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Open Office?

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#1 of 43 Posted Nov-5 8:32 AM

From caljeanmid Posts 243 Last Nov-11
To All [Msg # 193150.1 ]

What's the deal with Open Office? It appears to be free and does word processing, spreadsheets, painting, database, anything you might need to do. What's the catch?

It is often said that if something is too good to be true, it is probably not true.

http://www.openoffice.org/

Cal, from West Michigan

All generalizations are false, including this one..

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#2 of 43 Posted Nov-5 8:44 AM

From Sandy G/WinSupport Posts 123 Last 8:35 PM
To caljeanmid [Msg # 193150.2 193150.1 ]

It's all true. We find it useful when folks want to share/attach documents and have no idea MS Office is not part of Windows. The main problem I have is the Help file, which is not a finished product. Suppoort is pretty sparse.

Default Save and Open settings can be changed to the Microsoft extensions (DOC and XLS at least), so the casual user opens and saves foreign formats without even noticing.

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#3 of 43 Posted Nov-5 10:02 AM

From Dale G. Shields (Wugnet) Posts 9146 Last 7:41 PM
To caljeanmid [Msg # 193150.3 193150.1 ]

The producr is actually OpenOffice.org - it does what it says it does.

>>anything you might need to do

Not exactly - MS Office has components such as Publisher, which is used for Flyers/brochures/etc...

Can't beat the price, so I recommend installing it yourself and see if it meets your needs...

p.s. It can handle Office 2007 file formats...

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#4 of 43 Posted Nov-5 1:29 PM

From Ron Posts 35 Last 9:14 PM
To caljeanmid [Msg # 193150.4 193150.1 ]

I have to agree with Sandy and Dale. Open Office org is a pretty good set of free office applications. For many people it's all the office suite they'll ever need. It's not quite as polished as Microsoft Office but it still gets the job done. I use an earlier version (2.4) on one of my older machines and it doesn't seem to impact performance very much at all... one thing though. I've elected to not let it's launcher application run at startup. That can be toggled from within the program or from the tray I believe.

I don't have too many gripes about the suite. It works well for most tasks. I do wish that Writer could/would handle envelopes better though.

--Ron

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#5 of 43 Posted Nov-5 1:34 PM

From Hugh Wyn Griffith WUGNET Posts 218 Last 8:59 PM
To Ron [Msg # 193150.5 193150.4 ]

Have you tried Lotus Symphony to see if they have made any modifications to improve things? It's free and I gather is OpenOffice based.

I have it on my WIN 7 but I've not tried it out yet so I've no view on it apart from being a Lotus WordPro user from way back to the Baby AMI days ....

Hugh

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#6 of 43 Posted Nov-5 4:07 PM

From Peter Creasey Posts 938 Last 6:55 PM
To Hugh Wyn Griffith WUGNET [Msg # 193150.6 193150.5 ]

>> being a Lotus WordPro user from way back   <<

Hugh,   I'm still using it (and Lotus 123) but they are starting to obsolesce, especially since MS has been making their current document and spread sheets non-compatible with earlier programs.

       I still haven't decided whether to try OpenOffice of Lotus Symphony but am leaning toward OpenOffice.

. . . . . Pete

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#7 of 43 Posted Nov-5 5:16 PM

From Dale G. Shields (Wugnet) Posts 9146 Last 7:41 PM
To Peter Creasey [Msg # 193150.7 193150.6 ]

>>am leaning toward OpenOffice

OK, I'll play: Care to share your personal observations on why?

Thanks!

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#8 of 43 Posted Nov-5 5:57 PM

From Peter Creasey Posts 938 Last 6:55 PM
To Dale G. Shields (Wugnet) [Msg # 193150.8 193150.7 ]

>> >> am leaning toward OpenOffice <<
OK, I'll play: Care to share your personal observations on why? <<

Dale, Egads! I'm not sure I remember why I arrived at this decision.

As a former IBMer and as a Lotus user, the natural tendency would be for me to favor Lotus Symphony.

I don't know if you remember or not but quite some time ago I started (or at least participated in) a fairly lengthy thread (it was here, I'm pretty sure) about OpenOffice versus Lotus Symphony. I recall that you and Hugh participated in that thread also.

       I remember making the decision that when I was ready to embark on one or the other, I was pretty much decided on OpenOffice.

       I seem to recall that I liked the idea that OpenOffice seemed to represent less of a commitment resource-wise. I also seem to recall that it could do something(s) that might be problematic (or not possible) for Lotus Symphony.

       I'll try to find my notes and see if I can come up with some better reasoning on all of this.

       Your questioning me on this makes me think you might prefer Lotus Symphony. If so, I would certainly like to hear your (and anyone's) advice.

. . . . . . . Pete

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#9 of 43 Posted Nov-5 6:08 PM

From Hugh Wyn Griffith WUGNET Posts 218 Last 8:59 PM
To Peter Creasey [Msg # 193150.9 193150.6 ]

When you are leaning one way it's the right time to try the alternative. It's not as if you will be buying a product and wasting the money .....

Isn't one important reason, for you and for me, that LS will deal with LWP files .....

<< Support for a variety of file types including Microsoft Office and Lotus SmartSuite >>

Hugh

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#10 of 43 Posted Nov-5 6:27 PM

From Peter Creasey Posts 938 Last 6:55 PM
To Hugh Wyn Griffith WUGNET [Msg # 193150.10 193150.9 ]

>> Isn't one important reason, for you and for me, that LS will deal with LWP files <<

Hugh,   Yes, that's a good point although perhaps not a compelling one. As I understand it, I can use LWP to save LWP files as *.doc or *.xls files which then can be handled by OpenOffice.

       HOWEVER, included below are two of the potential show-stoppers for me as reported in the referenced ZDNet review.

[QUOTE]
Lotus Symphony is both bigger in download size and system footprint than OpenOffice.org. The download is 197MB and once installed the software takes up 404MB.

Lotus Symphony can't open OOXML files (otherwise known as Microsoft Office 2007's .docx), which could be a real show-stopper.
[END QUOTE]

ZDNet Review

       I am not enamored with the idea of a package as large as Lotus Symphony. And processing *.docx files is a primary reason for moving away from LWP. I would prefer to stick with LWP.

. . . . . . Pete

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#11 of 43 Posted Nov-5 7:33 PM

From Hugh Wyn Griffith WUGNET Posts 218 Last 8:59 PM
To Peter Creasey [Msg # 193150.11 193150.10 ]

I have so much disk space that the size of files or space used is irrelevant and if Lotus provides features that are useful then it is that which is more important for me.

But if you don't need something additional to the ordinary OO then no reason to choose otherwise although I suspect that support will be better on the Lotus version of OO?

Hugh

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#12 of 43 Posted Nov-5 10:27 PM

From Dale G. Shields (Wugnet) Posts 9146 Last 7:41 PM
To Peter Creasey [Msg # 193150.12 193150.8 ]

Nope, I was curious as to your personal opinion, for educational purposes. I looked at OO once and removed it and have not looked at the latest Symphont offereing. I have used Approach in a few scemarios but not the WP or Spreadsheet stuff...

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#13 of 43 Posted Nov-5 11:00 PM

From groucho Posts 1329 Last 8:01 PM
To caljeanmid [Msg # 193150.13 193150.1 ]

The deal is that somebody at Sun got pissed off at Bill Gates (probably over the Java wars) and they turned their own suite of products (then Star Office) into Open Office and told the world they could have it for free--just to take away revenue from Microsoft.

Open Office is not 100% MSOffice compatible, but then again, no two versions of MSOffice are 100% compatible with each other, either. The fancier you get, the more formatting and macros and fancy stuff you do, the better the chance you'll break something. But for basic work? Yeah, it is free and there's no catch. You are helping the folks at Sun to get their vengence against Microsoft's revenue flow.

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#14 of 43 Posted Nov-6 12:32 AM

From Ron Posts 35 Last 9:14 PM
To Hugh Wyn Griffith WUGNET [Msg # 193150.14 193150.5 ]

Have you tried Lotus Symphony to see if they have made any modifications to improve things? It's free and I gather is OpenOffice based.

Nah, and I don't really plan to at this stage. Since it's a stripped down version of Open Office anyway I really don't see the point. I did look around the web site though and I have to admit that some of the templates look a bit better than the ones that come with OOo.

I have it on my WIN 7 but I've not tried it out yet so I've no view on it apart from being a Lotus WordPro user from way back to the Baby AMI days ...

I don't go back so far I'm afraid and I've never used Lotus WordPro. My better half is a retired WordStar sigrat though. Does that count? (g) Anyway...

If you also have OOo installed perhaps you can give us a capsule side by side review of the two. Should make for an interesting comparison.

--Ron

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#15 of 43 Posted Nov-6 2:22 AM

From Hans Le Roy Posts 123 Last Nov-7
To Ron [Msg # 193150.15 193150.14 ]

Hi Ron,

I have used WordPro quite some time ago and was impressed, but the menus were weird (no Format).

I have used OpenOffice and I like it (actually I have some references at http://www.hlrnet.com/so-oo.htm) but help and support is weak (already said). In addition: there are very few templates in the presentation module, no database program, and quite some people complain about compatibility, even in documents without macros.

Kind regards

Hans

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