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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.
3. It runs on linux.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
4. It exports directly to PDF without having to buy (or even install) an extra plug-in.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
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
It hasn't yet. It's at RC2, so almost there.
http://download.openoffice.org/680/
and changes What's new
Indeed. What tipped me off was this:
The ironic part is, Word needs master documents, since it cannot reliably handle documents longer than about 40 pages.
Sheesh. I've used Word with docs hundreds of pages long dozens of times. I can only remember one document that I had trouble with, and that had a huge number of embedded files all over the place.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
I'm sure we can trust Linux.com for a good, balanced review.
That's especially true when you remember that Slashdot.org and Linux.com are the same company.
I don't respond to AC's.
The only reason MS Office can't do that is because Adobe had a hissy fit when they tried. Threatened antitrust action because it cuts into sales of Acrobat Professional. (It was possible in Office 2007 betas, removed from Final)
For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
Mail Merge is one of the coolest things you can do with an office suite to save some time. It shouldn't be too far beyond any Slashdotter.
Basically, with Mail Merge, you create a document and you also create a data table in a DB or spreadsheet program. For instance, a form letter. You might write a form letter that says, "Dear $DONOR, Thank you for your $AMOUNT contribution to our campaign. We are $EMOTION at your generosity. With your donation, we will be able to feed $NUMCHILDREN children in the fiscal year 2008, build $NUMHOMES homes for third world families, and provide basic medical care and education to an entire village of $POPVILLAGE." Then, in your data table, you have the donor's name in one column, the amount they contributed in the next, a word like "glad", "overjoyed", etc. in the third, and so forth. Mail merge automatically takes the data table and letter template and churns out potentially millions of personalized form letters by taking each row and substituting each entry in its designated place. You might have wondered how form letters were made? You can also use it to manufacture printed envelopes and such.
Of course, for dadaist fun you can write a madlib in mail merge format and randomly generate the data table from a dictionary--it's not only for form letters, although I imagine that's the primary application.
In Repressive Burma, it's not just your connection that dies. slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=314547&cid=20819199
You can migrate your settings for Office using the "Save My Settings Wizard" which is located in the "Microsoft Office Tools" folder on the start menu. I have been able to migrate between different and same versions using this tool.
OOo keeps a directory either A) in your home directory (Linux/UNIX), or B) in a directory under your user profile (Windows) called .openoffice.org2. It stores all your settings. If you want to migrate them to another computer, just copy that folder.
My blog
Styles are usually just format related, ie font face, size, indent and tab settings, etc. all wrapped up into a "Style" which you can apply to content all at once instead of making the same dozen changes to every place you want to update. Also, once the style is set, you can change the style in one place, and it gets updated everywhere. This is nice if you want to revamp the look of a document.
A template has styled elements to it, but is more like a partially pre-populated bunch of content, like a form letter. You open the template, and it generates a stub of the document you're creating. You fill in the unique bits, and save it under a unique filename. Ideally as much of the work should be done for you by merely opening the template as possible.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
What's purple and commutes? An Abelian grape.
As far as generating PDFs goes, you could install PDF Creator, and just "print" your documents to PDF. Would probably provide better compatibility than creating Adobe 4.0 pdfs.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
"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.