MegaSack DRAW - This year's winner is user - rgwb
We will be in touch
Is there anything like Microsoft office but for free, I only really want word so don't want to fork out for a version.
Open office is good.
2nd open office
[url= http://www.openoffice.org/ ]Openoffice[/url]
Also if you need just word you can buy just word [url= http://www.amazon.co.uk/Microsoft-Word-2007-Home-Student/dp/B000HCXKMQ/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=software&qid=1263644206&sr=8-2 ]MS Word 2007[/url]
Thanks think I give Open office a try.
OpenOffice is utter gash if you want to do anything more complicated than writing a thankyou letter to your nan.
MS Office isn't really that expensive is it?
[url= http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Microsoft-Office-Home-and-Student-2007-RETAIL-3PCs-1-Household-Non-Commercial ]£60 for Office 2007 Home & Student[/url], which can be legally installed on three different PCs.
Or if you're a student then [url= http://www.software4students.co.uk/Microsoft_Office_Standard_2007-details.aspx ]Office 2007 Standard for £39[/url]
What GrahamS said!
+1 for just buying the MS version. Open Office isnt that user friendly..
Never see a lot of shades of grey here does one.
I have used Open Office for about 6 years. Although it occasionally needs a little thought to clear up compatibility issues with good old Microsoft - who I am sure are not creating such issues just to put the likes of some of us off - I do all my writing, spreadsheets, presentations, tax etc. on it. I shift stuff between Open office at home and Microsoft office at work. Only irritation is if you forget to convert to MS proprietary format from OO open format before porting, no problem the other way and OO will open and work on and save in Doc or the other MS formats without worrying. Draw your own conclusion as to why MS can't/won't cope with the accepted open formats.
It updates as necessary. It has a significant group of developers working on it, funded by Sun IIRC and it is free FREE, not 60ukp and the same again whenever MS upgrades. Not nick your kids student card but FREE.
If you get very brave you can then resuscitate your old PC that won't run Windows 650B or whatever they are on now with Ubuntu or other Linux and still use Open Office seamlessly, and did I mention that it is FREE.
When it ships, Office 2010 Starter will be cut-down Word & Excel with some adverts down one side (for the full version of Office). That will be free, but I don't know if it will be available for download or just come with new PCs.
Graham S -1. Open Office beats MSOrifice by a long chalk.
+1 for OpenOffice. It just works.
Unlike MS Word for example which is broken.
Open Office is great and offers MS compatibility, but if you want free and lightweight how about Google docs as a cloud computing solution?
bassspine - MemberGraham S -1. Open Office beats MSOrifice by a long chalk.
+1 for basspine another minus one for graham s.
I use open office daily at work, I write quote, invoices, reports do complex engineering spreadsheets, create presentations manage projects and generally do anything MS Orifice can do but for free and with a smug geeky look on my face. It will take a day or two to shake the MSoffice feeling out of your system and then you'll be an open source convert.
BTW I use gimp instead of photoshop, in fact loads of my software is open source as my main work machine runs on linux.
open office looks like it was designed by a primary schoool kid...it might well work okay but the interface is important to me and since I had a choice I use Microsoft Office.
>OpenOffice is utter gash
Pah!
OpenOffice is fine.
The OH does a lot of work at home, whilst at work they use Office (various flavours).
The only problem she's ever had in shuffling (a lot of) documents between the two was with the latest version of Office, which has some xml nastiness built-in (c/o Micro$oft's infinite wisdom..well, trying to build in obsolescence more like) - and even that wasn't insurmountable.
In any case, 60 quid is 60 quid - not to mention you're chucking money at Microshaft...
Only irritation is if you forget to convert to MS proprietary format from OO open format before porting, no problem the other way and OO will open and work on and save in Doc or the other MS formats without worrying.
By "Microsoft proprietary format", I take it you mean [url= http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_Open_XML ]Office Open XML format[/url], the ISO/IEC standardized open format that they use. The same standards body that OO use?
Draw your own conclusion as to why MS can't/won't cope with the accepted open formats.
By "can't/won't cope", I take it you mean than having the ability to save in the OpenOffice odt format from within Word is somehow a bad thing that they've done to make it difficult?
🙄
generally do anything MS Orifice can do but for free and with a smug geeky look on my face
Well done. Conversely I used OO for a couple of months. I got bored with it crashing all the time and the Help being literally non-existent. The final straw came when I tried to do a Mail Merge of addresses from a spreadsheet and found the whole thing impossibly buggy and confusing.
The only problem she's ever had in shuffling (a lot of) documents between the two was with the latest version of Office, which has some xml nastiness built-in
Unlike the [url= http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDocument ]OpenOffice format[/url] of course, which is.. errr.. oh XML.
>I take it you mean Office Open XML format, the ISO/IEC standardized open format that they use. The same standards body that OO use?
I think you may have arse-about-face - whilst wikipedia may be inaccurate, have a look at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_Open_XML
Amonst various references is
http://www.infoworld.com/t/applications/iso-publishes-office-open-xml-specification-918
"OOXML was opposed by many on grounds it was unneeded, as software makers could use OpenDocument Format (ODF), a less complicated office software format that was already an international standard.
The debate became so embittered that IBM, which backs ODF, threatened in September to consider leaving standards bodies that allowed dominant companies such as Microsoft to wield what it perceived as undue influence. Microsoft was accused of leaning on countries in order to secure enough votes for OOXML to pass."
Basically, Microsoft attempt to (and are successful in) getting their standard ratified (tho' office 2007 appears to departs from it!), which promotes obsolency so everyone else has to follow a bunch of unneccessarily moving goalposts. Companies with existing Office installations at some point can only buy the latest version when they need more copies, and so the whole cycle moves on.
Just 'cos it's an 'open standard' doesn't mean it's a good idea for the industry.
>Unlike the OpenOffice format of course, which is.. errr.. oh XML.
FFS.
As I said, the *lastest* version of Office, which uses Open XML - I just couldn't be arsed to look it up. That's the nastiness I was referring to.
(To clarify, latest probably= 2007)
So what is exactly is the complaint here then?
[i]That they use proprietary formats?[/i] No they use an open XML based, openly published standard format.
[i]They don't work with other open formats?[/i] It can Open and Save OpenOffice format.
[i]They use XML?[/i] So does OpenOffice.
[i]They published their standard?[/i] Yes, after years of people asking them to they adopted an open standard and published details of it through a standards body.
[i]IBM thinks Microsoft is a bully?[/i] So what?
All this is irrelevant bollocks anyway. All I want is to be able to create documents, spreadsheets and presentations easily and quickly. For me, MS Office succeeds at the and OpenOffice doesn't.
I like open source, free software - but not so much that I'm blinkered to its faults.
I'm not prepared to endure endless crashes and useless help just so I can feel good because it isn't made by Microsoft.
I would agree. Open Office is shite of everyone else around you uses MS Office, esp. 2007. If you work alone then maybe it's not an issue? It does lack all the bells and whistles though.
Personally I use Abiword, Gnumeric and Latex (as well as OO), but still keep a Windows machine with Office because sometimes people send you documents that there are no easy way of modifying without MS Office. OO tends to screw with the layout etc.
Maybe just shell out for the real deal?
I've always found every version of MS Word disappointingly buggy and non-ergonomic. I use it at work most days and some of my docs are very large and complex. OO is about the same but it is at least free.
What I really need is professional publishing software and a document management system.
No denying Word has a few bugs. And it isn't great at doing very large (+100 page) documents.
But it's still waaahaay better than OO. 🙂
What I really need is professional publishing software and a document management system.
LaTeX and CVS?
Unlike the OpenOffice format of course, which is.. errr.. oh XML.
That doesn't really mean anything, XML is essentially the syntax used to describe the format, not the format itself.
OpenOffice is utter gash if you want to do anything more complicated than writing a thankyou letter to your nan.
I think my problem was with the straight dismissal with no justification or reasoning. I am therefore glad to see a little more discussion.
By "can't/won't cope", I take it you mean than having the ability to save in the OpenOffice odt format from within Word is somehow a bad thing that they've done to make it difficult?
As said above by others, Office 2007 and all before are, as I understand it, only able to read and write Open Document Format (ODF) files after the addition of a plug in that was provided by Sun Microsystems. I think that may now have been provided as part of a service pack by Microsoft but I have yet to come across a version of Office in the NHS or academia which has the plug in/service pack.
Microsoft's XML format is called Office Open XML which they appear to have shortened to OOXML ( as opposed to Open Office which shortens to OO and uses ODF which is also an XML format - not confusing at all ).
If I understand my googling correctly, for the moment Open office is one of the few programs that [i]can [/i]read and write the internationally agreed Office Open XML format and Microsoft Office itself won't be able to until Office 2010 comes out even though it is [i]their[/i] open format.
The Free Software Foundation also have a fair bit to [url= http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html ]say on the matter[/url].
In the end you pays your money, or not, and takes your choice.
what a brilliant thread!
Come on though.... Open office will do 99% of everything you need it to for a normal person, especially if they want it free. I have used it for a few years and thought it was great. There are some fairly abstract functions that office provides that open office doesn't but fordoing stuff for myself, it's got everything I need.
I've got the latest office on my PC now because my company got it cheap for employees but it's a big pile of poo as far as I'm concerned. Office peaked at 2003 for speed/usability/compatability and it's all gone haywire since then.
I like OO because it's free.
Other than that it can be a real pain in the arris to use.
You pays yer money you takes yer choice
only able to read and write Open Document Format (ODF) files after the addition of a plug in that was provided by Sun Microsystems. I think that may now have been provided as part of a service pack by Microsoft
Yep [url= http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=B444BF18-79EA-46C6-8A81-9DB49B4AB6E5&displaylang=en ]Office 2007 Service Pack 2[/url] added OpenDocument support in April 2009.
Well, the OP said an alternative to MS Office, so that'll be Open Office.
Use both, through several versions of each. MS Office latest with the ribbon instead of the standard menus is counter intuitive and horrible to use - I use this the most (at work) and it's affected productivity. Otherwise for application integration and data handling (access/excel and porting between all apps) it remains unbeatable.
If you're doing word processing, then Open Office 3.1 (That's the latest isn't it?) is pretty fine. Good for basic spreadsheets too!
Never used Google Docs, but guys at work do and think it's great. I'd say a bit marmite, but all at work hate the stuff...
I find open office doesn't deal with table and graphic placement at all well with docs created in word.
Google docs is even worse- just simple text formatting is all over the place..
And fwiw, I find the menu system in 2007 much speedier and to the point than 2003- ie page breaks in a single click rather than upto three.
Guess everyone likes and adapts to different things...
As open office is free, you might as well try it and see how you get on.