Alternative to MS Office

[illusionalSin]

http://www.openoffice.org

This is an alternative to the £200 version by microsoft office.

Just posting because of a lot of customers complain about paying 200 squid

[Jackson]

Yea i use this. Its good, obviously not got the full features of MS office, but saving £200 its worth it.

+ 99% of people don't use those features anyway.

[Nox]

Don't use either :D well rarely!

Nox

[David T]

lol, I can use MS office pro but I do use open office at home and at work most of the time. It is good enough for almost everything you would use MS for.

[illusionalSin]

Everyone has their own opinions, I'm just giving the people the information. Microsoft cram in a lot of features which are rarely used, its just a very very very cheap (free) alternative. Why pay for something you can use for free instead?

[X40Nick]

I have MS Office 2007 Enterprise, I think it is great.

I don't think OpenOffice is that good because it has poor compatibilty with OOXML.

Lets face it, it will be a ISO standard soon, and £80 for MS Office Home is a pretty good price.

Nick

[whaletales]

I have MS Office 2007 Enterprise, I think it is great.
I have to say I've never been a fan of MS Office anything, but then I've always wanted to be in control of my documents rather than dictated to by the software. That's just personal opinion and preference though.


I don't think OpenOffice is that good because it has poor comp[atibilty with OOXML.
It is just plain silly to say that a product is no good because it doesn't support a file format that is owned and controlled by another company. That's like saying that Pagemaker is rubbish because it won't open MS Publisher documents!

If OOXML does become an ISO standard (and it has failed the first two stages, but then Microsoft is pumping money at partners and other organisations, so they may yet influence the third stage), and if it isn't tied up in patented technologies (which a standard shouldn't be, but then we are talking Microsoft here), then the situation may change (which is more than you can say for Microsoft's actions in the other direction regarding ODF).


Lets face it, it will be a ISO standard soon, and £80 for MS Office Home is a pretty good price.
Well if supporting an ISO standard is important to you then OpenOffice is the best solution. It already supports ODF format with is already an ISO standard. A standard that is supported by a number of other applications already, including Lotus Symphony from IBM, and is open for anyone else to use - if Microsoft wanted to play ball with the rest of the world instead of keeping its own ball to itself.

Personally I don't think MS Office is any good because it doesn't support the recognised ISO standard for the sort of documents it creates. The question is why is Microsoft so keen to create a new standard rather than work with one that has already been defined. But then Microsoft is more interested in locking people into its products than considering customer requirements or supporting recognised standards isn't it?

[X40Nick]

Sorry you just can't compare Microsoft Office 2007 to OpenOffice.

The Home Version costs £80 and you get Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and Onenote.

Openoffice includes more, but will you use it?

Microsoft Office is essential and familiar to all.

Nick.

[djgandy]

£80 bargain.

[whaletales]

Sorry, I can and do compare the two. When I look for an office suite I am not going to dismiss one just because it is free, cheap or lacks functions. I will look at what I need the software to do and then match my requirements to that. Then I will see if the cost difference between packages. Do I really need to pay the extra, and what does it give me that I can't do with a cheaper package - even if that requires a little extra work. Do I really need all the features of a full MS Office and do they justify the extra cost?

I do use the extra applications in OpenOffice over MS Office Home. MS Office is not familiar to me because it has never managed to meet my requirements. In the past Lotus Smartsuite has provided better value, and at the moment it still fails to justify its price for my use. It also falls down on one major requirement, and that is availability cross platform.

As for my usage. I use OpenOffice for invoicing, accounting and some database work amongst other things. If I need more features than OpenOffice provides in a particular area then I'll probably want a better application than MS Office for the task.

For serious database work Access is sadly lacking, and from what I've seen of the SQL it generates for some queries, the code will not generate the results provided, so matching the graphical query tool to the SQL is flawed.

For word processing, well I grew up on applications like Protext which concentrated on the text and content. Once I start wanting to get into layout management I want a proper DTP package, not a half way house that encourages bad habits.

As for spreadsheets, well if I need more I will, again, look to a more suited package. Say a dedicated accounts package or something like Mathcad perhaps.