I hate to go negative, but Open Office sucks for about 90% of what I want to use it for

[Orrex]

Not "is slightly different from MS Office" but rather "completely sucks."

There are so many functions in the various Microsoft applications that can be accomplished with a single keystroke but which require four or five separate steps in Open Office. I recognize that it's a crowd-sourced labor-of-love, but if your goal is to duplicate the functionality of the much more expensive system, why wouldn't you at least attempt to duplicate the most basic functionality?

Stuff like importing tables into the database application, or exporting query data. These can be done with a one or two mouse-clicks in MS Access; is there a similarly streamlined process in Open Office?

It seems the developers must have had this exchange at some point:

Bob: "Should we make it easy for the user, or should we add four or five random and arbitrary obstacles?"

Sally: "To hell with it. We can rely on our online defenders to justify any half-assed crap that we stuff into this thing."

[Lionessa]

1. I tried it a few years ago and decided to revert back to using my really old Office Suite

as it was better than the newest OO.

In other words, I agree wholeheartedly.

It is one of the few open projects I really don't like. Most are pretty good.

[liberal N proud]

2. For anyone who uses Word on a regular basis, it would suck

But, if it was all you can get your hands on, it works. I used it for a while and was grateful to have an editor.

[RebelOne]

3. Open Office meets my needs, plus it is free. n/t

[Old and In the Way]

4. I think if you've been a user of MS Office for years, the Open Office suite can be frustrating

I use both, particularly the spreadsheets. I'm more comfortable with Excel because I'm used to the command structure. If I were starting out with no experience with either, I would probably go OO (or Libre Office which is the true open source suite now...Open Office is Oracle's free office suite). For one thing, you don't have to worry about the product becoming obsolete.

[hunter]

5. What sort of work are you doing? It sounds hideous...

Just my thoughts here, not to refute your observations --

I don't like Open Office either, nor it's new incarnation, Libre Office, which is where the OO developers went after Oracle bought Sun and assimilated what was left of it.

The original OO wasn't trying to compete with Microsoft, and it wasn't "crowd sourced." It was StarOffice an ancient office suite predating Microsoft Windows. If you'd been using StarOffice the last quarter century, you'd be right at home...

Knowing it's not always possible, I do my very damned best not to create complex hybrid documents of any sort because doing so will surely bite me (or someone else) in the ass later if the documents ever require updating or revision, or even if someone simply wants to look at them twenty years from now.

I wrote all my college stuff using vi and (hah, hah) the Atari version of Paperclip. I can still access all those documents easily. No reason to get rid of them because they take up so little room. Every time I get a new computer the new hard drive is so much larger than the last there's plenty of room for all the files on my old computers to be reincarnated on the new machine.

If you can afford Microsoft products, and you are comfortable in that environment, there's no reason to use Open Office. You'll be frustrated if you do. (And it'll be really funny if some Apple people show up on this thread to say how bad Microsoft Office sucks.)

[Art_from_Ark]

18. Microsoft Office for Mac does suck

in that the newest version has added an x to the ends of file names just so the older version can't read the damn things. I don't really want to spend $100+ to "upgrade" to the newer version just so I can read docx and pptx files, with no other benefit.

Also, when I'm doing a translation from Japanese to English, Word will often change the font type and/or size on its own, just to be ornery.

[csziggy]

6. Both Open Office and MS Office suck - WordPerfect Office RULES!

I've used WordPerfect since the first Windows version - before that I used a shareware word processor that used the same keystroke shortcuts as WodPerfect for DOS used. Using Word sucks big time and most of the time I can't get anything done in that piece of crap. The only reason I own MS Office is that a cheap version came with my laptop.

The 2007 version of MS Office hid so much of the menu I am only now getting so I can find commands. One of the things I love about new versions of WordPerfect is that they are consistent about the keystroke shortcuts AND you can set the menus to emulate older versions if you want. You can even set it to MS Word mode if you want, though why anyone would ever want to, I can't fathom.

The other thing I like is that I can buy a OEM version for really, really cheap. If I needed to have the latest version, I can buy a WordPerfect Office X5 Standard Edition OEM with a CD and license for $14.95. The same source has Office 2010 Home and Business OEM for *only* $158. Yeah, I want to pay ten times as much for a program that drives me crazy and pisses me off.

[hobbit709]

8. My first WordPerfect was 5.0 for DOS, I'm now using X5.

you couldn't pay me to use Orifice. WP will open and save in the original format of a much wider range of documents. Office won't even open older versions of it's own documents.

[csziggy]

16. I was introduced to WordPerfect with their first Windows version

But if I set it to WP 5.1 emulation, I could use the same keystrokes I had learned with the shareware word processing program I had used in DOS 5.0. That old shareware program - it may have been PCWrite - had been emulating WordPerfect.

And those same keystrokes STILL work in WordPerfect X4, which is what I have now. I don't even need to change the settings. I had to access some old contracts that I had copied off 5.25" floppies onto 3.5" floppies then to CDRs - no sweat with WP. The only time I've had trouble opening any document is with Word files from the newest versions when I haven't had a chance to update WP to get the capability.

Word on the other hand changes with every version so you have to relearn it's increasingly crippled bloated ways every time you are forced into an upgrade. I only use it to make it easy to open the crap other people send me. If the laptop hadn't come with the 2007 version, I would have simply found the Word Viewer and downloaded it. Or updated WP.

[HopeHoops]

10. WordStar was the best - exactly the same interface on all platforms.

It took WordPerfect three years on the market just to be in the same ballpark with WordStar. And Excel was an underpowered rip-off of Lotus 1-2-3 which was ITSELF an underpowered rip-off of VisiCalc.

[csziggy]

15. My Mom used WordStar and loved it

It was the only computer program she ever got good at using. When her 286 died, I had to copy WordStar over onto the 486 (with Windows 3.1 and Dos 6.2) that replaced it so she could keep editing the quarterly she helped get out. But when she moved to Windows XP, that old version of WordStar would not run anymore.

The problem is that WordStar got way too expensive and there was no good upgrade or entry path to it. I tried to get a copy of WordStar for Windows for Mom and it was several hundred dollars. Instead, I set up WordPerfect to emulate WordStar and she used it until she retired from editing the quarterly.

When Microsoft was bundling Word with nearly every computer, WordStar just was too expensive for people or companies to justify the steep price. I was lucky - the last commercially made computer I bought had WordPerfect bundled with it. Since then I've built my own computers (except for the laptop) and buy OEM software to run.

[TreasonousBastard]

19. Wordstar was pretty cool, but then Wordstar 2000 came out and blew everything away...

they killed themselves with a first version written in C that was crap, but when the final came out it was fantastic.

For DOS, anyway.

Then they disappeared.

[HopeHoops]

23. I still have it on an Apple II with a Z-80 card and an 80 column card.

Then again, I also have Paperback Writer on my C=64.

[MorningGlow]

26. I LOVED WordStar

It was the first word processing program I ever used. My favorite feature: F9 or F7 (can't remember). It swapped two letters within a word. Schweet--perfect for minor typos.

[TreasonousBastard]

20. I've still got WP12 around for when...

I need something only it does, but I don't do that much serious work any more, so AbiWord is more than I need for just writing stuff.

X5 for 15 bucks? I paid something like 10 bucks for my OEM WP 12, but registering it was problematic and that place is no longer.

[csziggy]

21. I've been buying software from my source for years with no problems

With service or registration, even with operating systems. Some software they can't give good discounts on, like Adobe stuff, but some they have fantastic deals. I'll PM you the source.

While I don't do as much work as I used to, I still like having WP around for any formatting. And actually, last year I edited two small family books with WP. Being able to work with tables, graphics, photos and a variety of fonts all with one program is great.

The new versions can convert to PDF so I even have the books in PDF format for distribution to the nieces and nephews. I did cheat a little on that, though. I never did figure out how to preserve the formatting on individual pages when assembling a master document, so I saved sections as PDFs, went to Kinko's and rented a computer with Acrobat on it for an hour and assembled the entire document. MUCH cheaper than buying the full version, even from my discount place.

[TreasonousBastard]

22. Between Reveal Codes and PDF export, I couldn't see using anything else...

but WordPerfect when I was doing all those newsletters, although Libre Office and OO have PDF export now. Don't remember if they read PDFs like WP X5 supposedly does.

One cute little thing WP always had is adding the postal bar code when you print an envelope. LO doesn't do that on the version I have. Must be a thousand things other things buried in there I never noticed.

(It's the little things that count.)

[csziggy]

24. The PDF export was a really nice surprise with X4

When I had to upgrade because my older versions wouldn't run in Win7.

I was just starting to work on editing the two family books and thinking about getting Acrobat to get to PDFs when I got it.

Now I need to decide if I want to figure out Master documents and how to maintain various kinds of formatting in the sub-documents, or just do as I did with the small books. I'm going to completely re-work the family histories and don't want to have to spend the time assembling them at Kinko's. I may just go ahead and get the cheap version of Acrobat from BuyCheapSoftware.

X4 does a pretty good job with PDFs **IF** they are OCR documents. Some PDFs are just page images and not OCR and WP X4 treats them like any other graphic.

Unfortunately most Google and Internet Archive book PDFs are multi-page images saved as PDFs. They do have text versions, but the OCR quality is mediocre at best. I get a lot of old family and local histories from those sources and have learned the hard way to get both versions when I can. Then I can search the text version, copy and paste the text, and correct it using the PDF images.

[hobbit709]

27. I've had both WP11 and 12 work on 7.

[csziggy]

28. I think my old version was WP 10 or maybe even 8

It was really old. I only upgrade when something breaks or if I really, really need the new features. Or, in the case of Photoshop, to maintain a current license so I can upgrade without paying for a whole new version- which I need to do this year.

Software for me is like my truck - if it runs reliably, does what I need and there is no compelling reason, I don't replace it. And when I do buy a replacement, spend as little money as needed to get the functionality I have to have.

Anyway, I tried to load the version I had, it wouldn't load even with Win7's compatibility mode. And since the OEM version was less than $20 including S&H, I just went for that. I'd already wasted more than $20 of my time trying to get the old version to work.

[TreasonousBastard]

29. You lost me a little there...

Before upgraded to 12, I had PDf export on WP 10 that I got with the Family Pack, and I'm sure it was there long before that version. For years Corel, or whoever owned it before them, had a deal with Adobe to create PDFs one or two versions prior to whatever Adobe was selling with Acrobat.

I rarely did a whole book, but every month I did a bunch of 10 page newsletters that I formatted in WP, graphics, photos&all, and then exported to PDF. I used PDF primarily for emailing them, since it would look the same on whatever setup the recipients had, but also printed directly from the PDFs with no problem-- it was usually less hassle than printing from WP.

Corel also sells something called PDF Fusion that I'm tempted to get every time they email me one of their deals. You might want to check it out--

http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=6165&review=corel+pdf+fusion

[csziggy]

30. It may have been in one of my earlier versions - I just didn't need it

And I know there wasn't that nice little PDF button for the menu bar.

The books I did were actually re-edits of some Mom put together forty years ago - one for each side of the family. Hers were old fashioned paste ups, B&W copies on regular Xerox machines, legal size paper. I wanted them in a standard page size, better copies of the photos, documents and clippings, and in electronic format for the next generation that doesn't want to carry printed copies around.

About half way through the second one, I started learning about master documents, but my formatting fought me too much to be able to take advantage in the time I had. I got the books finished and made printed copies in time for Mom & Dad's 65th wedding anniversary. Mom was thrilled.

Now I'm updating the genealogy research and plan to make new books with the additional information. But these will be much bigger and detailed. If I am making them from scratch, rather than just doing new layouts of Mom's original material, I should be able to start a master document to set up the overall formatting, have sub-documents for each chapter, and keep the formatting consistent throughout.

If you have not used master documents, it's a little daunting when you get started. The idea is to have the formatting defined in one place, then attach sub-documents that will take their formatting from the master - like style sheets for web pages. But if you have specialized formatting on a lot of documents, then try to attach them to a master, it just doesn't work, as I found out!

[TreasonousBastard]

31. Master Documents! The brilliant invention from hell...

I tried, I really did, to use it, but I ended up getting screwed up and just hacked it-- I just rewrote last month's newsletter. I suppose it came in handy in offices with a lot of standardized formats and boilerplate.

The books didn't need it-- just text without even footnotes.

[csziggy]

32. If I approach it like a website and put the content as just text

With markups and let the Master Document be a style sheet defining how things look, it might work.

My re-edits of older books didn't need that consistency, but the new versions would look better and will need footnotes because everything is going to be fully documented.

The mistake with Master Documents from what I can tell is starting out with already formatted pages and trying to link them to a master which is intended to override the original formatting. I did find references to ways to suppress the formatting from the master, but never did figure out how to do that. And I was in a time crunch by then, so I gave up.

I just hope I live long enough to put together the books I want to create.

[limpyhobbler]

7. I'm not a fan of Microsoft, really, truly, but...

Microsoft Word is the single greatest piece of software ever written in the history of this planet earth.

There I said it.

Microsoft Excel not far behind...

They just work. I love having a Linux or Apple machine around, but I always have to keep a windows box too so I can run MS Word and Excel.

[Orrex]

14. I have gotten a great deal of mileage out of MS Word

Heck, I still use my copy of Winword from my MS Office 95 install, and it's never let me down.

[HopeHoops]

9. Why don't you tell us how you REALLY feel.

[PVnRT]

11. I gave up on it - Excel is 100 times easier to use

Even something as simple as deleting the contents of a cell in Open Office is bizarre. Why do more than hit "Delete" when you want to clear a cell? Don't make me hit two other buttons or pull up a right-click menu.

[Orrex]

13. I concur

As I mentioned up-thread, the problem isn't simply that OO doesn't duplicate the function of MS Office; it's that OO seems to go out of its way to make the simplest and most common functions difficult and unwieldy. The very fact that there seems to be no equivalent in "Calc" to Excel's CTRL-D function still baffles me.

[AngryAmish]

12. You can have my volkswriter when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers....

[deucemagnet]

17. Well, the price is right.

I like the OO word processing functionality, but I will admit to being a bit pissed off when I edited a power point presentation in OO, saved it in .ppt format, then it wouldn't run on a windows machine.

I have a copy of Word Perfect from 2008. I never cared for it much, but after the accolades in this thread perhaps I should install it and give it another shot.

On edit: I remember why I don't use Word Perfect for presentations now. The file sizes were fookin' HUUUUUUUUUGE! Maybe I should just shell out for MS Word.