Sun Microsystems Open Office - Anyone Using?

[Belinda Barfield]

If so, any pros/cons you'd like to share? Considering switching to Open Office and would like some insight before I do so.

[Scott Shepherd]

If you're just doing your own thing, you'll be fine. It can open Word files strange some times. It messes the format up from time to time, depending on what format they saved it in. But it works well. It's all I've used for many many years now. I don't see a lot of Word files because most people don't supply graphics for my business in a word processor format, but every now and then, I'll get something squirrely that won't open right.

Give it a try, it's free :)

[Dan Hintz]

Be aware that Sun Microsystems is no longer (gobbled up by Oracle, unfortunately)... Open Office has been supplanted with LibreOffice, so I would suggest switching.

[Jim O'Dell]

I use it at work and at home, although maybe once every month or 2 at either place. What I have used it for, creating documents, it works well. I've not had a need to open Word docs yet, but I do have some saved in the new computer. Guess we'll see if they open one of these days.:rolleyes: Jim.

[mickey cassiba]

I used OO for a couple of years at my last job. I works...that's all. Resource light, no bells and whistles, but I could interact with folks who were using 'real' office. Your 'save as' button is your friend. You can save your doccs in a number of ways, including an option to save as MS office compatible. Like I said, it works. Just not fancy.
YMMV

[paul cottingham]

It works great. The compatibility issue is a red herring, as it has no more problems with word files than many of the later versions of office do with earlier versions of office. Can't recommend it enough.

[Bill Wiggins]

I actually have both on my laptop - Open Office (v2.4) and MS Office. I began using Open Office to avoid paying Microsoft. I've used it for several years. Now that my employer is a Microsoft Partner, I also use MS Office. As Mickey said, use "Save As" and the compatability issue is moot.

[Belinda Barfield]

Thanks all. I guess I'll give it a try. I can always go back with MS if things don't work out.

[Stephen Tashiro]

I've used Open Office for years and now use LibreOffice. In fact, I've forgotten how to use MS Word. Unless you are used to an editor which seems to have a mind of its own, I'd advise turning off the auto-formatting options in Open Office. Those features can give you a bad impression of it if you aren't used to them.

I find it surprisingly hard to do simple things in Open Office such as number pages so the title page of document isn't numbered and the first page of the main text is page 1. I've learned to do this by reading tutorials on the web that show how to use different "page styles". Perhaps this is also hard in MS Word, I don't remember.

That said, since I use Linux exclusively, I won't be using MS Word for anything.

[Bryan Morgan]

Sure. We even give it to some of our sales staff to use. Works fine for most tasks. Maybe some crazy macros don't work right if opening an MS file and occasionally there are formatting problems when opening an MS Word file but it works well otherwise.

[Belinda Barfield]

I use the Auto Correct function for phrases I type repeatedly. I'm not sure I could live without it. Is there a similiar function in OO?

[Chuck Wintle]

libreoffice seems to be ok in my opinion...or openoffice also.

[Curt Harms]

Watch out, Belinda!! it's fiercely expensive!:p. Download LibreOffice and install it. It should coexist with MS Office okay. They may fight over which one is the default application for a given file format e.g. .doc or .docx, dunno. I haven't had occasion to open complex Word files so don't know how that gets handled. You can choose the preferred file format to save in. The default is .odt (open document text). You can change that to save as .doc or docx as default. From what I've heard Libre Office handles .doc files very well. Some say .docx can be a little squirrely yet. Libre Office won't execute VBA macros. It'll apparently show them but won't run them. Changes and fixes came slowly under Sun's stewardship, the thinking is The Document Foundation will be more responsive.

http://www.libreoffice.org/download/
It'd probably be a good idea to download the helppack as well.

Here's documentation: http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/documentation/

Edit: I was looking through some stuff re Libre Office. It looks like it might now execute VBA macros from older versions of Word.

[Myk Rian]

I've used OO for years. There have only been a few documents written in MSO that did not open "correctly" that others have written. I suspect it was something special they put in the docs.

[Rick Gibson]

I've used OO for at least 10 years. Would never go back to MS office. I hate software that gets changed every year or so just so they can sell you new software. The price is right, install it play with it and get used to it, there are some differences in the way the program acts but once you are used to it it works great. If you don't like it you can always go back to shelling out big bucks to MS every few years for the latest update.

[Bill Cunningham]

I used lotus as a spread sheet for years, then My computer crashed (had everything backed up) but when I wanted to re-install my lotus, the disk was gone, and I have never found it.. I probably put it someplace so I would know where is was when I needed it.. (if I think about doing that with anything now, I might as well just throw it in the garbage because i will never see it again.:D) Anyway, I installed OO and I only used the spreadsheet function.. It has a few quirks that still bug me.. Like you have to put a = before a formula because it's not smart enough to recognize a formula from a single input text or numbers.. Other than than I grown accustomed to it's face..

[Dan Hintz]

It has a few quirks that still bug me.. Like you have to put a = before a formula because it's not smart enough to recognize a formula from a single input text or numbers.. Other than than I grown accustomed to it's face..
Excel does that, and considering the wide array of input types for the cells, it seems like a reasonable solution to me.