Open Office ?

[cityboy-stl]

I was wondering if anyone uses Open Office and if they're happy with it? I have MS Office 2000 which is getting pretty old. Plus I just reinstalled Windows and at the moment have no-office installed. So I was thinking about trying something else. The thing is though I must be able to share documents with MS Office users. I realize their website says it's compatible and can read excel, word etc but I must be able to write documents with Open Office that can be read with MS Office. That is unclear.

So I'd appreciate any opinions both good and bad anyone may have.

Thanks.

 

[gingentleman]

It has been my experience that OpenOffice interfaces seamlessly with the MS software, going in either direction. I have never had a problem with it.

 

[bigred_ii]

It really depends on the version of MS Office you need to be compatible with. If that version is Office 2007, then there are many incompatibilities. OpenOffice is good for anywhere from 80-90% compatibility with earlier versions, but if you ever get into any of the more advanced functions, then you may find they don't mesh so well. My boss uses OO exclusively (he is a Microsoft hater), and he does have problems with even simple Word documents (of Office XP or 2003 vintage) from our customers and vendors.

 

[Jannus]

My copy of OpenOffice Writer offers the following save options:

ODF Text Document (,odt)

ODF Text Document Template (.ott)

OpenOffice.org 1.0 Text Document (.sxw)

OpenOffice.org 1.0 Text Document Template (.stw)

Microsoft Word 97/2000/XP (.doc)

Microsoft Word 95 (.doc)

Microsoft Word 6.0 (.doc)

Rich Text Format (.rtf)

Text (.txt)

Text Encoded (.txt)

HTML Document (OpenOffice.org Writer) (.html)

DocBook (.xml)

Microsoft Word 2003 XML (.xml)

OpenDocument Text (Flat XML) (.fodt)

Some of the save options require that you have the Java runtime environment installed on your computer.

I do not have MS Office or Word on my computer, so I cannot test it to prove you can share documents between OO and MS Office. However, I have saved the Gettysburg Address from my copy of OpenOffice in four different file formats here:

http://www.4shared.com/dir/8142470/f36fe711/sharing.html

See if you can download and read them with your copy of MS Word (I'm running Linux, so no chance of a virus at my end). I didn't do any fancy formatting, unfortunately. I have saved them in the following four formats:

MS Word 6.0 (.doc)

MS Word 97/2000/XP (.doc)

MS Word 95 (.doc)

The standard Open Document format (.odt)



I use OpenOffice for everything. It's gets the job done every bit as well as I seem to remember from years ago when I used MS Office for everything. But I don't do any fancy desktop publishing or web site design or anything like that - just your routine small office stuff. I'm running Ubuntu 8.04 with OpenOffice 2.4.1.

 

[mike_n_herrin]

As already mentioned, it works well with most versions of office (haven't had a problem with it yet), but not really version 2007 (i've had computability issues with 2007 MS documents) ...at least not that i've heard yet. otherwise it's a EXCELLENT free alternative to MS office.

 

[cityboy-stl]

Thanks everyone. I guess I'll go ahead and download it and if it doesn't work out I can always uninstall it.

 

[looseliam]

I love open office.

I use it at home, and recently installed it at work.

Does what I need to do without problems.

And it's free.

 

[teadrinker]

I use Open Office, since I use Linux exclusively, and lots of documents I deal with at work are created with M$ Office. I have had very little problem with it.

-T.

 

[Paws]

I recently got a Word-document that didn't display correctly when opened with OpenOffice, but I think documents written with OO should display correctly in MS-Office Word.

Both Offices suck though and are bloated.