Office Suites

[whotheheckami]

In amongst all the cleaning I've been doing today I've rebuilt one of the PCs at home. It's now whizzing along with a legal version of WinXP. However, I have blown up my copy of MS Office Pro and I don't really want to re-install the "copy" that I have.

I know I should go out and buy a copy , but I've heard that there are some very good alternatives to MS-Office. Can anyone point me at one that they would be happy to suggest.

Have you used Openoffice?

Comments

[flickgc.livejournal.com]

Open Office (http://www.mirror.ac.uk/mirror/sunsite.dk/openoffice/).

[whotheheckami.livejournal.com]

Thanks sweetie :@)
About to download it now to see if I can break it!

[alexmc.livejournal.com]

I recommend OpenOffice for all users except that there are a few things it can't do.

1) It isn't brilliant at combining spreadsheets and word processor files.
2) It doesn't have all the database connectivity that Excel has
3) the word processor is bad at tables (like my cv which has loads of tables).

There are alternatives such as AbiWord (recommended by ljproven several times), but go with OpenOffice now.

PS Keep backups of all your Word files now in case you really really need to go back to the original. I don't think you will as OpenOffice reads MS Word and Excel fine but if you try to share files with other MS Office users then you might have trouble.

goodluck!

[whotheheckami.livejournal.com]

Thanks for that. I'll bear your advice in mind, but I must admit to being somewhat worried by your comment of possibly having trouble when sharing files back and forth to MS-Office users. I tend to do this a lot.

[alexmc.livejournal.com]

It works great - but a couple of times my accountant has said that he couldn't read the files. I don't know whether this is a problem from sending floppies in the post or him not knowing how to use WinZip or what.

If you keep to simple stuff it will be fine. However if you regularly need to exchange complicated MS Office files with other MSOffice users then consider coughing up the dosh. (And this is me - Mr Open Source - saying that).

[whotheheckami.livejournal.com]

*grins* I know what you mean

[daveon.livejournal.com]

Other pain points are their version of Powerpoint really doesn't translate to Powerpoint very well, so it's useless for a salesy person like me.

[whotheheckami.livejournal.com]

That may prove to be a deal clincher for Mr Gates. I tend to use presentations in preference to reports and sharing them is a key requirement for me.

*looks for chequebook*
*notices NUS card* <--- I knew that would come in useful!

[bohemiancoast.livejournal.com]

Anyone with a schoolage child can buy a copy of Office that can be put on up to three household machines. Also anyone else can, provided they're happy to lie about it. For about £100, so still expensive but not actually outrageous.

[whotheheckami.livejournal.com]

That sounds like a cunning plan m'lord. I guess I'll be phoning my software pedlars in the morning. In the meantime I'm going to play with Openoffice

[bohemiancoast.livejournal.com]

Yes. To be legitimate, your child has to use the software; it's a student & teacher edition. It's also Office, not Office Pro, so this won't do if you need Access. But there's no form of license checking.

[whotheheckami.livejournal.com]

It's Kate and I who are the students. Does Office have Poewrpoint?

[daveon.livejournal.com]

Ah! NUS, that will do nicely.

Having a family member in MS helps too. The company shop discount is astounding.

But in all seriousness, the same family member used to work for Sun and found that Sun Office made their life hell when it came to sharing documents and presentations were the worst one.