qualified?

[Barnoid]

The author admits "In fact, I felt so comfortable using it [the Lotus suite] that it quickly became my first choice of office applications. I never bought MS Office after Office XP ,and I rarely ever used that."

and goes on to write a comparison between OO and MS Office...

Guess we can wait for better reviews.

Better Alternatives

[gooman]

Over the years, I've used different versions of MS Office at work and tried several different office suites at home. If all you need is a word processor, even OpenOffice is overkill.

I always recommend http://www.abiword.com/. It handles MS formats fine, it loads faster, the interface feels more polished and like OpenOffice it's available for about every OS. OpenOffice has a great set of features, but it feels slow and bloated, of course that's just my opinion.

A long time ago, before the office suite concept, companies believed in "best of breed" software. You have to hand it to the marketing goons at Microsoft who convinced the corporate world that besides a word processor, every employee needs a spreadsheet and a copy of PowerPoint on their desktop.

Re:Better Alternatives

[gooman]

Thanks for the tip. I had never heard of Atlantis Nova before, It appears to offer a good basic feature set and wow that is small! Too bad it is only available as a Win32 program at this time.

I agree that for some users even AbiWord can be overkill (most Windows home users rarely need anything more powerful than WordPad, it's just crippled enough that they think they do). My real point is that there are several excellent word processors available both OSS and commercial besides MS Word.

I promote AbiWord because it is OSS, it works on every major OS (even QNX), the hardware requirements are minor, even an old 486 will work for a Windows box. The UI remains mostly the same regardless of the platform (MS can't seem to do that with Word (I guess they really do believe Apple users "think different"). The UI looks and feels finished. With it's plug-in architecture it can work with most any file format you can think of and it's under 5MB which is amazing when you compare what it competes with feature per feature!

Sorry about this is turning into a fan boy rant. That was not my intention, like I said originally said there are better alternatives to MS Word. We just need to keep reminding people of that.

Templates. clipart, and artwork in general

[Nailer]

The athor recommends users stick with Powerpoint due to the large amount of templates and artwork included in MS Office.

Some points:

- Professionally designed Powerpoint templates work in Impress, and are generally better quality than what MS produces, even more so because your presentation stands out more when you spend some cash on a unique looking template.

- OpenOffice.org really needs to hold a pre-2.0 design competition. . The best presentation templates created with OOo 2 beta should be included in the final, with links to the designers webpage.

Eg, under the bit where you select the template:

ModernFunkyThing v 2.7 by Professional Design Company inc. Visit www.professionaldesign.com for more info.

ProfessionalDesignCompany get good exposure for their other (paid for) designs, OOo gets templates better than MS Office and hence more users, users get better looking documents, everyone wins.

Re:Templates. clipart, and artwork in general

[ibentmywookie]

OpenOffice.org really needs to hold a pre-2.0 design competition. . The best presentation templates created with OOo 2 beta should be included in the final, with links to the designers webpage.

Why don't they do something similar to what the firefox guys did for the NYT ad? Organise it so say, design company X has agreed to do 10 Impress templates, and 200 clipart items for $30k (whatever). And have people donate until it gets up to that amount. Then they can have professionally designed artwork/templates ready to go in 2.0 final (or shortly thereafter).

Re:Templates. clipart, and artwork in general

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.openclipart.org/ ?

Re:HEY!

[ozmanjusri]

However, every time there is an article about OOo, the only comments that get modded past +1 are pro-OOo. Anything that speaks ill of the product gets demoted to 0 or -1.

This accusation is made every time there's an OSS/commercial product comparison, but it only takes a quick look at the posts below to see it's completely misleading. Almost all of the posts modded 3 or above (including the parent post) are pro-MS or at least dismissive of the review.

Re:HEY!

[callipygian-showsyst]

It's funny because (for me, at least) it isn't about compatibility at all.

I tried OO (including the newest release version) and keep going back to MS. It's just too crashy. Yes, it's amazing it works at all, but everytime I try to do a serious project in it, I spend too much time trying to recover from bugs.

How about WordPerfect and OO doesn't have..

[SilentReallySilentUs]

grammar hints, and it is a major piece in terms of development time. Also, anyone cares to bring Word Perfect. Dell bundles it free with its PCs I used it to write a 5 page article couple of years ago and found it to very smooth and pleasant to use, unlike OO, which felt clumsy and bulky at that time.

Re:It figures. Reviewed by a school kid.

[Fox_1]

I've had more success getting people to us Open Office then any of the other 'Open Alternative' products. Given the design philosophies of the MS products it's amazing when any of the alternatives show some compatibility. I wish Thunderbird, for example, worked with my 1gb .pst file representing 3 years of my life. Open Office 1.x.x had a hard time with MS Office. With Open Office 2.0 I've seen some issues importing MS Office files when they were created by MS Office. However, I have never had a problem using MS Office files created by Open Office in either of the two programs, even going back and forth making small changes in the document with others before final printing. Weird, but OO makes it good.

OO.o Express

[Doc Ruby]

I just got a MS PowerPoint in the email, and apt-get install'ed OO.o to view it (with Impress). It totally worked. Which was interesting, not because the PowerPoint was that complicated. To the contrary, it was 10 slides of simple bullet-point lists, no more than 3 levels deep, with no transitions or other fancy stuff - it could have been just as easily "presented" inline in the email to which it was attached. Which means the only role MS Office could have played in the process was to get in the way, locking me into the MS monopoly the way it's got the sender locked in. Which means the role Impress played there was to unlock me, without the sender even needing to know how much more free am I than are they. Which of course I told them - right in the reply email text :).

Here's a review I'd like to see

[slickwillie]

OpenOffice 2.0 vs MS Office Anything on Linux.

Under Linux OO2.0 can do .

MSOffice ... well, we are still waiting.

There you have it folks.

Powerpoint defects

[shanen]

No, that is NOT the problem I encountered. DRM blockage is just an example of broken as designed.

In the case I was referring to, the files seemed to open without problem in OO 2b, and I seemed to be able to work on them effectively. OO even said it was saving them in the PPT format, and I was able to open them up again within OO and they still looked normal. It was after returning to Powerpoint that the files were revealed to be hopelessly mangled. I spent a while trying to unmung them, but without success. Microsoft had conquereth.

However, since you've mentioned DRM, I'll note that I recently encountered an example (from a different author) of DRM problems within Powerpoint, and that was broken even beyond the design. Powerpoint at MY end insisted that the files (actually two versions of the same file) contained embedded read-only fonts, and were therefore uneditable. The author of the files at the other end, and one of his colleagues, insisted there was no such problem. The versions of Powerpoint were apparently identical right down to the build number and patch level.

Amusingly enough, I was able to sort of fix that problem by using OO 2b. From OO I was able to save the file under a new name, and that file is now editable using Powerpoint. It was slightly damaged, but the original author confirmed that he could still edit it, and he said he could fix the new version, so I should work from that one. (It's actually a current project, second in the queue...)

Getting off the original topic here, but that's one of the main reasons I'd like to see more competition in all of these products. I think the software without DRM will crush the DRM-crippled versions--as long as there is some real competition that allows people to freely choose their tools.

Actually Office XP is Office 2001

[linumax]

Well, to be more exact ...
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2001/Mar0 1/03-05SupportPR.mspx

March 5, 2001 -- Microsoft Corp. today announced that Microsoft® Office XP, the new version of the world's leading office software, has been released to manufacturing and will be available for retail purchase later this spring.

Then came SP1 and SP2 and ...
One more thing : This is my first post on slashdot! After 4 years of wasting my time just reading /. I finally signed UP to waste more time reading AND commenting ;) :p

Re:It figures. Reviewed by a school kid.

[mcrbids]

Even if that person used OOo I could get garbage; if they used the linux version, and I used the Windows version, the files got mangled.

You had me until this line, which makes it clear you are somewhere out in left field.

What do you most appreciate about the view from your Redomd, WA office window?

The main reaon I've standardized on OpenOffice for my own use is that it works equally well on Windows/Linux. I've had no issues whatsoever copying OO files to/from Windows/Linux machines.

OO reads office files fairly well, well enough that when I need to read/collaborate on tech specs (my primary need) I've not had an issue using my OO for about 2 years.

PS: The specs for OO are open and freely available, but those for MSOffice are subject to incredible (all but nonexistent) licensing. It's not an issue of OO "playing nice" with MSOffice, it's an issue of MSOffice "playing nice" with nobody.

Re:Hmmmm

[masklinn]

Yet, I am more comfortable with a lower tech approach and only use similar programs when I am told I am required to.

Such as using the Simple Standard based SlideShow System (S5)?

(ps: this is not a joke, I'm usually doing my presentations with it, it's slick and fast and doesn't care about the presentation box' setup)

Re:It figures. Reviewed by a school kid - WRONG

[Anonymous Coward]

OpenOffice is perfectly usable in a business environment. Just like with any word processor make and model, you want to have your whole company on the exact same software.

We are a ~50 people company, everyone uses OO.org. We exchange documents with clients -- long, complex technical specs, with version control, the works. Every once in a while, there's a glitch in formatting after the document has been edited by both sides a dozen times. But that happens with different versions of Word too!

Of course, those formatting glitches are a problem when you are pitching for new business. Easy: we do have 2 licenses for Windows+MSOffice, which we run under VMWare to proof the documents when it's a document tender that requires MSWord format. Even easier: we send PDFs exported with a single-click from OO.org. Sending PDFs makes us look slick, doesn't have formatting issues, and the files aren't editable (at least for mere mortals).

OO.org is a perfectly viable business tool. Our main clients are government departments and large private companies. The MSWord compatibility is good enough that if you have $0.01 of smarts to negotiate the small glitches _and_ you're good at what you do, you are sorted.

If you are not good at what you do... there'll be all sorts of excuses. Oh! your logo is RED. I /so/ hate red. And what's that strange office package you use? Sucks too!

If it makes you feel better...

[AvantLegion]

... I'll create a version of the webpage that changes every instance of "XP" to "2003".

Because the review would be exactly the same.

Re:To each his own, I suppose.

[EvanED]

(The following analysis, until stated otherwise, only applies to Word. For why, see the last few paragraphs.)

But what if you want to edit it after you inserted it? Then it makes sense to have it in 'view' and not under 'insert'.

To me, the situation seems as follows:
* When you're adding them for the first time, it makes the most sense to have them in the 'insert' menu. However, having them under 'view' does make a small amount of sense, and furthermore is unlikely to cause the user to think about whether that's what they want if they see it in the menu. (Also, in OO, chosing Insert -> (Header|Footer) -> (whatever is selected) removes the header or footer. A lot of sense THAT makes, putting the removal in the 'insert' menu.)

* When you're editing it later, it makes the most sense to have it in 'view'. Having it in 'insert' makes (to me) absolutely no sense at all, and, I think, could even cause the user to wonder if that's what they are looking for even if they find it there while exploring. (For instance, maybe it will replace the header and footer I already have. Or maybe it will add ANOTHER header or footer above and below what I have.)

From these it seems to me safest to put it under 'view'.

(End Word-specific part.)

However, for OO it makes the most sense to put it in 'insert'. The reason is that the header and footer are always available, always there to view and edit. Thus there's no action required to do it.

For Word, this isn't so. If in the 'normal' editing mode, the header and footer are not visible. In Word XP, choosing 'view -> header and footer' changes the view to page mode (thus showing the header and footer) until the user is done editing them and chooses close, at which point it returns to normal mode. So in Word, a specific action is sometimes needed to view the header and footer. (Remember, OO doesn't have an equivalent of normal mode, and only operates in page view. (Or web view, which is irrelevant to this conversation.))

Thus it seems to me that for both applications, the header and footer option is exactly where it should be.

(Incidentally, I'm not sure whether I like Word's or OO's style of dealing with the header and footer in page view. I think I like Word's better, but probably out of familiarity rather than merit. Though I can't figure out how to change from editing text to editing the header/footer in OO without using the mouse. There's probably a way, but I almost gurantee that someone with MS Office will find out how to do that before someone with OO.)

Re:It figures. Reviewed by a school kid.

[Omega Blue]

The document format was completely incompatable with MS Word. Sure, the text would transfer fine, and simple styles would remain if you were lucky (bold, italics... anything HTML 1.0 compatable) but if you tried to do anything even remotely fancy, everything went to pot.

Hello? Is there anybody in there? The OOo document format of course is not compatible with MS Word. Did you just come from Mars or something? SXW is compressed XML, while DOC is proprietary binary.

So MS Word cannot read SXW, big deal. I let you on in a little secret - OOo can write to DOC format. Yes, you read it right. I have no idea which version you used, but the one I am using exports DOC format just fine. About 95% - 99% of formatting is preserved. Yes, it is not 100%, but it has never been 100% between any two MS Word or MS Office version, either. So I can't see anybody complaining here.

I have entirely no clue what parent's author used, it doesn't have anything to do with reality.

Fixes for your problems....

[bwoodring]

1. Press Ctrl+C *twice* to copy to the clipboard for something a little more permanant. 2. You can turn this off. It's under options (View -> Windows In Taskbar). I prefer the old school MDI. I agree though, either go MDI or ditch it, but that half-assed solution is no good.

MOD PARENT UP

[dolmen.fr]

Please, mod parent up!!!

Basing usability comparison on such uninformed statements can only be bad for the credibility of free software.
I'm fed up of "religious" software reviews from writers who write themselves: "I never bought MS Office after Office XP ,and I rarely ever used that".

David Johnson is not to blame. I'm blaming the editor who publishes this. Editors are not just messengers!

Re:It figures. Reviewed by a school kid.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ouch, you wrote your thesis in Word? I cannot imagine why anyone would do such a thing to themselves. Maybe Word has improved a lot since I last used it, but back then there was no Bibtex support, the reference system didn't work at all, figures and tables had horrible autopositioning, and no automatic numbering and the equation editor sucked big time. Couple that with the fact that it leaves you with a non-documented, extremely fragile file format and it really sucks for thesis work. Much of this goes for OOo as well. Try using a professional document processor instead, like FrameMaker or latex.

OOo in enterprise?

[Vo0k]

Same as with GIMP vs Photoshop. It's a decent substitute. Given choice: Have a raise and use free OOo or have MS Office purchased for your workplace, what would you choose? In my work position an office package is not essential. Write a request to another dept, report something to the boss, open a .doc file sent in by a clueless customer. It's all good for it, and fulfills its task perfectly. Maybe there are tasks where OOo is not sufficient and you need MS Office - I didn't find them yet.
OTOH, the customer support dept uses MS Office exclusively. In most cases they get emails from the customers as common emails. Sometimes some dumbass customer sends the content of the email as attachment with Word .doc file. But once in 1000 emails, attachment of OpenOffice happens (usually from high-paying international customers, so can't be neglected). And then they come to me to have the file opened and printed with OOo, because they can't open it. Open Office's support for .doc files may be poor and buggy, but sorry, MS Office's support for .sxw is nonexistent. So, to whoever claiming you HAVE TO have MS Office instead of OOo if you don't want to lose your customers, you're wrong. You need BOTH.

-My- OpenOffice Experience

[pedestrian crossing]

Just this weekend, I needed to plot some coffee roasting profiles that I had taken data on, so I thought I would use OO Calc to enter/plot them.

What a disaster. I ended up fucking around quite a while trying to get the chart I wanted, and when I started trying to copy/paste charts, the whole thing froze up. Repeatably.

I ended up switching to Gnumeric, which has its own quirks, but at least didn't crash. It also has a nice object tree kind of interface for working on chart options.

Based on my attempt to perform a relatively simple task, I'd have to say that OO Calc has some real stability and usability hurdles to overcome before I would choose it over Gnumeric. Gnumeric got the job done, OO Calc didn't.

The versions are the ones on the Knoppix 4.0 DVD, running from the hard disk...

Foreign languages - you insensitive clod!

[TERdON]

think his point was we should learn the grammar of our language.

I very much agree with you - when I'm writing in my native language, Swedish, the grammar checker is more or less a PITA - it only objects to stuff that I know is correct (I know my grammar). Same thing, more or less, in English.

Where it really shines though, is when I'm writing in German or Spanish. Yeah, I should learn the grammar of those languages properly too, I know, but it takes loads of work to really do it and especially in German, with three different articles for the nouns you have to learn more or less by heart, you're still going to do some mistakes (even native Germans do once in a while)...

Re:It figures. Reviewed by a school kid.

[MrHanky]

I generally wouldn't recommend using them in an environment where it was important to maintain compatibility with Microsoft products.

e.g. in real life. He's a school kid. Yeah, Open Orifice is great for school, where the profs are more open minded than, say a 'client' or a 'boss'.

"Open Orifice". How brilliant of you to come up with a name that describes the product better than its actual name, just by replacing a few letters. No, wait, you didn't.

But more to the point: In real life, you're not going to use Office XP in 2010, and at that point, you'll find loads of incompatibilities between you old Office XP docs and your new MS Office MMX, just like Office 2003 for Windows is incompatible with docs written in Office 2004 for Mac (and vice versa), if the docs contain unicode characters. This makes it impossible to achieve perfect compatibility for other apps as well. MS Office might be far better than OOo, but standardising on it is very short-sighted. That's why governments demand open document formats these days.

Re:HEY!

[swillden]

I find the exact opposite problem. MS Office will hang and die on large doccuments, oo has no problem with.

I concur. Word is terribly crash-prone when documents get big and complex. I have a terrible time with anything over 50 pages or so. My understanding is that the legal industry primarily uses WordPerfect for exactly that reason. I use OOo 1.1.4 Writer for big documents whenever possible. When it's not possible (because I have to exchange documents with Word users), I use Word and save constantly, with a shell script running the background that notices file changes and copies off backups, just in case a crash actually corrupts the working file (rare, but it has happened to me).

Intuitive or RTFM - please stick with one

[gosand]

I am by no means a fan of MS Office. But some of the big selling points with OO are because it does things a little more intuitively than MS Office. Yet, whenever "intuitiveness" is brought up with nearly every other app in Linux, people are told to RTFM, and "learn how it works, n00b".

Hmm, so which is it? If I ever bring up usability when it comes to Linux apss, I get lambasted (probably by people that weren't even born when I got into the computer game). So next time you tell someone to RTFM, ask yourself if there is a way to make that app a little better so they don't have to RTFM.

One thing I HATE about OOo...

[Theovon]

Note that I use OOo almost exclusively. I use Linux mostly, and I don't want to spend the money for MSOffice for my one Windows machine. But I use OOo for the same reason so many others use MSOffice: I am a captive audience. If I want to use a word processor and not spend money on both MSOffice and Crossover Office, OOo is what I have to use.

When I started using Excel back in, what, 1992, I used it to make a LOT of presentations. They were financial with lots of numbers and computations that the customer would like to tweak, so Excel was appropriate. Nevertheless, despite being for a spreasheet, I was required to make the documents look VERY ATTRACTIVE. (Not to say that my lowly artistic skill accomplished the goal, but the boss thought I did okay.) I would do things like color-code cells, add borders, fiddle with fonts, etc. And one FREQUENT thing I would do was ctrl-click to select a disjoint set of cells and then apply formats to all of them at once.

OOo cannot do this.

This very basic feature that I and the people I learned from have been using for a VERY LONG TIME is something that OOo cannot do. When I first started using OOo at version 1.0.0, I immediately noticed this oversight and reported it in their bug database. The bug report disappeared. I've since posted it a couple more times, and this bug report seems to consistently disappear.

Sure, it's possible that that (a) I'm a niche user who is unusual in his need for this feature, and (b) I don't know how to use their bug database to retrieve old bug reports. But the fact of the matter is, they have consistently left out this feature. I don't know if they've added it to 2.0, but I doubt it.

Why does such a relatively small oversight bother me so much? Because I need it, and I cannot imagine that it could be THAT hard to fix. (But I wouldn't know, because the size of the OOo source is a bit overwhelming for me.)