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.

In article ,
says...
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 use it, and wouldn't say there's much wrong with it. A few of the
finer features aren't quite there yet, but it's coming along all the
time.

Microsoft, of course, can provide you with dozens of case studies which
tell of people incurring vast costs when they swap to OO - but then our
borough has just moved the school from Office 2003 to Office 2007 and I
have spent ages holding the hands of the confused who can't use it - so
migration for some people is always going to be hard.

--
Skipweasel - never knowingly understood.

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 use it all the time. Once you learn it, it's easier than MS Office
IMO, and has 99% of the facilities. My only problem is an Access '97 DB
that I can't be bothered migrating.

If you're used to earlier versions of MS, the new one dunnarf come as a
shock, too. The new MS office document format's also not terrifically
compatible with earlier versions without the conversion utility off the
MS website. I'm told OO copes much better. It's also less resource
hungry than MS Office, IME.

You can even set it to save mostly in MS formats by default. Databases
are the only real weakness I've found.

Download it and give it a go, the price is certainly right, and support
is pretty good, too, via the web.

--
Tciao for Now!

John.

In article , John
scribeth thus
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.



Yes fine suite of the usual office type programmes. Know quite a few
people who use it in preference to MS Orifice let alone the cost
difference..

Dump the outlook for Thunderbird while your at it..
--
Tony Sayer

On 13/01/2011 22:32, 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.


Having read the other comments I would add that the conversion from .ppt
to OO presenter is very dodgy. The problem seems to be with text boxes
which expand in OO presenter.

malcolm

In article ,
says...
You can even set it to save mostly in MS formats by default.


And it does pdfs properly. Which is something Office doesn't do properly
at all.

--
Skipweasel - never knowingly understood.

In article ,
says...
Having read the other comments I would add that the conversion from .ppt
to OO presenter is very dodgy. The problem seems to be with text boxes
which expand in OO presenter.


Yebbut at least OO lets you embed Apple files - you ever tried showing
anything remotely resembling a Quicktime format in PowerPoint? It's a
copmlete and utter screwup.

--
Skipweasel - never knowingly understood.

Skipweasel wrote:
In article ,
says...
You can even set it to save mostly in MS formats by default.


And it does pdfs properly. Which is something Office doesn't do properly
at all.

Indeed it does. I use the export to PDF feature to send documents back
if I'm away from base, so they can't be easily altered. Nobody's
complained yet that one's come out garbled.

--
Tciao for Now!

John.

On Thu, 13 Jan 2011 23:04:46 +0000, John Williamson wrote:

If you're used to earlier versions of MS, the new one dunnarf come as a
shock, too. The new MS office document format's also not terrifically
compatible with earlier versions without the conversion utility off the
MS website.

A bit more than a conversion utility. For Office 2003, it gives pretty
seamless conversion in the forward direction, and the best job it can (if
new stuff is used) in the reverse direction.

And the format is at least 'open' now.

I'm told OO copes much better. It's also less resource
hungry than MS Office, IME.

Not sure about that bit. It feels slower on a similar machine, but it's
pretty good.

You can even set it to save mostly in MS formats by default. Databases
are the only real weakness I've found.

It can't save new Office format PowerPoint files but it can read them.

Not defending MS (heaven forbid!), just adding some info.
--
Use the BIG mirror service in the UK:
http://www.mirrorservice.org

*lightning protection* - a w_tom conductor

"John" wrote in message
...
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.

If you know anybody in full education (even primary/secondary school will
do) then you can have a full legit version of MS Office for £50.

Worth considering.

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.

I use OO all the time - it does a pretty good job, but I always end up
"proof-reading" critial stuff on the wife's PC with MS office and making
a few tweaks before sending anywhere; I suspect that's a font mismatch
issue between OO/Linux and MS-Office/Windows, though, so perhaps the
problem goes away with OO/Windows vs. MS-Office/Windows.

Possibly it's a non-issue these days anyway - I've not upgraded OO or the
underlying Linux OS for about a year.

cheers

Jules

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

On 14/01/2011 06:46, D.M.Chapman wrote:

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 :-)

You're kidding!? I use Office myself, and spend most of my working life
in a variety of businesses where the users, including myself, are all
'heavy users' (ie use it pretty well all day every day) and all of whom
are now on 2007. I genuinely can't think of anyone who has a good word
to say about it: personally I hate it with a passion and certainly have
no plans to change from 2003 on my home machines despite several years'
enforced experience on 2007.

I suspect that the only people who might like 2007 (I haven't even seen
2010) are complete newbies who will probably appreciate the more
contextual availability of commands).

David

In article , davidlobsterpot601
@hotmail.com says...
I genuinely can't think of anyone who has a good word
to say about it: personally I hate it with a passion and certainly have
no plans to change from 2003 on my home machines despite several years'
enforced experience on 2007.


My first brush with Office 2007 involved turning off most of the
annoying bits.

--
Skipweasel - never knowingly understood.

On Fri, 14 Jan 2011 06:46:31 +0000 (UTC), D.M.Chapman wrote:

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.

What he said. The only time I tried to use OO to edit a Word documnet
it was a right nightmare with formating, in both directions. If you
have no choice but to exchange stuff with MS users there isn't really
any choice, bite the bullet and use MS.

Some one has already mentioned the "educational discounts" available
if you are a parent or guardian of have a child (or grandchild!) in
full time education. ISTR some changes to the licencing rules in the
last year or so, have a google. There were several sites selling via
the scheme, I think I used:

http://www.software4students.co.uk/default.aspx

A very quick look shows MS Office Pro 2010 £38.95 for installation on
up to 2 PCs.

--
Cheers
Dave.

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.

--
http://thisreallyismyhost.99k.org/14...9405930740.php

In article , Huge wrote:
On 2011-01-14, dmc@puffin. (D.M.Chapman) dmc@puffin wrote:

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.

Hmmm. I do this all the time, and have had exactly zero problems going
MS Office - OO. I've come across one extremely complex s/sheet which
wouldn't convert MS - OO. I've never had any complaints from people to
whom I've sent docs & spreadsheets that actually came out of OO.

Spreadsheets and docs created in OO and saved to a MS format tend to be ok
(but I've seen issues with fonts - and footnotes IIRC). Opening MS docs in
OO less successful.

I've never used the database or drawing packages. I use Presenter to
display PPt and have never had any trouble with that. I've never done
a Presenter - PPt conversion.

The OO powerpoint equiv is the weakest part in my experience (I've not
tried it for a while mind - maybe it's improved). A whole world of pain
a year or so ago.

Overall, I'd happily never use MS Office ever again. Indeed, "I" don't,
since the Windows/Office laptop I have is provided by my employer. I use
Linux/OO.


Office is one of the MS products that seems pretty good - another is their
mice (I've a stash of Intellimouse in the drawer incase they stop making
them :-))

Darren

In article ,
Lobster wrote:
On 14/01/2011 06:46, D.M.Chapman wrote:

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 :-)

You're kidding!? I use Office myself, and spend most of my working life
in a variety of businesses where the users, including myself, are all
'heavy users' (ie use it pretty well all day every day) and all of whom
are now on 2007. I genuinely can't think of anyone who has a good word
to say about it: personally I hate it with a passion and certainly have
no plans to change from 2003 on my home machines despite several years'
enforced experience on 2007.

I suspect that the only people who might like 2007 (I haven't even seen
2010) are complete newbies who will probably appreciate the more
contextual availability of commands).


Newbies, yes, much easier as much of the complex stuff is hidden and doesn't
confuse.

Experienced users have to get over the "wtf!" that happens when they first
open it - most seem more than happy after a while.

Plenty of really heave users here who would never go back now. Office 2010
improves on things - 2007 was a first stab. Not sure we even offer or
support 2003 now tbh.

Darren

On 13/01/2011 22:32, 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.


A teacher friend of mine trying to electronically submit applications
forms for new posts in OO/Linux, came rather unstuck when these forms
(common to a few education authorities) written in Word, demanded that
the entered text be placed inside word table cell 'form fields'.

These are supported in OO/Linux, but in there the fields had their own
rules on placement inside the table cells, which precluded their being
any space to actually enter the data directly and see that it had been
entered correctly. Messing about checking this took my friend hours, and
there were still some fields he could not submit.

Taking the form across to OO/Windows using the same release version of
Open Office, I found that these form fields were completable in a
slightly different way - double clicking brought up a dialog box with a
contained entry field, but not in the Linux version. Strange. Still a
mess though.

In the end 'position is everything'. People are writing documents for
presentation, and the layout schema language and behavior for word
processors is obviously not as locked down universally as it is, say,
for different web browsers with standardised HTML.

If there is interchange expected with Office (or OO) users, then the
only real answer IMO is getting the same program yourself. Or, waste
time....

--
Adrian C

"Adrian C" wrote in message
...
On 13/01/2011 22:32, 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.


A teacher friend of mine trying to electronically submit applications
forms for new posts in OO/Linux, came rather unstuck when these forms
(common to a few education authorities) written in Word, demanded that the
entered text be placed inside word table cell 'form fields'.

These are supported in OO/Linux, but in there the fields had their own
rules on placement inside the table cells, which precluded their being any
space to actually enter the data directly and see that it had been entered
correctly. Messing about checking this took my friend hours, and there
were still some fields he could not submit.

Taking the form across to OO/Windows using the same release version of
Open Office, I found that these form fields were completable in a slightly
different way - double clicking brought up a dialog box with a contained
entry field, but not in the Linux version. Strange. Still a mess though.

In the end 'position is everything'. People are writing documents for
presentation, and the layout schema language and behavior for word
processors is obviously not as locked down universally as it is, say, for
different web browsers with standardised HTML.

If there is interchange expected with Office (or OO) users, then the only
real answer IMO is getting the same program yourself. Or, waste time....

--
Adrian C





Thanks for all the opinions. Really appreciated.

dmc@puffin. (D.M.Chapman) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were
saying:

If you are hoping to exchange documents with people who use MS Office
then expect some pain.

Expect that between versions of MS Office, too.

SWMBO applied for a job a while back. The application form was sent
through as a Word .doc (definitely created in Office, probably XP)

She opened it in 2k7 on Vista. The formatting was utterly unusable, and
the document had spread to about 95 pages.

I opened it in OpenOffice on Linux. It was utterly workable. Completed,
PDF'd and sent. Job jobbed.

On 14/01/2011 09:56, D.M.Chapman wrote:
In ,
wrote:
On 14/01/2011 06:46, D.M.Chapman wrote:

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 :-)

You're kidding!? I use Office myself, and spend most of my working life
in a variety of businesses where the users, including myself, are all
'heavy users' (ie use it pretty well all day every day) and all of whom
are now on 2007. I genuinely can't think of anyone who has a good word
to say about it: personally I hate it with a passion and certainly have
no plans to change from 2003 on my home machines despite several years'
enforced experience on 2007.

I suspect that the only people who might like 2007 (I haven't even seen
2010) are complete newbies who will probably appreciate the more
contextual availability of commands).


Newbies, yes, much easier as much of the complex stuff is hidden and doesn't
confuse.

Experienced users have to get over the "wtf!" that happens when they first
open it - most seem more than happy after a while.

Plenty of really heave users here who would never go back now. Office 2010
improves on things - 2007 was a first stab. Not sure we even offer or
support 2003 now tbh.

I think it's PowerPoint which causes me most angst in 2007. Just trying
to thing off the top of my head why...

- Files I'm working with are frequently worked on by others; even though
I always disable *every* bloody Autocorrect option there is (default
being all "on") other (less PPT-literate) users don't, and frequently I
find files I've been working on get totally marmalised unwittingly into
Microsoft's warped idea of how they should look - never mind the user's
house style.

- There are still plenty of users of v2003 out there (and I'm including
major multinational corporate environments here) and agencies I work for
have a requirement to be able to supply files in both 2003 and 2007
format. Now, the MS patch to enable interconversion between the two
formats is definitely *not* fully reliable - notably with charts - and I
have personally had to spend *days* recreating massive PPT files which
have been screwed by this process.

- I often come across a need to customise charts created in PPT - eg to
be able to use corporate branding colours rather than the 40-colour
palette imposed by MS - in the old days you could create the chart, then
at the end 'ungroup' it and customise away. However this 'ungroup'
option has been removed from PPT 2007 by MS. WTF? Recently several
people in an office I where I was working were scratching their heads
over this one... the solution: I emailed the file to myself at home;
saved the slide in PPT 2003, 'ungrouped' the chart, and emailed it back
to the office to rounds of applause. I believe the office now maintains
one machine running v 2003 for 'emergency' use.

I'm sure there's more...

David

"John" gurgled happily, sounding much like they
were saying:

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.

We use OpenOffice exclusively in the business, and have for years. No
problems whatsoever with exchanging documents back-and-forth. (You really
shouldn't be sending customers .DOC/.XLS anyway - unless they absolutely
need to edit them - send PDFs)

Is it perfect? No. But neither's MS Office - by a LONG way. I've done a
separate reply that gives my experience of formatting compatibility, so
won't touch that here. I prefer MS Office for outlining, for example, but
it's just a slightly different way of doing things - easy to get your
head around.

One thing worth knowing is that OpenOffice is in the throes of forking at
the moment, following Oracle's purchase of Sun. The DocumentFoundation's
LibreOffice is in 3.3 beta at the moment - and is the "true" successor to
the current OpenOffice.org 3.2. I don't know what Oracle will do longer
term, but I think the community will move to LibreOffice generally.

It's worth remembering that if you're buying just a copy of Office that
Home-and-Office O2k10 doesn't include Outlook. For that, you need Home-
and-Business. At that point, it starts to become worthwhile considering
buying it as an OEM licence with a new PC...

Sorry, bad form etc. Forgot to add...

I don't really use PPT, so can't comment on OO's presentation tools.
Spreadsheets, I'm not a heavy-heavy power user - usually because there's
far better ways of doing most of the things heavy-heavy power users of
spreadsheets do... Word processing I do use reasonably heavily, but not
for mailmerge etc.

But - at the end of the day - try 'em both.

OpenOffice is free anyway.
MS Office you can download a 30-day trial.

Install 'em, try 'em, use 'em - see which YOU prefer.

In article , Huge wrote:
On 2011-01-14, dmc@puffin. (D.M.Chapman) dmc@puffin wrote:

Office is one of the MS products that seems pretty good

You need to speak to my wife about my paroxisms of incoherent rage trying
to get Word to do what I want. I suspect I have been angrier then than at
any other time. And I'm a kind of angry person. I would cheerfully watch
Bill Gates flayed and boiled alive in brine made from his own urine because
of some of the things that Word does.


Heh, I'm not disagreeing with that - just that OO annoys me even more

MS Office appears to be best of a crap bunch.

WP5.1 ftw

I'll stick to LaTeX

"John Rumm" wrote in message
...
On 14/01/2011 00:11, JoeJoe wrote:
wrote in message
...
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.

If you know anybody in full education (even primary/secondary school will
do) then you can have a full legit version of MS Office for£50.

The licensing has changed a bit on the latest version. They now have a
"Home & Student" version which is legit for home use (without need for an
educational tie in) or student use. Its a bit more pricey at about £100.
The retail version is £10 more than the OEM one, but the better version to
buy since it lets you install it on up to three machines.

http://www.microsoft.com/uk/education/studentoffer/

In article , Adrian
scribeth thus
dmc@puffin. (D.M.Chapman) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were
saying:

If you are hoping to exchange documents with people who use MS Office
then expect some pain.

Expect that between versions of MS Office, too.

SWMBO applied for a job a while back. The application form was sent
through as a Word .doc (definitely created in Office, probably XP)

She opened it in 2k7 on Vista. The formatting was utterly unusable, and
the document had spread to about 95 pages.

I opened it in OpenOffice on Linux. It was utterly workable. Completed,
PDF'd and sent. Job jobbed.

I suppose MS office like most all MS stuff makes some money for PC
suppliers so these are what will be sold and people will tend to use as
they think thats what we have to use and thats the standard so...
--
Tony Sayer

In article , pete no-
scribeth thus
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.


I know someone who tried OO and then dis'ed it off as the spawn of
Satan..

What they had dome was saved their documents in the ODF format and then
mailed them to all 'n sundry who of course couldn't open them..

When told how to save in different formats their opinion dramatically
changed;!..

Not suggesting that your problems were that simple but it goes to show..

Course the OP can download OO and try it all for free as long as he
likes..
--
Tony Sayer

On Fri, 14 Jan 2011 12:16:45 +0000, tony sayer wrote:
In article , pete no-
scribeth thus
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.


I know someone who tried OO and then dis'ed it off as the spawn of
Satan..

What they had dome was saved their documents in the ODF format and then
mailed them to all 'n sundry who of course couldn't open them..

When told how to save in different formats their opinion dramatically
changed;!..

Not suggesting that your problems were that simple but it goes to show..

Course the OP can download OO and try it all for free as long as he
likes..

The biggest issue I had with OO was its inability to produce complex
charts. It was adequate for a simply wiggly line with one dependent and
one independent variable. However for stuff that needed to illustrate
complex relationships and show annotated / highlighted features it
lacked all the important facilities.
This was not the only showstopper, but it is the one that stands out
in my mind as the most limiting and "un work-around-able" of its
failings.


--
http://thisreallyismyhost.99k.org/14...0020331897.php

On 14 Jan 2011 11:06:24 GMT, Adrian wrote:

One thing worth knowing is that OpenOffice is in the throes of forking at
the moment, following Oracle's purchase of Sun. The DocumentFoundation's
LibreOffice is in 3.3 beta at the moment - and is the "true" successor to
the current OpenOffice.org 3.2. I don't know what Oracle will do longer
term, but I think the community will move to LibreOffice generally.

A couple of days ago I downloaded LO 3.3 latest release, uninstalled OO and
installed LO. It picked up the mods that I'd made to OO in spite of the User
files having gone from Docs and Settings - not too worried as it saved some
work.

OO 3.2 took, to open a spreadsheet, about 15 - 16s; LO takes 25 - 26s, so
back to OO2.x days! For comparison, Excel 2003 takes 2s!

It'll be interesting to see how the Final of LO 3.3 performs and if
http://go-oo.org/ will do anything with it.
--
Peter.
The gods will stay away
whilst religions hold sway

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.


It has its quirks, but works well enough for most purposes.

On Jan 13, 10:32*pm, "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.

They're as good/bad as each other. Just different sets of issues.

If you want to move docs between the two then make sure you have all
the right fonts installed on both machines. I've had issues with
drawings not appearing the same.

Just recently OO hung completely when trying to import a Word doc.

MBQ

On Jan 13, 11:21*pm, Skipweasel wrote:
In article ,
says...

You can even set it to save mostly in MS formats by default.

And it does pdfs properly. Which is something Office doesn't do properly
at all.

Any free print to pdf copes with that, and supports all your other
apps too. PDF995 has worked flawlessly for me.

MBQ

On Jan 14, 7:50*am, Lobster wrote:


I suspect that the only people who might like 2007 (I haven't even seen
2010) are complete newbies who will probably appreciate the more
contextual availability of commands).

David

I have no real issues and have been using Office or Word since Win3.1.
It's a bit of a shock at first but no real problems.

MBQ

In article , lid says...
If there is interchange expected with Office (or OO) users, then the
only real answer IMO is getting the same program yourself. Or, waste
time....

I use OO at home and regularly send papers to the school which uses
Office 2003 (or 2007 since last week - haven't tried this trick yet) and
I've not had any noticable problems.

One obvious trick is for simpler stuff at least, to use .rtf format.

--
Skipweasel - never knowingly understood.

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'll just throw in my opinion. I use Open Office all the time (as I use
a Linux system I don't have the choice of using MS Office!). It works
fine, I've not found anything I can't do. The main limitation is that
very complex documents in Microsoft formats can get their formatting
mangled - but this can happen between different versions of Microsoft
Office too. There's no equivalent to Outlook, if you want
calendaring/mail you could try Evolution - it's supposed to integrate
with Exchange but I've never tried to do that.

I would suggest you try it - it won't cost you anything more than a bit
of time if you don't like it.

"Mike Humphrey" wrote in message
o.uk...
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'll just throw in my opinion. I use Open Office all the time (as I use
a Linux system I don't have the choice of using MS Office!). It works
fine, I've not found anything I can't do. The main limitation is that
very complex documents in Microsoft formats can get their formatting
mangled - but this can happen between different versions of Microsoft
Office too. There's no equivalent to Outlook, if you want
calendaring/mail you could try Evolution - it's supposed to integrate
with Exchange but I've never tried to do that.

I would suggest you try it - it won't cost you anything more than a bit
of time if you don't like it.




From the OP

Went to possibly buy a laptop today ( However, I like to compare what I am
being sold with the Manufacturer's site to ensure the model is current
before spending)

Some good ones - 4Gb Ram 500Gb HDD, etc. However, many are end of line
models.

I decided I want (not necessarily need):

4Gb RAM
HDMI Socket (Who knows, at some time I may wish to connect it to a new TV)
Separate Number Pad
LED Back Lighting

Currys had the best display - but a lot of end of range.

Most I noted down as of interest don't seem to be on the makers web sites. -
Off for a pint!

"John Rumm" wrote in message
...

they might not do an academic package again. One detail possibly worth
noting on the academic ones, is that once you cease being a student, the
license also ceases. (not that I expect they do anything to enforce this)

I think you need to check on that.

John wrote:


Currys had the best display - but a lot of end of range.

Don't forget that the latest and greatest will be end of range by Spring.

I'd not worry about it too much, the one I'm using now was end of range
four years ago, and it still copes very well, after a new battery a
couple of years ago, which is now coming to the end of its life, and a
couple of HDD upgrades. Dying batteries are the main reason for laptops
coming to the end of their useful life. Pick a make like Lenovo, Toshiba
or HP for long term parts support.

--
Tciao for Now!

John.

In article ,
John Rumm wrote:

they might not do an academic package again. One detail possibly worth
noting on the academic ones, is that once you cease being a student, the
license also ceases. (not that I expect they do anything to enforce this)


Not the case for most of the deals - it is true for software licensed under
MSDNAA though (IIRC).

http://www.software4students.co.uk/S...e-article.aspx

"You receive Full Professional version software at an academic price for
lifetime use at home only"

Darren