free open office.org or buy microsoft office ?

[DavySpikeMill]

Hello folks , first post here his forum looks like the help I need !My enterprise trainer directed me to this site ,so blame her ! I'm going through a local enterprise start business workshop and using microsoft word/office to complete assignments. Is the freeware openoffice.org a usable alternative for business use down the line ie. if I start using openoffice will I run into compatability issues later perhaps (especially when i branch out on my own ) and have the pain of transferring business documents to microsoft ?

 

[Paul_Rosser]

Openoffice allows you to save into Microsoft Office format, so if you save in this format should all be ok if you move to MS later.

You may get minor formatting issues if you are sending documents to clients though, usually happens if you have graphics embedded into the document.

Also you can set the default format to Office, so all documents saved will automatically be in this format.

 

[SpiralMedia]

Hi,

Personally I would use Microsoft Office and currently there is a free trial for the new version 2013 (depending on which OS you are using).

Looks a very good product with Cloud support (Office 365) but as we use Mac's within the business I have not had the opportunity to use this software as of yet.

Another option could be Google Doc's, have you used this service yet?

Hope this helps you.

 

[edmondscommerce]

I'm running a business without MS Office with no issues

We use Google Docs extensively and libre/open office for working on large spreadsheets etc.

Only time its been a slight inconvenience is working with large legal documents with large numbers revisions where OO seems to struggle to render it in a readable way but apparently MS Office can handle it fine.

That's a pretty specialist and rare scenario though.

I would certainly try to live without full blown office if you can before sinking cash into it.

 

[Billmccallum]

There can be issues of compatability when sharing documents between systems, which I had recently where they guy I was working with had trouble opening OO files.

Found an old copy of Office 2000 to solve the problem, you can find OEM discs on ebay for a fiver http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/Software-/18793/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=Office+2000

 

[GradwellDotCom]

I use Open Office on my home computer, and Office at work. I find I have trouble when interchanging between the two at times. I wouldn't advise it if you often need to use uncommon fonts or work with tables a lot. For basic typing it's fine.

 

[Websitehandyman]

Really does rely on how you use the software. I've been using Open Office for over ten years without any issues and i get plenty of Ms docs sent to me.

For most people 90% of office features are never used but if you have to pull reports from databases etc it would be best to use the recomended software by that system.

I recently looked at the new office because I wanted the feature of OUTLOOK (thunderbird is now a pain to use). I loaded up excel and it could even figure out I was using a csv file on it's own I had to figure out where to go to tell it to "apply text to columns".

 

[DavySpikeMill]

Got a few things to look at now from the replies , I don't know much about google docs so I'm off to invest a bit of time there . I'm taking from the replies that OO is fine for "most" day to day work and incompatibility with Microsoft doesn't seem to be a common issue ,especially as suggested I save everything in "office" format . Thanks again , I think I'll stay put with OO in the meanwhile whilst perusing google doc videos on youtube .

 

[Alan]

Open Office is fine, but recently I had a corrupt upgrade install that was difficult to get over, so I installed Libre Office, which I now prefer, it seems quicker and easier to use.

I have copies of Microsoft Office on various older PCs but never bothered buying it for recent PCs, for basic office work Open Office/Libre Office is more than enough - £389! com on thats more than I pay for an i5 PC with 6Gb memory and 1TB of disc!!!. Never had any issues with MS formats, send spreadsheet to my account etc no problem.

 

[Alan]

(thunderbird is now a pain to use)

Out of interest, what pain do you have, I'v been using Thunderbird for years now, so I can only recall Outlook 2007 and the current Thunderbird is far better than Outlook 2007 that I recall.

 

[cjd]

If you can afford it, Office is the better product; slicker and it doesn't have any incompatibility problems with itself ;-) I really, really tried to like it for over a year, and although it did almost everything ok, it was a relief to go back to Office.

But OO is a great substitute and you really can't argue with 'free'.

 

[edmondscommerce]

I remember when you did your big Linux/Open Source switch over

I'm still running the entire business on Linux/Open Source but then we're a bit geeky like that. Our internal arguments are all about which is the best desktop manager for Linux with the current contenders being MATE, Unity and Gnome Shell...

(its MATE by the way)

 

[cjd]

I remember when you did your big Linux/Open Source switch over

We went from Microsoft to Linux to Apple. (The network platform is still all Linux of course.)

The thing that killed Linux for staff was a really flaky VPN - despite a lot of time, we could never get the high end stuff working reliably enough across it.

The Apple server fixed that overnight and I could get back to Word and Excel - which, as I say, was a bit of a relief.

I'm a bit of an Apple fan now - though I would never have thought it.

 

[Lentinus]

Another vote for Libre Office, I moved from OO as development has basically stalled on it.

 

[Lentinus]

...and with exquisite timing V 4 of Libre Office just released http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/02/08/libreoffice_40_ships/

 

[leemason]

I used Open Office until I purchased my most recent laptop. I used to run Mandriva Linux which came with Open Office. I now run Rosa Linux which comes with Libre Office. So far it's been pretty good. I've used Open/Libre Office for years now and have only had a small number of interfacing problems with MS-Office. I've actually had more problems with different versions of MS-Office.

 

[Websitehandyman]

...and with exquisite timing V 4 of Libre Office just released http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/02/08/libreoffice_40_ships/

Installed this only this morning having heard of it on this thread. Always use OO but this was a rebuilt desktop I'm using from a single project. Spent a nice 5 hours exporting editing and importing csv file and I was very impressed. Seemed slicker then OO and a lot more slicker then MsO.