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Friday, January 16, 2009

Do you use OpenOffice?

Jan 16 2009 1:41PM | Permalink |Comments (16) |


I recently bought a used laptop. It came with a copy of OpenOffice, a free office suite from Sun Microsystems. I like the idea of using free software and of not having to use Microsoft Office, but I have a concern: information transfer. Thus, I had to install Microsoft Office anyway .

OpenOffice (I'm using version 2.4) does a reasonably good job of saving files in MS Office format. I've noticed that an spreadsheet saved as Excel from OpenOffice is larger in size than the same content saved with Excel 2000 or 2003. Thus, I hesitate to use OpenOffice where I need to share files with MS Office users. I noticed that Excel 2003 won't even recognize OpenOffice files in their native format.

Do you use OpenOffice at home or at work? Do you use it to process engineering data? Why or why not?


Related entries in: (see also Design for Test/Built-in Self-Test) | Computers | Measurement Software | PCs | Test & Measurement | Topical Taxonomy--Electronics | 

Reader Comments



at 1/16/2009 5:57:50 PM, Richard V. Hale said:
I'm a power user of MS Office and Open Office 3.0 both offer desirable
features and have flaws. When a brick wall is hit with one the other usually
will save the day. An Absolute Must for
Mission Critical Environments (High Visibility Essential Safety Related Engineering Documents).

I have no financial interest in this product.

All the Best,

R.





at 1/17/2009 10:27:48 AM, rm said:
I use OpenOffice exclusively (the rest of my company is a MS-only shop), and I've never had any problems transferring files back and forth.




at 1/17/2009 10:58:13 AM, BSD Guy said:
I tried to use Open Office, but the search function in the word processor stinks. I went back to Apple's Pages word processor and haven't looked back. This is a good reminder to purge OpenOffice from my system.




at 1/18/2009 3:52:05 PM, Martin Rowe said:
Is there any advantage to downloading OpenOffice 3.0 or just stay with 2.4?

Richard Hale: please send me an e-mail to m.rowe@tmworld.com. I'd like to talk more about OpenOffice. Thanks.



at 1/29/2009 2:39:05 PM, Tony said:
Where OpenOffice shines is as part of the PortableApps suite that lets you take it with you on a USB flash drive or HDD. That's how I use OpenOffice, Firefox, Filezilla, etc. Feature-wise OO is fine, but still seems a little clunky - but I've had no major problems. Also, there are other versions with better MS compatibility (Go-oo), a hosted on-line version (Ulteo Online Desktop), etc.



at 1/29/2009 2:58:48 PM, Jim Anderson said:
It is naive to think that MS is ever going to open any of their competitors' products in their native format.

An advantage to non-MS products is that most virus authors want to get the biggest bang for their effort so they target the market leader - MS.




at 1/29/2009 6:28:34 PM, Pony said:
My brother uses OpenOffice and he loves it!
Why?
Coz' it's FREE.... :D



at 1/29/2009 7:46:00 PM, Beemer said:
I have been using OO 2.4 exclusively since it came out. I tried 1.x earlier but it had issues. V2.4 has been great. Looking forward to the built-in pdf editing in 3.1 but I have not had a chance to install it yet. Only problem I have had is the font set between Linux and Windows. (ie some of the fonts in the documents are not available in Linux and the substitutions are sometimes not optimal)



at 1/30/2009 12:54:59 AM, Fixpir said:
Switching from Office 2003 to Open Office 3 in order to be OO only on my next PC. Some differences, and I am so much used to my word 2003 ! Approx same amount of change than with Office 2007.
I agree with R Hale ; For example, the free OO3 accepts to read AND edit the new formats pushed by Off2007 (docx, xlsx ppsx etc...). It is only possible to read with Off2003 (paid for to Microsoft not so long ago a hefty price !).



at 1/30/2009 3:10:55 PM, Charlie said:
The Open Office spreadsheet can not hold a candle to Excel 2000 (although the "upgrades" to Excel from MS since then have rendered it closer to Open Office). Critical functions are graphics (Open Office way too slow when you have a lot of data), missing the ability to write my own macros (i.e., reading instrumentation directly into a spread sheet, with near real-time graphing), and a limited set of built-in functions (I especially like MS's FFT function). With respect to word processors, I have trouble with Open Office mostly due to a lack of experience- I am still trying to figure out how to keep my pictures from jumping around all over the place when I correct a spelling error in the text...



at 1/31/2009 11:00:38 AM, TurtleWax said:
I use both. For company documents I us MS. For notes, personal docs, and home computers I use OpenOffice exclusively.



at 2/4/2009 8:39:42 AM, Martin Rowe said:
I've upgraded to OO3. It has better MS compatibility. I used the presentations app the other day and i found it easy to use. I now write everything on that PC on OO3, but I set it to save everything in MS format in case I have to open the files on my desktop PC. That one as MSO 2000 and WordPerfect 11.



at 2/6/2009 8:05:27 PM, Fabian said:
In our company we've migrated all our desktops to OpenOffice since v1.00 and we haven't experienced any major problems, though it has greatly improved in v3.0. Neither OpenOffice nor MS Office are perfect programs, both have their bugs and irks, but in my opinion, the issues in OOo are more bearable than those on their commercial counterpart. Additionally, the OOo native format (OpenDocument) is a well defined ISO standard (ISO 26300) that will not lock-in YOUR documents in a propietary format. Unless you have a big document base with heavy use of convoluted MS Office macros, OpenOffice is a good alternative that will give you nearly 95% of MS Office features without paying a dime.



at 2/10/2009 11:13:29 AM, Martin Rowe said:
Someone just sent me a manuscript in pdf, txt and odt format. To edit the work on my company issued PC, I have to use the txt version or copy and paste the text from the pdf version into word. Fortunately, I have a spare PC that I use for evaluating software. IT gave me admin privilages as long as I keep the computer off "their" network. So, I'm using my on-network PC to download OpenOffice onto a USB thumb drive, which I'll then use to install OpenOffice on the off-network PC. Then, I can save the document in the proprietary, nonstandard .doc format and edit. On the other hand, maybe I'll edit the document in OpenOffice and save it as .doc at the end.




at 2/24/2009 6:02:26 AM, Klave said:
I have yet to find a spreadsheet that gets close to Excel in speed, especially charting. Plotting a few columns of a few thousand points is a breeze with Excel but stops both Corel and OO DEAD, both become unusable! Although OO has some very classy graphics capabilities, like rotating your shapes in 3D this is not enough for an engineering environment. Whenever I need an exotic feature (for me anyway) a quick search finds that Excel can do it. Its so fast that I can animate effects like charting, updating a chart in response to a scrollbar. When it doesn't have a feature, someone has written one and it's on the web (eg bitwise logical functions)

GK



at 6/29/2009 4:27:16 AM, George said:
When it comes to Microsoft, there is no free, just pay up!.

You may try SSuite Office for a free office suite. They have a whole range of office suites that are free for download that will meet all your demands. Their software also don't need to run on Java or .NET, so it makes the software very small and efficient.

You can try these links:

www.ssuitesoft.com
ssuite5element.webs.com/thefifthelement.htm

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