OpenOffice 3.0

**bender1234** · September 4th, 2009

Mmm this was the most fit thread I could put this post in.

I'm used to use office at win.x, but these days I mostly sit in ubuntu, so I've ended up with
using openoffice 3.0, and I must say I am *NOT* very pleased with that.

It's full off bugs! Lines disappear, overlap, sometimes do not respond to alignment, when pasting images into a document I feel I have no control of where the text goes etc.

I'm sure the latter is just a "syntax" matter though. I also don't seem to get to install and use spellchecking for my native language. The spellchecking dialog just prompts wheather to start from the top of the document, then says it is complete.

Is this app still so bad, or may it be something on my system(particulary regarding the first problems)?
Is there any other better solution for linux?

When it comes to text disappearing and overlapping, I've also seen this in some other editors,
so I'm starting to suspect that they are using some common library that is bugged. This bug is solved by
just scrolling the pages out of view than back again.

Heck I must admit that I also hate MS Word, at least oo is free and can export pdf(yet buggy) without expensive 3rd party plugins.
Still I'd rather write html with css than live with this crap! >.<

Any pointers?

benders

**khelben1979** · September 4th, 2009

Definitely feels like you have bad system libraries in your system. I have never experienced any of the problems you have described here using Open Office.

Try the latest version of Open Office to see if it solves your problem, but I suspect it won't from what you wrote. Hmm.. What version of Ubuntu are you using?

**Hagar Delest** · September 4th, 2009

Try the latest 3.1.1 indeed: [Ubuntu] Installing OOo on Debian and Co.

For spell checking, see that one: [Troubleshooting] Spell check in OOo 3.x.

**running_rabbit07** · September 4th, 2009

I have found that Abiword works great with little effort, too.

**gunksta** · September 5th, 2009

bender1234 - It depends on what you need to do. If you are mostly working independently, LATEX is always an option. The output is very flexible and all you really need is a good text editor. Then again, the learning curve is a little on the steep side compared to a word processor.

Although my primary computer at work is a Linux machine, I'll admit that I'm using an installation of MS Office for word processing. OpenOffice.org simply introduces too many subtle differences, which make it difficult for me to use when collaborating with other people (for example, the default bulletts never look quite the same, no matter how much I tweak my settings).

MS products are almost entirely rubbish, but I do keep Office around. Wine works pretty well for me, but a virtualized environment is another approach (requires more system resources which I prefer to use in other ways).

**bender1234** · September 5th, 2009

Hey.

Thanks for all the responses.

Forgot to tell I'm running 9.04 x64. Checked for the new version, but sadly there was no build for this system yet. Tried to uninstall and run apt-get, but ended up with the same version and same problems.

Decided to wait until there is a x64 package avaliable, and atm I'm just trying to get about to install this oxt file manually. I am suspecting that some of the problems described above isn't OO's fault, but rather some corrupt library, as state earlier. I mean since it seem to work well with your systems.