On Thu, 13 Jan 2011 22:32:38 -0000, 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.

Since you're buying your own laptop for work, it sounds as if you're
self-employed and therefore can put a ££££'s cost on your time. I
have found that OO worm processor is OK-ish for basic use (though
it crashes frequently when I try to do something even slightly complex)
The spreadsheet can do the basics of data manipulation and can
produce rudimentary graphs.

However, if you're already used to MS-Office and need to produce
complex presentations, my personal experience is that the amount
of time I *wasted* trying to get OO to do things that MSO can,
cost me more than the retail price of MSO.

For me, trying to use OO was a false economy.

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