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        Daily Chat >> General Posts >> Calling all Geeks and then some
        
(Message started by: Peppermint on Jan 25^th, 2008, 10:23am)

Title: Calling all Geeks and then some
Post by Peppermint on Jan 25^th, 2008, 10:23am

I know if I get any real answers, they'll be from you guys..

I was wondering how decent the OpenOffice suites are... I only have trial MS Office with Vista. I'm considering purchasing MSO but I know there's open source stuff out there... is it comparable? Is it safe to download? Anyone else use it regularly?

I just don't want to bog my computer down if its going to be a waste or too complicated to use on a regular basis. I've looked around but I would love some real feedback, from a user OR a Geek :)

Whaddaya say? [smiley=huh.gif]

Pepp

Title: Re: Calling all Geeks and then some
Post by brewcrew on Jan 25^th, 2008, 10:31am

M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E

(I have no clue - sorry)

Title: Re: Calling all Geeks and then some
Post by Ray on Jan 25^th, 2008, 10:49am

You need to let Kirk or Chris or one of the more hardcore opensource types to answer in more detail, however:

I use OpenOffice in Linux. It will open and save files in the Microsoft format and over all is highly compatible. There are a few features that MS-Office has that OpenOffice does not, however they are not ones that I have run into.

I would download it (safe) from openoffice.org and try it for a week or two. If it does what you need it to, then go over the the open software side of the force!

Ray

Title: Re: Calling all Geeks and then some
Post by M.R. on Jan 25^th, 2008, 12:16pm

We had open office at work for a while. It ranged from annoying (slow) to a pain in the ass (printer conflicts). I would advise against it unless you have time and patience to mess with it (MHO). I bought Office (student version) for my puter at home.

Mike

Title: Re: Calling all Geeks and then some
Post by imfareware on Jan 25^th, 2008, 2:20pm

Who buys Office anymore, there are alot freeware versions you can download off sites. ;;D ;;D ;;D

Title: Re: Calling all Geeks and then some
Post by gizmo on Jan 25^th, 2008, 3:19pm

If you are used to the Office 2002/XP/2003 UI I'd rather use OpenOffice since the MS Office 2007 UI has changed a lot.

If you already used Office 2007 and you are familiar with it I'd stick with it.

Oliver

Title: Re: Calling all Geeks and then some
Post by brewcrew on Jan 25^th, 2008, 3:22pm

on 01/25/08 at 14:20:26, imfareware wrote:

Who buys Office anymore, there are alot freeware versions you can download off sites. ;;D ;;D ;;D

You wouldn't be suggesting piracy of copyrighted software, would you?

Title: Re: Calling all Geeks and then some
Post by Kirk on Jan 25^th, 2008, 8:54pm

Since Microsoft is going to be coming out with Windows 7 early. Because of Vista's poor showing. Which means that they will also come out with a new Office suite. There is no sense in paying twice for it. And Open Office actually does more than MS Office. You might as well go here http://openoffice.org and get it. Open Office uses Java, and back in the Java 1.1 days it was dog slow. These days it is a pretty good choice.
[smiley=smokin.gif]

On the other hand, you could spend $60, and buy Star Office from Sun Microsystems.

Title: Re: Calling all Geeks and then some
Post by Opus on Jan 25^th, 2008, 11:53pm

I don't use Open Office. It does much more than I would ever need.

If you just need a word processor try Abiword (http://abiword.org/). It is smaller and faster then anything else I have tried. I have not used the Microsoft Windows version in 5 years, but I doubt there is much difference between the ports. Make sure you get the extras if you want spell checking and grammar checking.

Paul [smiley=smokin.gif]

Title: Re: Calling all Geeks and then some
Post by Gator on Jan 26^th, 2008, 12:14am

I think the main question on all the different suggestions would be compatibility with the MS Office suite of applications. I know Open Office works pretty well, I used it when I worked for Creative Labs. How compatible are Abiword and Star Office with MS Office?

Title: Re: Calling all Geeks and then some
Post by Opus on Jan 27^th, 2008, 12:04am

on 01/26/08 at 00:14:24, Gator wrote:

I don't know about Abiword opening .doc's. It is suppose to but having none I have never tried.

Star office is the paid for version of Open office. Sun adds some plugins which cannot be distributed with an open source program.

Paul

Title: Re: Calling all Geeks and then some
Post by DennisM1045 on Jan 27^th, 2008, 8:21am

I use MS Office at work and Open Office at home. I was too cheap to buy MS Office for home.

There are some minor differences but I've not had any issues with compatibility or speed or UI. My kids use OO for all their homework.

-Dennis-