EastCoastAvenger
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|  #1 Posted on 15.7.05 2012.18
Reposted on: 15.7.12 2012.59 | Not sure if anyone has ever used this, but I found a pretty great program while searching for a way to use PowerPoint without paying through the nose.
Open Office (http://www.openoffice.org/) Offers an open source program that mimics the MS Office suite and can open and work with all the MS Office Programs. Pretty kickass overall and it actually improves on the program's interface. Much simpler to use.
Anyway, give it a try. | Promote this thread! |             | Mr. Boffo
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| #2 Posted on 16.7.05 0703.40
Reposted on: 16.7.12 0704.03 | | Yeah, I use it, as well as install it on every work computer (darn companies are too cheap to spring for MSOffice). I'd recommend turning off the Auto-Start. It seems to really hog a lot of resources. | emma
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| #3 Posted on 16.7.05 1611.51
Reposted on: 16.7.12 1612.14 | The one reservation I have about it is that the files that it writes (I'm talking specifically about the document editor & the spreadsheets) occasionally don't interoperate totally correctly with real Word or Excel. In the limited exposure I've had to this, I've seen font & layout problems particularly. IIRC, the fonts they have available are generally not the same ones that a standard Word installation has. They try to map as best they can, but that doesn't always work.
Soooo, if you're writing a resume to send out in Word format, you might want to think twice; however, if you're just doing stuff on one machine or among all OpenOffice installations, it works pretty nice, especially for the price! | tarnish
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|  #4 Posted on 17.7.05 1414.44
Reposted on: 17.7.12 1415.52 |
Originally posted by emma
The one reservation I have about it is that the files that it writes (I'm talking specifically about the document editor & the spreadsheets) occasionally don't interoperate totally correctly with real Word or Excel.
For what it's worth, though, oftentimes documents made with one version of Word or Excel don't interoperate well with other versions of Word or Excel. If Microsoft can't even get it right with their own software... 
Soooo, if you're writing a resume to send out in Word format, you might want to think twice
I do work in IT, so take this with an appropriate grain of salt, but if the HR department where I'm applying won't take an Acrobat file (i.e. they insist on a resume in Word format) I won't even apply.
| EastCoastAvenger
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|  #5 Posted on 17.7.05 1627.03
Reposted on: 17.7.12 1628.59 | Happy to see others use it also! I didn't know about the interoperation problems, only because I use it at home on my own computer.
The quickstart doesn't hog much at all on my computer. it seems to stay pretty steady at using about 484K. As a contrast, Opera (once I'm really going with about 12 tabs or more) takes up about 48,000.
But if you notice any problems, let them know. They seem to be pretty good about helping out. | Guru Zim
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| #6 Posted on 17.7.05 1821.44
Reposted on: 17.7.12 1821.45 | I also use OpenOffice.org on both my Windows and Linux machines, and my wife's Macintosh. We have fewer interoperability problems within our household using this setup - any computer can open the OO.o files and work with them -- which wasn't the case when one of us was on Word.
For my uses at home, I would never recommend MS Office. At work, I like the connectivity into Sharepoint and Outlook, and I love me some Excel But - I don't think any home user should buy the Microsoft product just to avoid interoperability issues.
MS hasn't offered a reasonable home solution, and I see no reason that OO.o shouldn't become that solution for regular people.
BTW - You can print to Adobe Acrobat format in OO.o, which is something that MS has not integrated (although I remember it being part of the 2003 beta, or so it seems...). If you are sending a "document" this is the format to choose, because you are pretty sure that it's going to look right at the other end. I say pretty sure because I've mangled a few PDF files with ghostscript on my Ubuntu machine, but that's probably my fault.
| Lise
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| #7 Posted on 19.7.05 2041.00
Reposted on: 19.7.12 2041.42 | I love Open Office which I'm running through X11 but I only use the word processor part of it. I've had no problems converting files with it, and everyone I send them to seems to have no problem opening them. The fonts sometimes go a bit weird if I don't use a standard font, but that's about it. I've had waaay more trouble with AppleWorks than Open Office, and I've all but stopped using the AppleWorks that came with my computer. The only funny thing is that it uses PC shortcut keys (control-v) as opposed to mac (open apple-v) so it can be a bit weird moving text between programs sometimes.
I also like that I can save any of my documents as .pdf files which has come in handy more than a few times. | | ALL ORIGINAL POSTS IN THIS THREAD ARE NOW AVAILABLE |
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