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Word 2007 Vs. Open Office 2.3 Writer
hairyfeet writes "Bruce Byfield of Linux.com has just posted his third Office shootout between Microsoft Office and Open Office. This is the first version comparing the new Microsoft Word 2007 with Writer from the latest version of Open Office. The verdict: while Microsoft Office beats Open Office in a few categories, overall Open Office wins — but by not as large a margin as in the past." Linux.com and Slashdot share a corporate overlord.
I wonder if Open Office defaults to all the annoying rubbish turned on.
I really miss Word Perfect 4.1 :o(
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
So how about price vs. performance
Hmm, I seem to keep getting an overflow error.
Well, back to rejecting software patent applications.
I RTFA, but it doesn't compare Mail Merge. Does Mail Merge have any improvement in OO.o? It used to be completely unusable.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
I, for one, welcome our new shared corporate overlords.
A few months ago somebody other than me ordered a few dells from dell.com....they accidentally ordered office 2007 instead of 2003 (which is the standard in our company). The 2007 is absolutely TERRIBLE! The the new inferface is probably great for somebody who has never used a microsoft office suite before, but for people who have been doing things the same way for the last 10+ years the change was too much. The problem was solved by replacing the 2007 office with OpenOffice. The OO interface was close enough to microsofts that OO was an almost drop in replacement for it.
Whats funny is that microsoft releasing this "NOW WITH SHINIER GRAPHICS!" version of Office is actually causing people in my org. to use OO. There was an incident a few days ago where a user needed an XLS 2003 file, the XLS 2003 format that Office 2k7 spits out wouldn't work correctly with the software they were using, the OO version would.
On the last herd of dells that I ordered, i skipped an Office Suite all together. I know that at least in my organization, now that office 2003 is difficult to come by (I know, you can still order it from newgg.com etc.), we will be using OpenOffice exclusively.
NewslilySocial News. No lolcats allowed.
Interfaces: Verdict: OpenOffice.org, not because it is well-designed, but because Microsoft Word's changes seem pointless and upset users for no good reason.
There are 2 advantages to OO that mean anything.
1. Its free
2. Its open source
Does it surprise anyone that linux users go for it?
Frankly, I find this amazing this got on slashdot, not because it is so anti-MS, but more because its so transparent, meaning it ends up doing it really badly. In the reading of this, all you see is paragraphs about the features of word, then at best maybe a sentence about OO, and then OO is declared the winner. Honestly, I've tried both and this article doesn't bring up any of the really good points MS has going for it, and doesn't bring up the use of Open Office at all- if open office has a feature that word also has, open office gets declared better I don't know why.
If you've got money to burn, buy MS Office. If you are a tightwad, download Open Office. If you are somewhere in between, download Open Office, use it, and if you decide you aren't happy with it, buy MS Office. If you still aren't happy, I can't help you. You'll probably never be happy.
"A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned." - Shepard Book Quoting Malcolm Reynolds
WOW! Who would have seen that comming!
Go on, go into your open office calc and divide by 0.
Except where he forgot to review things like collaboration (shared workspaces, SharePoint and NetMeeting interop), revision control, integration, extensibility model, autoformatting, the insane amount of clip art available for free from the Office website, mail merge, the document map functionality, Office Update, speed, etc. etc.
People don't generally use something like Word because it's a good word processor - there are cheaper solutions for that. Word is good because it's part of a complete integrated solution. Otherwise you can get something cheaper or more specialized.
Of course, it's also somewhat amusing that OO has "won" the author's three comparisons in 02, 05, and 07, given his obvious predilection for Linux, and the fact that the article is published on linux.com. I wonder if it would have been published had he said that Word 2007 was superior?
Condemnant quod non intellegunt.
Now, if it were say, a "Windows User Magazine" and the results were the opposite, you'd guys would be screaming about bias.
Is it surprising that Linux.com does this?Does MS Office 2007 work on Linux?
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
I only see 2.2.1 on Openoffice.org.
In my experience, Microsoft Office is more full featured and a better program than Open Office.
Let me give you just one example: Microsoft Office, since at least Office 2000, has an easy way for you to assign special symbols to keypress combinations. OpenOffice doesn't. This is a known bug. The reason why MS Office can have this feature and OO doesn't is because OO doesn't have the manpower to add features like this. This is because you didn't pay for the software, so their isn't enough money to pay developers to make the software as feature-full as MS Office is.
And, yes, I agree about the Office 2007 interface. What was Microsoft smoking on that day?
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Open Office Draw vs. uh. Visio? Close, but not quite.
Maby
Linux.com favoring OpenOffice? Get out, really? This comparison is more like a 500 word high school paper. There are no real details, no screenshots and few specifics.
If Microsoft wrote a review / comparison this we'd have 200 comments here screaming FUD.
I'm sure Open Office is a great match for Word now, but if the writer wants to make that point, he needs to use some specific metrics.
Although I initially disliked the ribbon, after using it for a couple of months I find the menu bar so 2000's. The ribbon really does expose more commands and make them easier to find. Other features I like about Word 2007 include the live preview and a very smart right click menu. The spell checker and suggestions are pretty dead on, and the new grammer checker is actually useful enough to leave on.
Other features I find valuable in word include macros and really powerful indexes and table of contents. The whole color scheme and master documents (although difficult to learn) really are helpful.
The real problem with word is that it needs to satisfy a large number of users with different expectations. Everyone who uses word says that they only use 10% of the features, yet the 10% selected is always different.
I guess the real benefit to word is complete compatibility with other word documents. For collaborative editing, going around in cycles with different software is a pain.
Given the relatively low cost of office (about $120 for home/student, and about an incremental $200 on the purchase of a new machine for a small business license) makes it pretty difficult to switch. In a corporate environment with software licensing the cost of the full office suite for a new employee is less than it costs for the office chair. Saving money a couple of bucks isn't enough of a reason to switch.
I'm a technical writer, and for doing long documents, I would not use either of these products. Open Office, while prized by some of my colleagues, seems to have too many mission critical failures or half-baked features. Microsoft Office, while good for both the home and small business market, becomes a hindrance when you use it for larger projects with more diverse requirements. I can make either one do what it must, but I would prefer Adobe FrameMaker or its open source clone, Lyx.
technical writing / development
As GP said, the OO Writer was actually more familiar to their users than MS Office 2007. Which shows that introducing something new and different can backfire even on a near-monopolist that supposedly controls the market.
:-)
The fact that Microsoft has spread FUD about re-training costs for Linux in the past makes it only more funny
C - the footgun of programming languages
You were suppose to multiple by the number of users with the price. So for Word, it may be 100 * 200 = 20,000, while OO would 100 * 0 = 0.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I've been interested in this and conducted my own tests. You can definitely type faster in Word2007 whatever the OO people say. All those millions spent in development go somewhere you know.
spoonerize "magic trackpad"
I see no reason in the article to switch from LyX to either of those. I guess while OO is an option, Word isn't, MS doesn't make a Linux version.
And the result was "Err:503". What's your point?
No, it runs on the vast majority of computers in the world at home and in the workplace.
Seriously, this article has pre-determined outcomes and therefore irrelevant. And yes, with VMWare you can run it on Linux.
Quality Hosting e3 Servers
never tried out Office 2007. OO works for what I need it to do though.
The only way in which 2007 is "worse" than either 2003 or OOo in terms of interface is that its not the same as one would expect from prior versions of Office (which have been fairly constant back at least to Office 95)
How about the $400 per seat price tag? Is that still there? Do you want:
Take your time deciding, there's no rush to buy.
It hasn't yet. It's at RC2, so almost there.
http://download.openoffice.org/680/
and changes What's new
File format that will be readable in a decade.
Deleted
Err. 502
A broken Gateway? What is going on here! I'm using a Dell.
Did Acer have a hand in writing OO.org?
Well, For my money, the fact that Open Office allows you to export as PDF--that has really been a boon. Also at the price they charge for Office, I will work around any deficiencies in Open Office.
Wow.. almost as in depth as the original comparison.
I get #DIV/0!
#DIV/0!
This on the version shipped by Ubuntu... What's the problem with that?
---- You know how some doctors have the Messiah complex - they need to save the world? You've got the "Rubik's" complex
Office 2007 is miles ahead of Open Office. Don't have any Karma to burn anyways :)
Apples new word processor looks interesting because it separates content from layout, too bad they don't support ODF. All other modern word processors are badly munging 2 distinct disciplines. When I was last forced to use Microsoft Word, I copied and pasted the text from notepad and then spent 10 minutes convincing Word who was boss. That's 10 minutes to lay out a document; it would have been easier in a DTP package and I could have manually typed a CSS layout in half the time!
In 2007 Word processors (like spreadsheets being used as "databases") are a non solution to a non problem; a proverbial hammer for the computer illiterate.
I have to say, it took me a while to warm up to Office 2007, but now that I'm used to it I quite like it. I have a few caveats.. I don't like the need to right click to bring up text-formatting options within floating objects, nor do I like how the selected menu reverts to "Home" after you do certain things, but in general I find that I can work as fast as I can in Office 2003.
:) So in general, if you have the cash to spare or you have access to 2007 for free through a school or company (and you don't mind a few days getting used to the reorganization of things) it's an improvement over 2003.
:)
:)
With that in mind, there are some very nice features in 2007 that previous versions didn't have. The equation thingy is improved, using masters/templates is a lot more natural and easy, color selections have been changed to some very pretty gradients (rather than the typical 128 standard colors or whatever) so that for style-blind people like myself, making pretty presentations and whatnot is a breeze. Styles feel more natural in Word, so that you can set up the style and then just concentrate on the content (kind of in the direction of Latex, though obviously not the same). I could list more, but I don't want to be accused of being a shill
Now, Open Office. Style support has always been better than Word, and still is better than 2007's support. Equations used to be *much* better than Word, but with the changes in 2007 I'd say they're about on par now. Open Office's PowerPoint equivalent (can't remember the name) doesn't have all the bells and whistles of 2007 (not even close), and it's object-drawing (like for flow-charts) isn't as easy to use, but it certainly gets the job done without any major flaws. The whole application is a LOT slower than 2007 (or 2003) Office... and this is a big drawback to me, as my computers aren't exactly state of the art. On the other hand it's free, I can install it on as many computers as I want, it has better file type support (with the exception of 2007's ???x files), and I don't feel a chill go down my spine every time I use it like I do when I see that Microsoft logo
After using 2007 for a couple weeks, however, (and this is a big thing when it comes to Mr. and Mrs. Sixpack) Open Office just feels clunky. I'm not sure if it's the slower response of the application, or the bland UI, or just in my head, but Open Office just feels like it's a step behind Office. However, when it comes down to it, I'm going to run Open Office at home because I don't intend on paying for Microsoft Office.
So, to conclude this long winded post, if two identical machines are running next to each other - one has Open Office installed, the other has Office 2007 installed - I'm going to use Office 2007. It's faster, slicker, and just plain prettier. Granted it takes some time to get used to, and not all of the changes have been for the better - but in my opinion most of them were. As they say, "you don't sell the steak, you sell the sizzle" - anybody can develop a word processor; it's not difficult. When it comes down to these two options though, Office 2007 has the sizzle. Is the sizzle worth my money? Nope - but that doesn't mean it's not still better than the competition.
Ok, Bill Gates, I've backed a Microsoft product for once in my life... where's my 30 pieces of silver?
Indeed, not least because Word 2007 does not have a Linux version. Since I'm a Linux user, OpenOffice wins because the opponents never turned up.
My little Linux and tech blog
From the article:
Oh, please ... I stopped reading right there.
In the article:
, a split pane view for comparing two versions of the same document, and a multiple clipboard.Does anyone else take issue with the double comma there? It seems nasty given the following and.
Any bets on which grammar suggestive program that was?
The reviewer says, "Word needs master documents, since it cannot reliably handle documents longer than about 40 pages." I have routinely used Word for 800-page documents, and found no difficulties. I have found no difficulty with OO for these same size documents as well, except that the deficiencies with respect to cross references become unworkable when the document is large and one needs to have many cross references.
Excel looks a lot like lotus 123. And since microsoft wants that word-excel-powerpoint tie in they have the same interface. A bunch of people that always hated excel's interface actually like the 2007 one. It reminds them of the old lotus 123 days. Personally I think people who loved lotus 123 are running the office team. They said make it look like this **points to lotus 123 screen**
Mod Parent up!
Good show. Kudos.
Self proclaimed wannabe geek. You know how it is. Most of us who read this stuff probably fit in that category.
From linux.com? I wonder if it is biased?
OpenOffice.org:
Up front cost: 0
Cost of retraining: little
Cost of keeping up to date: little
Cost of underlying OS: starting at 0
Cost of hardware: little
Compatibility with legacy formats: decent
Open standards: yes
Open source: yes
Microsoft logo: no
Microsoft Office 2007:
Up front cost: hundreds of dollars (discounts may apply)
Cost of retraining: moderate
Cost of keeping up to date: much
Cost of underlying OS: starting at a few tens of dollars
Cost of hardware: moderate
Compatibility with legacy formats: decent
Open standards: with free plug-in (IIRC)
Open source: no
Microsoft logo: yes
I think the last two items will be the deal makers/breakers for most. Some people will insist on Microsoft. They will choose MS Office. Others will insist on open source. They will probably choose OpenOffice.org (although excellent other options exist). For the rest, I think OpenOffice.org is the winner...but I am sure people will vehemently disagree.
Full disclosure: I detest both suites.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
OpenOffice 2.3 won't install until I uninstall OpenOffice 2.2. OpenOffice 2.2 won't uninstall until I present the original OpenOffice 2.2 installer, which I deleted right after I installed it, and probably isn't widely available anymore.
And this isn't the first time I've had uninstall problems with Windows Installer either. It's just a bloated, buggy mess. The most annoying part is that the OpenOffice installer seems to use NSIS. From experience in using programs that use both, I find NSIS far superior. I've never had an NSIS uninstaller fail on me, and when an NSIS installer failed it was because of some amateurish mistake of the person who made the install script, not because of NSIS itself, and they were isolated incidents. I don't see why OOo doesn't just use NSIS instead of using a Windows Installer packed inside an NSIS self-extracting archive... that just seems dumb.
From TFA:
What bodily orifice did he pull that statement from? If you're going to say something that absurd, you'd better have hard data to back it up!
(/sits back and waits for the inevitable Personal Anecdote Fight.)
and an "XPS" thingie: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=4D951911-3E7E-4AE6-B059-A2E79ED87041&displaylang=en
I'm just hoping that the version of Office XP I bought in college will install on a new laptop. I no longer have the computer it use to run on, I assume it'll be just a matter of transferring the license from that old broken laptop to a newer one.
WordPad. If you can't write whatever you're writing using this, it wasn't worth writing at all.
My office uses this extensively, any word on how OO.o is doing with this? This one feature is what will keep Microsoft Office around in the corporate world.
Any series of articles that thinks OpenOffice Writer has been better than Word in the past is dead before it starts. Only the most OSS-loving evangelist would make such a claim. Of course, the claim is only made because Writer won (according to the reviewer) in more categories (arbitrarily selected by the reviewer, and having equal weight).
In this case, it's interesting that he pans the ribbons in Office 2007. It's only as anecdotal as his claim, but I personally haven't yet found anyone who's given Office 2007 a fair try and didn't prefer the ribbons after a period of getting used to them. Microsoft's usability people seem to have done their job well on this one. Word certainly isn't perfect as far as usability goes, but it's hardly the disaster this guy makes out.
On the styles count, he pans Word 2007 for not having page and frame styles, but frankly, I have never used those features in OO Writer. I use styles and templates a lot, but if I'm doing something with enough flash to be using styles like that, I'll probably be using a DTP program anyway, and neither Word nor OO Writer is really up to that kind of page layout. Meanwhile, has OO Writer got shortcut keys for styles (and for removing them) that actually work yet?
On page layout, apparently the only thing Writer lacks is the ability to link text frames. I imagine that will be of great concern to the DTP big boys! Or not, unless a whole bunch of other stuff has been added since 2.2, and a whole load of bugs fixed. (I can't tell, since only 2.2.1 appears to be available for download so far.)
The comments about templates are only about those supplied with the packages, which unless you're Joe 12-year-old doing a high school project are utterly irrelevant. Professional organisations will generally set up their own, if they use them at all, which means the tools for setting up and modifying templates are far more important than the page layout equivalent of clip-art.
On numbered/bulleted lists, Writer apparently has little room for improvement over 2.2. I imagine anyone who's suffered the pain of trying to get multi-level lists to lay out properly and struggled through the ludicrously overcomplicated numbering architecture will disagree. Lists suck in Word, but they suck even more in Writer. Neither has a feature worthy of a serious word processor.
On headers and footers, the review criticises Word for its limited flexibility. When Writer can even put the most recent heading in the header automatically, get back to us.
On the footnotes and endnotes thing, calling Word's facilities basic in comparison to Writer is rather harsh. There are one or two nice tweaks in Writer that Word doesn't have (at least, I haven't found them yet if they were added in 2007, and it didn't before). Most people will never use these features.
On the subjects of cross-references, both Word and Writer suck beyond the point of being usable. They just suck in different ways. Someone should introduce them to LaTeX, which uses the stunningly complicated system of naming a place you might want to refer to later, and then referring to it by name elsewhere. When the word processors here have bookmarking facilities that do this, reliably, and without a tendency to corruption, they can claim to even have a useful cross-reference facility, but until then, it's just not true.
On indices and tables of contents, the reviewer apparently confuses his own stylistic preferences with faulty design — unfortunate, considering that almost any professional typesetter is likely to disagree with him on that one. In any case, again neither program really shines in this area, though. Simple things (in terms of the kind of documents where you'd care about these things) like having both a table of chapters and a detailed table of contents are bizarrely awkward if they work at all. Again, without better support for pulling these things in and actually getting them to work (there's no point being able to generate both tables if you can't get
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Not that I doubt you (I don't), but couldn't Microsoft just point to OO.o's export to PDF function and argue that they needed this feature to stay competitive with OO.o? (Or would that generate too much laughter, considering the relative market share of the two office products?)
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
I don't tend to use word processors, so this is an honest question. What's the difference between styles and templates? They both sound like the same thing to me.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
http://oestrem.com/thingstwice/?p=65 provides an informative comparison of the aesthetics of LaTeX, Word, and OO Writer. When beauty is the goal, LaTeX wins.
I think people should start paying attention to KOffice. I know this isn't available for Windows yet, but it should be sometime after KDE 4.0 and KOffice 2.0 are released. Although I spend relatively little time working with any office applications (LaTeX/LyX is much easier when working with large documents IMO), I would say that KOffice is on par with OpenOffice for general purposes...if not better (at least in terms of the GUI). I won't be surprised if it gets much more attention if/when it is finally available for Windows.
Please, please, someone somewhere stop assaulting me with bulleted lists.
When I type "1) rutabagas" and then "2) milk," please, PLEASE, PLEASE don't assume that I want to start a specially formatted chunk of list. Can't I please just use it as a typewriter by default?
Also, just because I've started two lines with a dash, because I'm listing sub-elements, doesn't mean I want you (the program) to start giving them funky alignment. I just started OO.org (I'm using the 2.2 version that comes with Linux Mint 3.0) to make sure I'm not speaking out of turn, and Yep -- if I start a line with "- Natalie," hit return, and start a new line with another dash, it lengthens *both* dashes before I even get a chance to type "Sharona." When I hit return *after* typing Sharona, I get not a blank line, but another stupid dash. WHY WHY WHY WHY? It's moronic as a default. It makes me long for clippy, and I do *not* generally long for clippy. Clippy might at least have said "Hi! It looks like you're making a bulleted list! Would you like me to rearrange your furniture?"
Autobulleting is the worst excuse for a bug that I've ever seen intentionally included as a feature, in OO.org, Office (which is I think even worse than OO.org for this), and I bet in a lot of others. (Congratulations to AbiWord -- I just checked, and it doesn't seem to have that stupid behavior.)
If people want automatic bullets, they should do check a box somewhere that turns them on -- and in case someone else needs to use their machine, I hope there's an easy, visible button that says "END THE MADNESS" or similar.
Ahem.
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
I would love to tag content (to later search, sort tagged paragraphs, sentences or words) though neither word process allows me to. OneNote has such a feature, yet it's a bit limiting, in that one can only tag paragraphs - and tags' visibility cannot be switched on and off.
...
I also make extensive use of comments, and while Word has a nice way to toggle their visibility on and off, by displaying them in bullets (which can refer to words or sentences), OpenOffice's commenting system is rather disappointing. Notes (comments) can't be viewed nor edited all at once, they can't be hidden - the way they are displayed is also not very elegant.
Versioning is clumsy in both as well. I usually run a spartan diff on the text content (as I am not interested in formatting) - having to save each version of my files, which becomes tedious after a while
The original Lotus 123 was a DOS character mode application and thus couldn't really draw spreadsheet cells. Eventually 123 was upgraded to Windows and thus started to look more like Excel.
Just a thought, but did really ENOUGH people tag it as "msoffise" for it to display?
How about compatibility.. oo can open word documents too.. can word open oo docs??
Now if there was a plug-in that would read docx on the mac version of office i'd be set. instead I have to remind clients to please resave documents in Office 2003/XP/2000 format.
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
The spreadsheet in Open Office and Excel XP only supports up to 65,000 rows.
Office 2007 supports up to a million.
Although the new interface takes some getting used to, when you are working with massive amounts of data it's the only choice. It's a real pain having to break up databases and put them back together.
If Open Office supported more than 65,000 rows I would prefer to use that, but for me Office 2007 is a better choice. The review did not mention this limitation.
Last I looked, support in both Word an OO.o for properly laying out illustrations ranged from "intolerably awful" to "criminal neglect". Until this gets better I'm going to cringe in horror at the thought of trying to lay out any document larger than a single page with either program.
The article mentions the ability to put circles and lines on the page but it's so difficult to group them into a single illustration as to make them utterly worthless. I usually end up doing my illustrations in some other program and re-doing the layout every time I change anything.
I'm not talking about trying to mimic Wired Magazine's LSD-driven page layout style. All I want to do is put an image on a page and have it move in a cogent fashion when the text changes, making it look like every single book ever written anywhere.
Interleaf used to do that intelligently, pushing two decades ago now.
Crow over this guys story if you want to, but don't be a hypocrite. Consistency would demand that you call his story FUD against Office 2007.
Most of MS's efforts against Linux adoption have been aimed at the server market, where the difference between Linux and Windows are major - arguably more so than the difference between MS Office 2007 and OO.o (any version). The fact that people are switching to OO.o because Office 2007 is too unusual for them is a strong indication that switching to Linux would have MASSIVE retraining costs.
(Office 2007 isn't that different; have you ever used it? The ribbon is basically a merge of the toolbars and the menus, and the hotkeys haven't changed - I personally found it easier to find many the features I was used to in 2007's interface than in OO.o's, even when I had already found them once before in OO.o and had only installed 2007 a few days ago. YMMV of course but I've never liked OO.o's interface and KOffice isn't really any better.)
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
Open Office is pure shit. Stop acting like it even competes with Microsoft Office. OO is slow. It's ugly. It's feature poor. It doesn't address the needs of enterprises. It doesn't directly address the needs of horizontals like legal.
The only two things OO has going for it are that it's free and you get the code. But neither of those two 'features' have shit to do with word processing.
what a bunch of silly little zealots...
If I had mod points I would use every single one on modding you Insightful. I'm not kidding.
OpenOffice runs on linux, and I don't have to put up with msft's filthy scamming.
BTW: I work for a very large company, and everybody in my dept uses staroffice.
At home, I use abiword and gnumeric.
I got Err:503
I used the equation: =100/0
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
i went to germancars.com and they claim that the bmw beats the ford hands down! how did that happen?
Word has killed itself with the "ribbon" and the .docx. Having had to use Word (Not my choice because I run Linux at home and use OOo) I can say that OOo wins by far. The "ribbon" is confusing and non-productive, not to mention how the .docx confuses people, I don't know how many complaints I have gotten that "This document won't open in my Word!!!!"
Also, it doesn't help that the default is double spaced, sure its nice for Billy to get his school report done, but face it, most people don't need or want another click to change it to "no spacing" And for most casual computer users spending $100+ for a simple piece of software that they have in the form of Word 2003, OOo or Word '97, most people won't be upgrading. It also doesn't help that there is no way that you can change it back to the older interface, nor are their themes such as in Firefox or Gnome or KDE. If someone wants to try Linux they can make it behave almost exactly like Windows and look the same, if someone wants Word 2007 to look like Word 2003.... Well they can't. And most who simply use their computers don't have the time or desire to learn yet another program, for most knowing how to check e-mail and type up a letter are enough. Sure you can learn it in 20 minutes, but for most thats 20 minutes not getting work done. This is how Microsoft is killing itself, first Vista now Word, if you have to learn a new OS and word processor why not go for the free one?
There is no "disagree" moderation, and troll, flamebait and overrated are not valid substitutes
Let's be serious, would you show up to a Linux user party?
You may have already encountered this, but I thought this might be handy for you: http://odf-converter.sourceforge.net/. It's an open-source project sponsored by Microsoft that has two major parts: a plugin for Office 2007 that allows reading and writing of ODF files (and conversion between those formats and 2007's OOXML format) and a command-line converter suitable for batch jobs. The latter should run in Mono (the tool is written in C#), although I'd have to reboot to test it. Novell is also involved; they are producing a OO.o plugin to provide compatibility with OOXML files, but thus far I haven't seen it available for download.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
Here's what I love about the two word processors. When you import a Word doc into OOo, it looks pretty good, except it seems to replace all the styles with "n0003957" and "z8937zaa" tags. Then, when you make your edits and send it back to the original guy, and he opens it up in Word, all his styles are screwed up, and it's your fault.
That's why in my corporate environment, we only use Word. Because the two just don't do round-trip very well.
--Rob
Towards the Singularity.
I used to be an OO fan but it is still a bit slow and clunky. I still think that Office 2003 wins out. With continued improvement, OO will get there but right now, it is not quite as usable as Office. I sincerely hope that OO will improve because I like the idea of using open source software whenever feasible. Given its developer base, OO should just keep getting better.
Take find/replace for example.
When they will admit that user need a better find/replace and start to build it?
They just care about their ego. That is a dead end.
Wow, I'm shocked... literally shocked!! A FOSSie zealot and MS-hater reviews OO.ugh and MS Office 2007... and discovers he loves OO.ugh more!!
SHOCKED!!!
And even more shocking... it's reported on Slashdot!!! SHOCKED!!!
Err.. wait, actually, it was terribly biased. Kinda funny how a bunch of Word's features got lumped into one "unique features" category (which presumably is weighted the same as any other category in determining the "verdict").
Grammar checker, translation, multiple clipboard.. all things that put Word well above OO (at least, Word 2003.. I haven't "upgraded" - upgraded in quotes because I'm skeptical if it's actually an upgrade - to 2007).
Me write sentence english good, -- OO thinks there's NOTHING WRONG with this sentence.
Not to say that Word's perfect (it isn't), nor to say that it's the best value for your dollar (hard to say no to something that's free if it does most of what you need..), but overall, IMHO, it is the better word processor.. at least, for my needs it is.
I am the maverick of Slashdot
This is mostly likely because your time is not worth any money :P
Shirley you aren't serious.
0! equals 1, so the error message does not mean what the coder thought it means.
It's lightweight, it opens word document, and it doesn't have a load of autobullshit. Works for me.
My new blog
I am serious! ... ... And don't call me Shirley!
Well, as a (relatively speaking) "computer expert" at a Linux user party I'd spend a lot less time making excuses as to why I couldn't come over to people's house to "look at my machine".
If everyone who routinely performed free support for Windows users stopped doing so the user base would fall off rapidly, since most of them don't want to pay anything for it.
Semi serious, and very biased, but here you go:
... There's one out there for you. I like bash + gvim + makefiles. Winner: LaTeX!
... Simple, transparent and robust. Winner: LaTeX!
... blah.bst. Winner: LaTeX (by a country mile)!
... Export to PS and PDF works amazingly well, with full cross reference hyperlinking in PDF.s. Other than that, look at the package list on CTAN. Winner: LaTeX!
The Interfaces: N/A or, choose between vi, emacs, kyle, lyx, pico, notepad,
Styles:\section, \begin{quote},
Page Layout: Er... Well, you can ultimately place a box anywhere you wish with a picture environment. It can be painful, but can force it. Winner: None!
Templates:\documentclass
Outlining:No idea what that is. LaTeX doesn't do it anyhow. Winner: word (according to TFA).
Bulleted and numbered lists:\begin{enumerate} or itemize Just Works. Impossible to screw up. Winner: LaTeX!
Tables:Ye gods. Well, there's super table (nice) and longtable for those long ones, but that doesn't work with supertable... But basic tables Just Work. No formulae, buy you can always \input a mechanically generated table file, and (if you use makefiles) have it automatically update whatever you use to generate it. Winner: Really, it's down to personal choice on this one.
Headers and Footers: They're part of your template. But you can arbitrarily customize your own. Winner: LaTeX!
Footnotes and endnotes:I try to avoid these as a matter of preference. Winner: I don't know since I avoid them.
Cross-references:Winner: LaTeX, by a very, very long way.
Indexes, tables of content, and bibliographies: See templates and cross references. There's a BST file for any job out there. Winner: LaTeX!
Master documents: \input FTW! That said, I challenge you to find a real document which is too large for vim on my computer even without \input. Winner: LaTeX!
Drawing tools: Er..., well, xfig can output latex code... er... Winner: Not LaTeX.
Unique features:Split pane view? Well, there's diff, or xdiff or gvimdiff or your editor has. Version tracking? Well, it works with CVS, SVN, git,
Conclusion:
1. Use LaTeX.
2. It's nice to seperate editing, presentation and content.
3. Then you can go the way of the UNIX and use the most suitable tool for every step.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Look. I love OpenSource. And OO is a fair substitute. But come - on - MS Office is the standard that everyone is trying to **match** much less **beat**. Sure - you LaTeX guru's love your power... But for the rest of us mortals who a fast-action GUI MS-Office is the only choice - if you're fortunate enough to work in a place that provides it, or you've got the funds to purchase it. (** Hint- watch for student and developer editions for significant cost savings **)
On the flip side - my household will not be purchasing another copy of Office anytime soon. If cost is part of the equation, then OO is the only choice for a fully integrated office suite.
-CF
Ode to a Spell Checker
I have a spelling checker
I disk covered four my PC.
It plane lee marks four my revue
Miss steaks aye can knot see.
Eye ran this poem threw it.
Your sure real glad two no.
Its very polished in its weigh,
My checker tolled me sew.
A checker is a blessing.
It freeze yew lodes of thyme.
It helps me right awl stiles two reed,
And aides me when aye rime.
Each frays comes posed up on my screen
Eye trussed too bee a joule.
The checker pours o'er every word
To cheque sum spelling rule.
Bee fore wee rote with checkers
Hour spelling was inn deck line,
Butt now when wee dew have a laps,
Wee are not maid too wine.
And now bee cause my spelling
Is checked with such grate flare,
There are know faults in awl this peace,
Of nun eye am a wear.
To rite with care is quite a feet.
Of witch won should be proud,
And wee mussed dew the best wee can,
Sew flaws are knot aloud.
That's why eye brake in two averse
Caws Eye dew want too please.
Sow glad eye yam that aye did bye
This soft wear four pea seas.
Author Unknown
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
"On the Mac, it managed to crash _and_ lose my document. Yes, it corrupted the file on disk and couldn't restore it."
Here is the fix: Open the Microsoft Word file, that Microsoft Word is not able to read, in Open Office. Save it as a Microsoft Word file. That will fix the file, and you will then be able to get Microsoft Word to read its own file.
For that reason I think Microsoft should include a copy of Open Office with every copy of Microsoft Word. If you have Word, OO is a necessary tool.
I'm not joking. I've had Microsoft Word destroy its own file and I've used OO to repair the file, and so have many other people.
"Who would've guessed that a bunch of hobbyist programmers could give a billion dollar corporation a shiver. That's quite an accomplishment."
It was not "hobbyist programmers". Sun paid $88,000,000 for the software that became Open Office.
I use OO.o every day, and one positive thing I can see having come from it is that people no longer complain about MS Office being unnecessarily bloated and slow.
I could go on, but I'm not going to. Must get back to waiting for my document to save...
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
I was very surprised to see a linux site say Open Office was better . I also can't wait to read the new AMD review on Intel's website.
The big question here though is of all the people using MS Office 95/97/2k/2k3/2k7 did you pay for it? If you paid for it, is the license you are using now the one you are allowed to use, ie. you purchased office while at college and now you are in the real world?? I knew a guy that signed up for junior college classes and never went so he could buy software for his business at the university book store!!!! When I told him that was not in line with the EULA he laughed and said they would have to catch him... (He does the same thing with the Adobe Suites)
This is what keeps programs that work like OOo out of the mainstream. That and the fact that even though it works and you can edit documents from other people and they can edit yours, people have this 'feeling' they are missing something because EVERYONE else is using MS Office
However if these people HAD TO PAY THE AMOUNT MICROSOFT wants them to pay, they would never do it.
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing. Emo Philips
I began typesetting math stuff in LaTeX, and then started using it for more and more. I know people are going to say that it's too complex and awkward for quick little documents, but then again, take a look at the review. The review of Word 2007 and OO.org 2.3 is mostly about more advanced layout tools like styles, headers/footers, lists, and templates. Each of these is something that LaTeX absolutely excels at.
If you're going to say that LaTeX is not for the average user, I would agree, but also point out that this review is not for the average user. I don't know how often you've dealt with other people's Word documents, but the styling is absolutely horrific. They don't use styles, headers/footers, templates, or even lists sometimes. They just type out stuff on the keyboard and hit space until it's formatted the way they want. If you're going to be nerdy enough to compare these points between Word and Writer, then you might as well check out LaTeX. If you want to write quickie little documents, WordPad is free.
I am a little biased towards the OSS and Linux, but this time,
its competition with one of the best software MS has got.
- OO mainly has disadv of being a little heavy (because of all the features (which is good));
- MSO is a bit lightweight and thus more handy
- MSO is more stable as compared to OO
One could work very well even without MSO (its just a matter of personal preference)
I have never actually even used Office-2007, but I've used every other version of office, for the last 15 years or so.
From everything I've seen, ms-office always beats OOo, in terms of features, and speed.
Does office-2007 really suck *that* bad?
Bias aside and so forth - i dont care which one im using so long as im not paying for it. The truth be told, i only use office suite's for work, i do alot of technical writing so im pretty decent with both (and the documents i produce can be anything from a 10-page plan for doing something to a 600-page disaster recovery design). So as long as i can save it, email it and print it while having the ability to format the document in a real way, life is pretty good and they both do that sufficiently.
I really cant say though that either is better or worse, they both have flaws and saving graces. The only choice i make when i come into work is what do i want to be doing that day and that usually decides whether to boot linux or windows. Now if i've come to a point where i need visio, thats about the only time i find myself having to boot back to windows cause there isn't many real alternatives to it.
For me its like they both have 99% of the functions i need in a word processing suite and 9000 functions i'll never touch or need. Simple really.
In my experience, Open Office is more full featured and a better program than Microsoft Office.
Let me give you just one example: Open Office, since at least version 1.0, has had autocompletion for previously typed words. Microsoft Office doesn't. The reason why Open Office can have this feature and Microsoft Office doesn't is because Microsoft doesn't have the manpower to add features like this. This is because Microsoft Office is developed in a closed-source manner, so interested coders don't get a chance to make the software better.
And, yes, I agree about the integration with Java. What was Sun smoking that day?
vi ~/.emacs # I'm probably going to Hell for this.
Oh no, the Open Office team is falling behind! They need to hurry up and plagiarize the rest of the MS Office Suite features. I mean seriously, when even the menus are almost identical it's obvious that they are just riding MS coattails. They need to make something better, not "almost as good as". Maybe Linux in general will figure this out. Mac has.
Completely serious
Some fairly basic functionality only available via a text interface: ed is a complete bitch to use, so my ability to use it for really basic layout strokes my ego. Winner: my predetermined favourite!
Some functionality that I never use and don't understand: Who cares? Winner: Whatever he said.
Something my predetermined favourite sucks at: Ummm, well yknow, stuff and such. Winner: It really depends on your personal tastes.
Conclusion:
1. Use my personal favourite obscure UNIX utility. That means you, 53 year old mother of seven who learned to use a computer two years ago.
2. Noone needs to see what they are doing as they do it. Quit whining.
3. Then you can use a technical propeller head environment for your low skilled admin job!
4. Oh and I nearly forgot. STFU,RTFM&quit being a PITA!!!
----
Funnily enough, my biasometer gave an identical reading for your post, my post and TFA!
I don't therefore I'm not.
Export to PDF? WTF? That comes as a standard option in every single application on the OS!
What's that now? It doesn't?
Wow. It must suck to have to use an OS like that....
I'm glad that someone posted this unbiased comparison article from linux.com
I can go to work with a smile on my face now.
Word is much much simpler to use than Writer. Once you get used to Word-2007 in about 10-15 minutes (refer to online help), there is no comparison between Writer and Word-07 in terms of ease of use and productivity.
You get a numbered outline in just two or three clicks with Word-2007. Great for students writing term papers or for writing small documents at work. Table of contents is just a few more clicks. We can literally count the clicks we have to make good-looking small documents with the ribbon style. Fonts are very pleasing to the eye. But I don't trust Word with large or complex documents. I never ever combine built-in styles with overrides in Word or Word-2007. Word can't handle anything that is manual override - especially bulleted/numbered lists or indented paragraphs.
As for Writer, it simply sucks as always. What can I say? There is no better way to describe it. I use it only because it is supported on all platforms and that is pretty much its only advantage over Word-2007. It is very inferior to Word-2007 in every other respect.
because it always comes down to either what your job makes you use, or personal preference. The involvement of personal preference guarantees that rancor will surface in short order. As far as business/job use, saying that product x is "required for serious document creation" usually means that the company has painted themselves into a corner with previous decisions/purchases and so now lack the flexibility to use the alternative, but they have to paint the poop pretty colors so they pretend that their document needs puts them in an elite class that can only be served by an expensive office suite.
OO.o Writer has the "Default Formatting" option at the top of the right-click menu. Click that and whatever style a block of text is in, it goes immediately to the default I've defined for that style. In Word, trying to do the same thing simply doesn't work. Word will ask me if I want to update the style to match the text block, or in 2007, make it impossible to apply default formatting to text. I'm probably missing something, but it seems like there is just no way to make a block of text conform to its base style with a click or two in Word 2007. Selecting text and clicking or double-clicking on the style -- which would seem the most natural way to do it -- does nothing. The fact that Writer has this feature and Word doesn't means that Writer wins, hands down, for me.
Writer also handles Asian fonts better -- with separate font settings for each style, one for Asian languages and one for Western. So if I want, say, Palatino Linotype for the English and AR PL Kaiti M for the Chinese, it's easy. Doing the same thing in Word has (so far) been impossible. It's either a nice font for Chinese or a nice font for English, but not both in the same style.
Now if I could just get Writer to display the fonts list in Styles more quickly...
Interesting. I have been using WP 8 to develop a very large MS (2100 pages of text) for some time now. I've been continuing my reliance on this older wordprocessor for several reasons 1) it does work very well 2) I want to retain my increasingly large text in one file as it is arranged alphabetically and this makes it easy for me to search only one document to find what I am looking for (quickly sections I need to add to or revise, without having to open and maintain multiple files), and 3) it has an extensive character set that permits me to encode other languages (except pictographic languages, such as Chinese and Japanese), which I need to quote verbatim.
I've tried Word and some time ago OpenOffice to see if I could transfer these character sets over from WordPerfect. However, I found the former hard to use and to paraphrase the article it doesn't do well with manuscripts over 40 pages. The seeming inability to adequately handle "master document" indices that would its use in handling large files out of the question. The comments with regard the ability of Open Office to handle manuscripts with hundreds of pages seems hopeful, but I'm dealing with 2,100+ pages not hundreds.
Two nice things about OpenOffice I liked was that it runs under Linux, which I use for many things not Word Perfect, and that files that include graphics seem to be saved in a much more compact, space efficient way (although I find the interface a bit more awkward to use, perhaps because of long familiarity with WP 8.0.
As I add graphics the MS is getting quite large (presently about 233 MB) and it is taking an increasingly longer time to do periodic backups, I have given thought to upgrading my computer (a Dell xps M140), but I fear what I will discover about the new WordPerfect in a Vista environment.
Has anyone had experience with WP when making the jump to Vista? With all the graphics I'd like to incorporate, I expect the document to be 2 - 5 GB in size ultimmately.
Does anyone have comments from extensive experience dealing with very large documents using Open Office or the newer versions of Word Perfect running under Vista? I'd like to be open minded but the integrity of my work is paramount.
Has anyone had any success in translating the various extended character sets in Wordperfect to Open Office? When I last checked this was not possible, except via a (then, now?) expensive proprietary interface.
Are there other better wordprocessors that I should consider for incorporting lots of graphics into an already very big text file?
As for macros, I often process text using JEdit, which has extensive macro capabilities, in particular the ability to work on arbitrary windows (rows and columns) at one time, which is great when one has multiple lines of data that need to be placed into a new format interactively.
Suggestions from knowledgeable users would be appreciated. Real data dealing with file sizes and backup times, time to open and search/find would be especially informative.
Anyone heard of others dealing with even larger files?
Riddle: Say you run a company. you put out a product, and it gets say..70% market share. Then say a competitor puts out a product, better/worse..doesn't matter...it gets say...15% market share.
Now, your successful with V1, but you have to make V2. Who's your primary competitor that you care and worry about?
I would think: yourself.
- Can I have the envelope, Madonna? ...
- Here you are, Brad.
- Well, , the winner in the category Obnoxious Redrawing is
OPEN OFFICE!
I think that the article is prejudiced against the Microsoft Office. I really like to see a article out there, on a strong favorite Linux site, to comment that this commercial product from Microsoft is far better than our open source piece of crap.
This is my personal opinion.
As college student i had to use many times a office suite to write my papers. And by paper, i don't mean a 2 page document that has some simple bullshits. I mean 30+ pages papers with graphs, diagrams and most of all mathematical equations.
Its not secret that OO tries to mimics a lot the Microsoft Office. This is not bad at all. By my opinion the Microsoft Office is by far the best. BUT at least they should try to do this better.
I have all the times many problems when i use the OO. I use it mostly on Linux, but i do use it on Windows, too, to manipulate the documents i wrote on Linux. I m not gonna tell all the annoying things that the OO CANT do right and the Microsoft Office do with a few simple clicks.
So, PLEASE WRITE a fair (and even a hard) critic for the OO to make them to do it better. As long as you forgive its disadvantages, and write how great it is (even it is not), you are not making good to that project.
ps. btw: THE OO IT ISNT EVEN STABLE. WITH ANY VERSION I USE, ON ANY PLATFORM/DISTRIBUTION I USE IT, IT CRASH AT LEAST 1 TIME EVERY TIME I USE IT. this piece of crap cant even do a right copy/paste of a table form the Calc to the Writer and i am talking about ridiculous format and missing ROWS.
...Linux.com declared, to the dismay of everyone, Linux to be a superior OS to Windows....and every OSS MS equivalent project for that matter. The atmosphere in the Microsoft campus is one of shock & disbelief.
throw new NoSignatureException();
this is the biggest pile of BS i have ever seen.I'm pretty sure he got paid for this review because....well i've used both and i just can't imagine how he came to such an outrageous and insane conclusion.
i hope you get fired from your day job soon.
Ok, I admit not having read TFA entirely. I stopped there: "table: both can be improved". How is that for a comment ? Word is miles ahead when it comes to table, really. As much as I like OO, there is no question whatsoever here. I wonder what kind of testing would lead to such a useless conclusion. As for the "drawing tools", writer likely never write a real life document with vectorial images to give a "Tie" verdict.
Why not just use Latex?.... Seriously!
This was the first link on the first Google page, a Wikipedia link about Star Office:
"The company, copyright and trademark of StarOffice were acquired by Sun Microsystems in 1999 for US $73.5 million. Sun was seeking to compete with Microsoft Office, and also wanted to save money on licenses for Microsoft Office and Windows:
"The number one reason why Sun bought StarDivision in 1999 was because, at the time, Sun had something approaching forty-two thousand employees. Pretty much every one of them had to have both a Unix workstation and a Windows laptop. And it was cheaper to go buy a company that could make a Solaris and Linux desktop productivity suite than it was to buy forty-two thousand licenses from Microsoft. (Simon Phipps, Sun, LUGradio podcast)"
However, the figure of $88 million was reported at the time, and, for some reason, which I don't remember, the $88 million seemed authoritative. Of course, the exact figure doesn't matter.
CNet News reported $73.5 million at the time: Sun shelled out $73.5 million for Star Division.
I'm surprised that there isn't a WP keyboard mode for Open Office that someone in some place like a law office (still using 5.1 for DOS well into the 2000s!) demanded and hired someone to hack up for them. Maybe there is and I haven't found it -- took me weeks to discover how to turn on eye-saving white letters on a navy background in Open Office. (Hint to maintainters - it's one click in Office 2000! That option is there for a reason, people use it.) The larger question is retraining users. I have seen users moving from Office 95 to 97 to 2000 (haven't used anything since then) and the small changes were not only annoying, but difficult for users who have learned the software. The #1 thing I remember hearing was "why did they change it?" when some new feature screwed everything up and I had to go in and disable it so the new feature would not mess them up. Microsoft couldn't get bullets and numbering to be comprehensible and work right in three versions! So I was stunned when I saw MS threw out a DECADE OF USER INTERFACE CONSISTENCY for the ribbon stuff. I can't believe they don't know that users are trained to use a program, and changes don't work because the training has to start over. There is a REASON why WP 5.1 was an industry standard spanning three decades, and is probably still in use today. People learned it, were productive in it, and didn't want to change. This is OO's biggest benefit and the reason it could be successful. KEEP THE INTERFACE CONSISTENT! If OO doesn't change, and is consistent for a decade or more, and people learn it, and it's open source so some marketing department can't change it for no good reason, it can become the new industry standard because businesses don't want to retrain people every time a new version comes out and people don't want to be retrained. This is where open source can learn from other people's mistakes and not make them.
Excellent information. I'll have to pass it on to my friends and family that still use MS Word. Does the plugin work for 2003 as well?
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
However, for the casual user LaTeX has a bit of a learning curve. I've never used Scribus before, so I can't comment on it.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
The confusion is in the fact that you are talking about one situation, and he is talking about another.
Business: Mary Jane in accounting wants to write a letter. It's boring. There is nothing special in the letter, just routine business. She does not want to spend time learning anything, because she is busy. No amount of innovation could make her want to change software.
Actual example: One woman was switched from Microsoft Office to Open Office, and did not notice that anything had changed. She doesn't use any of the fancy features. Her letters are all one page.
Slashdot Readers: Computer programs are partly a hobby. They are interested in trying new things. They have a high tolerance for changes in the way things work. The advance of computer technology is fascinating, and they are very sensibly fascinated.
Actual examples: I have friends who can easily find flaws in even the latest technology. When I examine what they say, I discover they are right. Generally, though, I am busy doing things and don't have much interest in the way things could be, unless it is my own product.
Biggest Issue for both groups: With Microsoft Office, you are a dog on a leash. You must accept whatever Microsoft decides, and sometimes Microsoft is extremely adversarial toward customers.
Actual example: Microsoft recently killed an entire computer language: FoxPro. It is dead. Software's Doctor Death, Bill Gates, said so. No serious explanation, and no conversion path. Just, that's it, the end. A few years ago, FoxPro had 1,500,000 users, I was told by someone at Microsoft. There are billions of lines of FoxPro legacy code. Now FoxPro is dead, and in a few years there won't be any support for it.
I've noticed many of the same things about OO and refuse to it because I consider it incompetent, but I know some competent writers who use it. A good writer can adapt to any tool, I guess.
.NET, that might change.
I agree that Microsoft Office on Linux would radically improve Linux's chances in the real world. For most daily tasks, Microsoft Office is the right tool, and we're talking on the order of 95% of what people do in business and home use.
I'm not certain I think Windows is as bad as you seem to think it is. For a desktop operating system, it seems to do what most people need quite well, and even us freaks can adapt to it sometimes. I prefer Linux or FreeBSD in a hosting environment, but if I were creating enterprise web applications and needed to do it quickly as in
Thanks to other posters on this thread, I'll be checking out Scribus and TextEdit and whatever Inscape is.
technical writing / development
To be fair, there is also gnumeric and abiword (both of which do more than *most* people need, and abiword really is the fastest wysiwyg word processor around), and the entire KOffice suite - kword, kspread, kexi, krita and co.
Another advantage (hopefully): there was a Google Summer of Code project to bring math support to it (though you can latex up a PS & transform it to an SVG for import if you're patient).
However, for embedded graphics that don't have to be unembedded & used elsewhere, direct manipulation is good. LaTeX does this to some extent, but a GUI is nice.
I love, use, and advocate LaTeX. I do use beamer too. But the use and (more so) maniulation of graphics in it is a bit of a hack. Hopefully LaTeX3 will improve this.
I've had problems with MS Word documents as small as several pages.
Word has known bugs in the outline and numbering, and a silent limit in number of styles for that. (I wonder if 2007 fizes that?)
When you copy and paste, you are often unwittlingly creating a new outline or list that has the exact same style, but is stored in a different anonymous style setting.
When you open up the dialog for lists and outlines, it will only show you 8, you may have 100's in your document without knowing it.
If you exceed the limit, your document gets very flaky.
Word 2003? gives a workaround of sorts,when you paste there is a little dropdown list that pops up allowing to save in the destination or source format. Using the destination format seems to cut down on the style duplication.
Another oddity I've had with MS Word, is embedding and then deleting images has left me with a huge document, as if the images were still there, but inaccessible. I'm talking about several megabyte files of a dozen pages long that had only a couple of 100k pictures embedded after playing with the images to delete the bad ones and place few better ones in a good location and arraqngement.
Agreed, +1, mod parent up, etc..
Abiword rocks!
My little Linux and tech blog
From where I sit, the primary consideration is not the word processor, it's the spreadsheet application. I am running an active pilot to see if OO's Calc can replace Excel. I'm finding that it indeed can. Management here is very fond of spreadsheets with (sometimes) intricate formulas, often involving VLOOKUPs across worksheets. The only errors I see are user errors that would have occurred anyway (i.e. copying/pasting entire sheets with VLOOKUPs that point to a sheet that does not exist in the destination workbook). For me, this means I can do without MS Office in many situations. This helps my budget by not having to add MS Office to PC purchases and helps me by not having an Office license to contend with if a hard drive dies or needs to be wiped/reloaded. as long as production and manufacturing forecasting data can be properly disseminated, management is happy and if management is happy, I can convert this pilot into policy.
We'll leave the argument as to whether a missing feature can be called a "bug" to another day
I primarily use KDE and if I want to use accented or other non-English characters such as " " (the upside down question mark and exclamation point - if you can't see them) in ANY application then it's a matter of the keyboard layout handler and not the the specific application. I use a British layout keyboard so certain characters are not available to me by default but KDE[1] allows me to access them across the apps running on it with a single control centre option. In my case this means I enabled (e.g. ticked a box) the right Alt/Alt-Gr key as my "Compose" key and that's it. All I need do to type say an á is press Alt-Gr once and then press ' followed by A. For â it's Alt-Gr then ^ then A. For (again upside down question mark) I press Alt-Gr once and then ?? . It's no more difficult than pressing Alt-Gr+Shift+A - well not to me anyway.
BTW I used the same keyboard combinations to enter those characters in here too. Does IE automatically support the keyboard combo's you setup in Word?
Look, I'm not saying this is why OOo doesn't have this feature, you may be right in that. I'm just saying that such arguments end up adding huge amounts of duplicate development work, whereas having the WM/GUI handle it - and educating users about such features - saves a lot of repetition. If you are using your applications for such features then you are either doing it wrong or being forced to.
[1] I am sure that GNOME,XFCE,MAC and even Windows [w|sh]ould as well.
Oh Come on at least the MS OS is easy enough to fix even you can fix it. :) not our fault that some poor old lady needs help. There is no way that you can expect her to use a linux. Or do you refer the old ladys in your neighbor to Lindows :)
ha ha
Indeed. I'm a translator, and many times I've had clients send me amazingly fugly files where the internal structure and formatting was so borked that simply trying to open them kills Word. Other times, something might go boing when I'm partway through translating. The *only* thing that's saved my bacon in those situations is OOo.
Kinda messed up when a bunch of FOSS reverse engineers seem to understand Microsuck's formats better than Microsuck's own software does.
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."