SoftMaker Office 2008 vs. OpenOffice.org 3.1

snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Randall Kennedy examines would-be Microsoft Office competitors SoftMaker Office and OpenOffice.org and finds the results surprising. OpenOffice.org — frequently cited as the most viable Office competitor — has pushed for Office interoperability in version 3.1, adding import support for files in Office 2007's native Open XML format. But, as Kennedy found in Office-compatibility testing, that support remains mostly skin deep. 'Factor in OpenOffice's other well-documented warts — buggy Java implementation, CPU-hogging auto-update system, quirky font rendering — and it's easy to see why the vast majority of IT shops continue to reject this pretender to the Microsoft Office throne,' Kennedy writes. SoftMaker Office, however, 'shows that good things often still come in small packages.' Geared more toward mobile computing, the suite's 'compact footprint and low overhead make it ideal for underpowered systems, and its excellent compatibility with Office 2003 file formats means it's a safe choice for heterogeneous environments where external data access isn't a priority.'" Note that SoftMaker Office is not free software — it costs $79.95 — and there is no version for Macintosh.

Comments

History

[googlesmith123]

One of the coolest things about german Softmaker is the software they made for the old Windows CE platforms like my old HPC ïHP Jornada 680. This included Word that could actually edit MS Word files and Excel that did something more than just display data.

Re:History

[googlesmith123]

If anyone cares. The software for Windows CE by Softmaker was called "Textmate" and "Planmaker", for word and excel (in that order).

Re:History

[googlesmith123]

TextMaker

What timing

[Rei]

I've been dealing with a rash of OpenOffice compatibility problems with MS Office that I hope don't cause my business plan to bomb in a local business plan competition. I've been discovering that the way it saves .doc files doesn't quite match with how MS Office reads them, so things end up misaligned - tables broken up, images out of place, etc. And don't even get me started on docx... I'm going to try to get a revised (MS Office-saved) version in, but I hope it's not too late.

Re:What timing

[gbarules2999]

To be fair, I had one Word project crumble because the damn program wasn't compatible with itself, after five minutes of sitting around. This is something even Microsoft can't get right 100% of the time.

I think the author's overstating OO.o's negatives a bit, but that's just me. I like the way it highlights text better.

Re:What timing

[mpapet]

I've been discovering that the way it saves .doc files doesn't quite match with how MS Office reads them

Hahaha!!! Microsoft is no better at retaining formatting than OpenOffice. I had one particularly wasteful work day attempting to edit a complex Word doc with embedded images, tables authored on Mac with French as the default language. We were each on different versions of Office too. The language of the document was Fr-english, so I was supposed to clean up the language a little.

I spent Hours spent attempting to keep the document open long enough to get the information out of it before it would crash Word again. Hours!!!!!

Do yourself and them a favor and send them a PDF. They'll think you are a big-shot with your Adobe Acrobat software and everything!!!

Re:What timing

[Jim Hall]

I've been dealing with a rash of OpenOffice compatibility problems with MS Office that I hope don't cause my business plan to bomb in a local business plan competition. I've been discovering that the way it saves .doc files doesn't quite match with how MS Office reads them, so things end up misaligned - tables broken up, images out of place, etc. And don't even get me started on docx... I'm going to try to get a revised (MS Office-saved) version in, but I hope it's not too late.

BTW, the problem is just as bad with Microsoft Word rendering other Microsoft Word files. Just this morning, I saw this example in action in a meeting.

Last night, one of the attendees sent out some notes for us to read before the meeting. We all dutifully printed out our copy of the doc, and brought it with us to the meeting.

Despite the fact that we all run Microsoft Office (yes, the document was created with Microsoft Office) there were 3 different versions of the printed doc at the meeting. You could tell by looking around that one version of the doc (printed from Microsoft Office for Macintosh) was aligned in a weird way when moving text around a table. Another version of the doc (Microsoft Office 2007) put a pagebreak in a different spot than everyone else's copy, and put an extra blank line between a table and its caption. This was a 3-page doc with an enumerated list of paragraphs, so differences were easy to spot when looking around the table.

This was a Word document in plain DOC format, not DOCX.

If you have a document that absolutely must preserve formatting, send it as a PDF.

Re:What timing

[IntlHarvester]

To be fair, I had one Word project crumble because the damn program wasn't compatible with itself, after five minutes of sitting around. This is something even Microsoft can't get right 100% of the time.

I've been using Word for like 20 years, and this has happened maybe once or twice.

"Word isn't perfect so you might as well gamble on OpenOffice" is a frequently used argument, but not a very compelling one.

Re:What timing

[SparkEE]

Does the competition actually require you to send in your plan as a .doc file? You should be able to send it in as a pdf or postscript.

It just always really irks me that people ask for finished documents in an editor's format. If people would just stop having this dumb expection, then it wouldn't matter if my tool of choice was Word, Ooo, Pages, Correl, html, or LaTex. They're all able to send out postscript files, and usually able to generate pdf these days.

The only time .doc files should be getting sent around is within a single team or corporation, where you have a reasonable expection that your coworkers have the same program available that you do.

Re:What timing

[datapharmer]

The proper rendering of documents is one of the main reasons PDF was created. If they require that you submit in some proprietary format that has known problems with rendering that shouldn't count against you. oh wait - its a BUSINESS competition... never mind.

Re:What timing

[Cornelius the Great]

I use Word at work for engineering requirements and software documentation and it's a common occurrence- I've seen several instances of making a small change (no formatting), saving it, and reopening it to find the formatting completely corrupted. Furthermore, while Office 2007 has fixed many of the formatting issues I saw in 2003, it's equally frustrating when docs (not docx files, but plain old ".doc") would display differently between 2003 and 2007 (half of the office hasn't made the switch yet).

This means that only the 2-3 developers who have Word 2007 installed can officially save and commit changes to our official process documents and software documentation.

Say what you will about OpenOffice- they at least can maintain consistent tabs across different versions.

Re:What timing

[gbarules2999]

I've been using Word for like 20 years, and this has happened maybe once or twice.

Lucky you. Too bad I run into that issue on a regular basis every time I go print something by one of the nearby libraries or computer labs. What a nightmare.

"Word isn't perfect so you might as well gamble on OpenOffice" is a frequently used argument, but not a very compelling one.

Neither is "OpenOffice isn't perfect so you might as well just forget about it and pay the money for Word."

I have no problems with anyone using either program; use what works for you. It just not fair to pick on one for having the same exact problem as the other with incompatibility.

Re:What timing

[fermion]

This is a valid concern, but is not really an issue with the office suite. If the goal is consistent display across products, this will never happen with any office product. There is simply little incentive. Any software developer is going to want all users to use their product, at the latest version. There is almost no incentive to build interoperability outside of the proprietary suite. This is the primary reason why I stopped using MS Office. I would send stuff out, and people, who were using a more recent version, could not read my files. Since they were the customer, it was my responsibility to upgrade, but I did not have the money. The solution was to move OO.org which was more likely to be able to write files in whatever version of MS Office the customer was using.

The issue really is the state of MS Office as a defacto standard, which really never really existed because there is no cross platform year after year guarantee that files will remain accessible. The way to insure that formating will remain constant across platform and through time, at least so far, is the PDF file. I laugh every time I get a .doc memo. I think how simple it would be to change the memo slightly, spoof the address, and get someone in trouble. MS Office security is not nearly as secure as Adobe PDF.

Back to the subject. PDF is a better way to exchange files, as long as they do not need to be edited. MS can provide a superior solution where files are edited. HTML is also good for distribution of files. I have also taken to converting my presentations into HTML or flash. Again, I see all these presentations on the web. Change the presentation, hack, upload, frivolity ensues.

My current situation is that I have machines that run MS Office 2003, and other runs later versions. The later versions tend to bork the 2003 files, and I will not even deal with the later version in 2003. I have OO.org installed, and if 2003 will not work I use OO.org.

Re:What timing

[jonbryce]

The common reason I find for people emailing word documents is when they are negotiating contracts. Then you see .docs being emailed between the parties and their advisers, with people suggesting various changes to the document. The final version will generally be distributed in pdf, but the discussion drafts need to be in word format so people can make changes to it.

Re:What timing

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Personally, I find the whole "it slightly reformats my text" argument less than compelling anyway, regardless of which office suite is being advocated at the time.

For 99% of the cases, it doesn't matter. Heck, anyone who works in a company with both US and European offices probably gets their documents reformatted between A4 and US Letter paper sizes fairly often, and that's particularly amusing since many of them will only ever be displayed on-screen where such sizes are pretty bad for readability anyway.

For the other 1% of cases, well, that's what PDF is for.

Re:What timing

[santix]

You can save as PDF and, provided the computer in which you want to print has a reader installed, you can forget about those problems. I always do that.

Re:What timing

[Haeleth]

It's never impossible if the PDF was created directly from a word processor document, and the creator didn't take deliberate action to make it impossible.

And, conversely, it is trivial to produce a Word document from which it is impossible to copy the text.

In short, the problem is not PDF.

Re:What timing

[JumpDrive]

This is one of the reasons which got us started uninstalling 2007.

Scores: OpenOffice 7.4 vs SoftMaker 7.7

[InsertWittyNameHere]

All that OpenOffice bashing and SoftMaker Office boasting and there's only a negligible scoring difference between them?

From reading the article you'd think OpenOffice was crap (less than 5) and SoftMaker Office was the greatest thing next to sliced bread (8+)...

Re:Scores: OpenOffice 7.4 vs SoftMaker 7.7

[Kjella]

Are we using the reviewer's scale where anything better than notepad is a 4? If so that could actually be a real difference... Anyway, I wasn't aware this company was trying to take on Office so interesting news. A bit of a slashvertisement but it gets very one sided when we get all the OSS releases/raves and nothing else.

Re:Scores: OpenOffice 7.4 vs SoftMaker 7.7

[Daengbo]

I want to know how Softmaker gets an 8 for value and OO.o only gets a 9. It's free (and Free). If the scores are so close, shouldn't OO.o get a 10?

Slashvertisment

[R4nm4-kun]

Either I am really stupid (which is possible I won't deny it), or this is clearly a hidden advertisement on Slashdot for SoftMaker Office. To be anywhere near a fair comparison they should have included IBM Lotus Symphony, KOffice, StarOffice and others. Not compare OpenOffice to some commercial product I don't think many people ever heard about.

I don't understand why this has made it to the frontpage.

Re:Slashvertisment

[Zantetsuken]

Also, they should have included Go-OpenOffice, as this is what is in most mainstream GNU/Linux distro repositories and not the vanilla OpenOffice that you download from Sun. Also, as you mentioned comparing with IBM Lotus Symphony, they should mention that it's based on the older OpenOffice 1.1.4 due to that being the last version the upstream with a particular dual license of LGLP and one of Sun's licenses...

Skin deep?

[DrXym]

I haven't had any trouble with any MS Office files I've thrown at OpenOffice. Granted I mostly open MS Word documents but they've all opened fine. Far more impressive to me was when I dug out an MS Office for Mac file from about 15 years ago and THAT opened in OpenOffice even though MS Word for Windows wouldn't have anything to do with it.

So while I'm sure there are certain files which don't convert well I've been extremely happy with OpenOffice's support so far. I'm less happy about the general level of bloat and lower level of usability that comes with the product. I can't help wonder who thought it would be a great idea to toss in Python, Java, StarBasic and god knows what other runtimes into this app. There is a very cobbled together feel about the whole thing.

Re:IBM Symphony

[mail2345]

Link for all you lazy people:
http://symphony.lotus.com/software/lotus/symphony/home.nsf/home

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Why are you calling it an article?

[msimm]

I thought it was an ad?

Answer..

[msimm]

Kdawson, boner, cute girl in advertising. And that's the optimistic version!

Why pay $80 when you can get Office for $50

[Anonymous Coward]

So I can buy Softmake Office, a MS Word clone, for 80 bucks. Or I can wait for a sale and pick up MS Student and Home for 50 bucks and I get 3 licenses for that price...

Thanks but I'll stay with the free OpenOffice or I'll drop 50 bucks on the real deal.

Re:Why pay $80 when you can get Office for $50

[westlake]

I can wait for a sale and pick up MS Student and Home for 50 bucks and I get 3 licenses for that price...

If you are a student with an .edu address you can have it all for $60. The Ultimate Steal

If your employer participates in Microsoft's Home User program, it's all yours on disk for the price of S&H.

These are just three of the reasons why the free-as-in-beer office suite just doesn't generate all that much excitement.

Re:Why so few contenders?

[Astadar]

It's not hard to write a better one. It's hard to write one that's still compatible with the a) unpublished, b) quirkily implemented, c) voluminous spec that is MS word. At least sufficiently well enough to be a modest replacement.

I'm sure the folks at OO.o have been trying VERY hard to match Word behavior, but it's obviously not that simple.

I've run into several issues where OO.o doesn't render word docs properly and many more where an OO.o saved doc doesn't render properly at all in Word.

A shame, really. But that's the reason that we still have MS Office in the house. My wife and I use it for work just often enough that we can't afford not to have it.

SofMaker

[Brandybuck]

I purchased SofMaker suite since they support FreeBSD. It's decent software, much much lighter in weight in OpenOffice, and free of annoying featuritus. It's chief drawback is its proprietariness. If they ever open sourced it, I would banish OpenOffice forever from my harddrives.

Re:SofMaker

[jedidiah]

> Why would I use a Office suite which is free of features?

Because your actual requirements are meagre and more resemble the sort
of word processing programs that existed for home computer users before
Word Perfect wannabes became the forced defacto standard.

> When did it happen, that features became somehow uncool to a small but loud subset of the people (I guess)??

Once people realized they were being perpetually charged over and
over again for the same thing and when relatively pointless features
like the macro interpreter became a vector for malware.

Sometimes a simpler device that meets your need is better than using an overpriced corporate tool.

Re:What timing [PDF stinks]

[Tablizer]

But PDF is annoying in many ways. First, it's difficult to copy-and-past from. Second, the page navigation system is different from both typical word-processors and web browsers (HTML), at least for Adobe. And third, the fonts always look blurry to me.

Re:KOffice

[Sparr0]

Ditto. Or the Gnome suite (Abiword, Gnumeric, etc). Hell, I still maintain multiple installations of StarOffice. There are so many alternatives out there, but no one ever considers most of them.

Buggy Java implementation... NOT

[Anonymous Coward]

"Factor in OpenOffice's other well-documented warts - buggy Java implementation, ..."

OpenOffice ist not, and never was, written in Java. It's C++. And it's open source, so you can even look that up. The point is: Why does a review, whose reviewer didn't even bother to do elementary facts checking, end up on the front page?

Re:What timing [PDF stinks]

[Rude Turnip]

It is not difficult to copy and paste from. I probably do this on a daily basis. The only time you can't copy and paste is if the document author was an idiot and blocked the copy/paste/print functions, or if the source content for the PDF was a scan of an older printed document.

The page navigation system is no different than word processors or web browsers. In fact, it's a little more optimized. Using Adobe's reader, you can even turn on thumbnails and skim through a document like you're using microfilm.

If the fonts look blurry, that is a function of the source document and not the PDF format. G-I-G-O.

Re:What timing [PDF stinks]

[jonbryce]

You can fix the blurry text as follows:

Right click on the document, and click "Page Display Preferences", then click on "Page Display" in the side menu, and in the "Rendering" section, select Smooth Text: "For Laptop/LCD screens".

Adobe uses its own font rendering system rather than the one in Windows, and clear-type is not the default setting.

If you are using the Mac, the same procedure applies except that you may have to ctrl-click if you only have one mouse button.

Re:Why so few contenders?

[Toonol]

I'm in the process of editing a 150 page book with lots of tables and lists. About halfway through the process of writing it, I moved to OO because Word was creaking under the strain; it would glitch, it would repaginate differently from load to load, it was just unpleasant.

Open Office has seemed much more robust in that sense. It didn't open the document without problems; I had to do extensive reformatting. If this was something I would be exchange outside my company, I would have stuck with Word. But if you're using Open Office Writer from start to end, I think it is a respectable competitor to Word. (Calc, however, isn't quite there.)

Re:IBM Symphony

[binarylarry]

It's also... OpenOffice.org based.

Re:Value

[hedwards]

Have you tried the last few versions of MS Office? I mean seriously, the amount of training it would take somebody to go from Office XP to OO.org is less than the amount that would be required to make the switch to the current version of MS Office. At least at the default, there may be a way that I don't know about to give it older UI.

Trust me, those folks are going to have a lot more trouble trying to follow MS as it innovates its way along.

Re:What's with the .org?

[Zantetsuken]

Wikipedia:

The project and software are informally referred to as OpenOffice, but this term is a trademark held by a company in the Netherlands co-founded by Wouter Hanegraaff and is also in use by Orange UK,[3] requiring the project to adopt OpenOffice.org as its formal name.[4]

Re:Why so few contenders?

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Why doesn't Blizzard or some other studio do it?

Man.. imagine what the splash screen for that would look like!

Re:Why so few contenders?

[Enderandrew]

I thought I read in some interviews when Richard Garriot was first developing games, and starting to code them in assembly, that companies were exceedingly impressed with what he was able to accomplish with limited computing power back in the day. They begged him to write a spreadsheet.

Re:Value

[Enderandrew]

I would contend taking an Office 2000/2003 user and placing them infront of Office 2007 would require extensive training, where as migrating to OOo is the easier move.

I gave it to my mother and she can just use it.

Not free

[muzicman]

If it isn't free I am not buying it...... Wait a sec...

Re:What timing [PDF stinks]

[Bazzargh]

It is not difficult to copy and paste from. I probably do this on a daily basis. The only time you can't copy and paste is if the document author was an idiot and blocked the copy/paste/print functions, or if the source content for the PDF was a scan of an older printed document.

No, you're wrong. In PDF text is stored as small chunks to be printed at the current point with the current font. There is no concept of a paragraph or a column. So if your text is even marginally complex - for example, you have superscripts, multiple columns, text labels on an image beside the text of your document, manual kerning, font substitution for some characters, bidi text... then you have lots of disconnected text chunks. In order to copy these, the reader needs to guess what the original formatting was. And I haven't even started on ligatures and mathematical formulae yet.

For this reason PDF readers often have 2 copy modes: rectangular and reading-order. The rectangular option tries to preserve position information (fairly easy), while the other option tries to guess and preserve the reading order (fairly hard). The rectangular option works well on tables, but poorly on multicolumn text; the opposite is generally true for reading-order selection. Evince's text selection is rectangular, Acrobat used to have both but seems to have only reading-order selection these days.

I happen to know this because I've done some work on fixing text selection in poppler; but its not just poppler-based readers that have a problem: its just as bad in Acrobat and (on the mac) Preview. Its not very hard to find documents with problems like this, and its one of the most-duped poppler/evince bugs.