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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
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
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.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
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"
It hasn't yet. It's at RC2, so almost there.
http://download.openoffice.org/680/
and changes What's new
Wow.. almost as in depth as the original comparison.
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.
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Miles ahead doesn't help much if you're going down the wrong road.
-- Alastair
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.
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.
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.
Don't have any Karma to burn anyways
I do think the UI in 2007 is an improvement over 2003/XP/2000, but that's really anything's an improvement over that.
"The Federal Reserve is a fraudulent system."--Lew Rockwell
End The FED. -
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.
Any application can print to postscript using good old lpd, ps2pdf does the rest. If you're on Windows you can install PDFCreator and again, print to PDF from any app.
Once a month my consulting invoices are output as PDFs using enscript, a tiny shell script pulls the data from sqlite (previously Berkeley DB), converts to PDF and emails the client.
Is having a save as PDF button really a big deal?
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!
That depends on the version and the kind of license; the price tags in, IIRC, the $150 range for the 5-seat non-commercial license; $400 is, IIRC, about the price tag of the Professional license bought one a time, though volume licensing I believe is cheaper.
I've got two desktops and a laptop, two of the three have both Office 2007 and OpenOffice.org 2.2 installed (the desktop that is dual-boot Windows/Linux has OOo on both partitions, and the other desktop just has Office 2007.) I have no problem using either "right away". I am more productive with Office 2007, despite the fact that OOo is closer to the interface I've been using for over a decade.
Now, I prefer Free Software, and not just because of the price (though that's a factor), but I even more strongly prefer software that does what I want, and does it well; the advantage to Office 2007 in those terms outweigh the price and other advantages of OOo. For now, at least.
I hold out high hopes for OOo and other Free alternatives, though.
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.
Er, no, its not. First of all, Microsoft Office is more than just Word which is available separately; the price of Word alone, or of non-commercial Office licenses, is substantially less than the cost of commercial Office licenses.
I'm not sure what you mean by "bundled versions"; in one sense, all Microsoft Office versions, as opposed to separate applications, are "bundled versions". But the "restrictions" on, say, Microsoft Office Home and Student are that it has a no-commercial-use license, and it doesn't include Access or Publisher or some other things that Word, Excel, and PowerPoint are quite usable without. It also does include OneNote 2007, which only the really expensive commercial Office bundles do, and comes with a 5-seat license. For home users, it would seem eminently usable.
Almost everyone I know that uses Microsoft Office at home, whether 2003 or 2007, uses the Student and Teacher (2003) or Home and Student (2007) non-commercial 5-seat version.
Certainly, interface preferences are to a degree subjective and vary from person to person, but I don't think mind-reading is involved in using the Office 2007 interface.
well duh, when was the last time that a sensible discussion of the different features and the pros and cons of two pieces of software, objectively weighing up the advantages of each in an unbiased manner was entertaining? ummm never. Now, when the last time a flame war was entertaining? Every time, that's when, and on that note I declare you a big fat monkey who knows nothing about anything, plus you smell like steve balmers armpit after a vigourous chair throwing session
P.S. It's spelt M$.
*Rolls in gasoline and pours powdered magnesium into hair*
*Puts bottle rockets in mouth*
What if Tetris was invented by Nazis?
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...
* Ignites bottle rockets *
* takes a few steps back *
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
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.
Let's be serious, would you show up to a Linux user party?
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.
How about the $400 per seat price tag?
My organization pays something like $50 per year per seat for full versions of Office and Windows workstation upgrades. Until recently, Visual Studio was included as well. That seems reasonable to me. Full microsoft compatibility is important enough to my user base to justify $50 per year.
Also, one important distinction between a migration to OO and a migration to Office 2007 is that, for my user base, 2007 migration issues would be largely MICROSOFT's fault and OO migration problems would be mostly MY fault.
Almost everyone I know that uses Microsoft Office at home, whether 2003 or 2007, uses the Student and Teacher (2003) or Home and Student (2007) non-commercial 5-seat version.
Just a correction but the Student and Teacher edition and the Home and Student editoin are 3 seat licenses, not 5.
Time makes more converts than reason
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.
Neither spreadsheet is too bad. I used to prefer Excel in the days when I did large spreadsheets, but now I regard them as essentially identical - except that I need WINE to run Excel.
I agree the word processors are horrible, but I think that is because the concept is flaws. What we need is something like Lyx, but a lot more polished: what Lyx would be if it had received the same resources as Open Office.
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
"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.
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.
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.
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?
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.