I'm downloading OpenOffice.org 1.1 - what should I know?

[Wickerman]

Any users? I really like Mozilla ('zila, zila, zila) and am tired of MS crap anyway.

Am I gonna love this office suite? I use pretty much everything available daily, Word, access, excel, ppoint, and their equivs and hope to replace the MS stuff with open source stuff.

:thumbsup:? :thumbsdown:?

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. No but I am certainly intrigued, downloading it

myself, anything NOT to have to get more crap
from MS huh?

And I wonder how well it will work on a tablet PC

[TreasonousBastard]

2. That it isn't...

100% compatible with everything in Office, but does at least 90% of everything you probably want to do. And there will be workarounds for a lot of things it won't do.

Word templates are usually unreadable in OO, and a few Word and Excel macros might not translate properly. Access and pp? Who knows-- I've never used them.

Other than that, you'll probably be very happy with it once you start using it regularly.

I like its PDF export, something M$ refuses to do.


On edit-- I use WordPerfect, and it does do everything M$ stuff does, and more. There is a 30 day trial download of the full WP Office package on the Corel site, and the Family Pack is an inexpensive way of getting a feel for it if it's on sale somewhere.

Didn't mention it at first because it ain't cheap for the full package, and it's future may be in doubt.

[Wickerman]

8. I use a little WP myself

but use Word just so I don't have conflict problems on my home machine since most docs I get are in Word format. On 95 I had conflicts with both suites installed so elected to go to one. At work, with 2000Pro I can use both systems and prefer WP. I think they will stick around, they've been in trouble for awhile, but do offer a superior product.

[TreasonousBastard]

12. I hope they stick around, too.

"Reveal Codes" is something I just can't do without any more.

WP10 does a good job of reading Word docs, although nothing seems to read templates except Star Office. Open Office also does a good job with Word docs, but chokes a little bit more often. I bounce back and forth between the two because of quirks here and there. And there's almost always a formatting glitch somewhere in a complex Word doc no matter what I use. Graphic placement is always a problem. Tables ain't too easy, either.

Word Reader can't get it right half the time, either.

The most annoying thing is that nobody can read my WP docs, and I have to send stuff in Rich Text or Word format, losing some of the things only WP can do. For read only stuff, the PDF export in WP and OO is a godsend.

[Snow]

3. Sign up to be a friendly helpful person,

as they ask you to, and congratulations on joining the Free Software movement. I like OpenOffice. By the way, there's some very nice but not totally free software out there, mostly European, that's worth supporting. The Opera browser, Melody Assistant, IrfanView (free), Arachinophilia (free), Leech FTP, some others. The Europeans seem to be coming up with a lot of nice useful stuff at very reasonable prices.

[Wickerman]

11. Thanks for the resources

and the suggestion. I will try some others. I have used Opera on and off for years. I don't like it enough to pay for it anymore, used to, but the Mozilla does great for me.

[mike_c]

4. I use OOo all the time....

If you use it as a standalone ofice suite, it's great-- you'll be very happy with it. If you migrate back and forth between OOo and MS documents it's mostly great, depending upon how hard you stress it and where the stress occurs. For 99 percent of common word processing and spreadsheet chores OOo 1.1 is rock solid-- the only time I ever have any problems is with graphics intensive documents, generally things like symbolic math equations and embedded graphics files in my case. I have not had much luck migrating .ppt files in and out of OOo presenter, but I have only limited experience trying AND I run OOo mainly on Linux machines, where there are sometimes font issues when moving back and forth between Windows and Linux apps.

OpenOffice is a fantastic app. Everytime I use it I can hear the distant sound of Bill Gates gnashing his teeth....

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

5. This site is your friend (edited for typo in URL!!!)

http://corefonts.sourceforge.net/

[Wickerman]

9. thanks!

:hi:

[Wickerman]

10. good to know

I am not brave enough for Linux installation yet so won't be an issue.

And nothing translates well with .ppt. I use Freelance often, much better program than PP, but horrible transistion.

Glad to hear about the spreadsheet stuff. Most of mine are in excel, though I have a few I run in Lotus - I'm used to debugging macros.

I also would love to see Bill GH in the fetal position under his desk sucking his thumb as his empire crumbles.

[alfredo]

6. OO is pretty good. I am using the X11 version on my Mac.

One of my favorite open source software, titles is GIMP. There is a Windows port for it too.

Main site: http://www.gimp.org/

this seems to be the better download.

http://www2.arnes.si/~sopjsimo/gimp/ download the stable version.

[Wickerman]

7. Hey, thanks

I use both Photoshop (home) and JASC (work) so am always looking for something new that doesn't cost a bundle. Will check it out tonight!