In article ,
John wrote:
I am needing to get a laptop as I need to go away to do some work.

Has anyone got real experience of "Open Office" as an alternative to
Microsoft? It will make a difference to how I spend my budget if I don't buy
"Office". On my desktop I use Office 2003 with Outlook - I will think of
this as my datum.


I'm a massive opensource fan, and generally avoid MS software whenever
possible. I run MS office...

OO is ok for minor work - if you are working alone on spreadsheets or
word processing then it's fine. If you are hoping to exchange documents
with people who use MS Office then expect some pain.

Anything that uses VBA - forget it. Powerpoint conversions - ropey at best
IME. The word processor is fine, but if feeding it MS docs then there can
be font issues and other odd formatting incompatibilities.

Also, you mention Outlook - if you use that as an email client then fine,
switch to thunderbird. If however you use the calendaring part of outlook
you may be disappointed. Outlook calendaring has it's faults, but it's pretty
much the least **** option out there IME.

Also, if you plan to use Access equiv, stick with MS.

Not sure how long you are away for, but if it's only a month or so then I
think many laptops come with a 30 (or is it 60?) day trial of Office 2007
installed. Would that be long enough - you could do an extensive "evaluation"
while away :-)

Beware that it'll be Office 2007 or 2010 now - both massive improvements
on 2003 but a bit of a culture shock. I like the new interface, and most
heavy users I know do now. It was a big change though :-)

Also, Openoffice is a bit more resource hungry than recent MS Office
releases IME.

I see people have suggested the home and office version of Office as a
cheap alternative - that doesn't come with outlook. The standard version
does have outlook, but no Access. Professional is the full blown version,
but makes your eyes water with the cost...

Another thing to consider might be the online version of office. You might
be able to get onto the Beta for Office365 - not sure what the schedule
for this is now:

http://office365.microsoft.com/

Failing that, have a look at the live stuff - it's free and limited but
but might just be good enough?

http://www.officelive.com/

Of course, these assume you'll have a half decent internet connection.
If you won't have, forget I mentioned them :-)

Right, I'm off to wash my mouth out with soap now...

Cheers,

Darren