PDA

View Full Version : MS Office Vs. OpenOffice



nathang1392
May 10th, 2009, 07:22 PM
i was in my ubuntu partition and i needed to do some typing, so i opened openoffice. what do you guys think of it, and how it stacks up compared to MS office. i like it alot, although it seems to lack features compared to MS. also how is it as far as compatibility with MS office?

mc4100
May 10th, 2009, 07:26 PM
i was in my ubuntu partition and i needed to do some typing, so i opened openoffice. what do you guys think of it, and how it stacks up compared to MS office. i like it alot, although it seems to lack features compared to MS. also how is it as far as compatibility with MS office?

On the writer/word side, it'll make .doc files which are compatible, not sure about .docx for the newer Office though. MS recently pushed an update to office which allegedly adds support for OO.o's .odf (Open Document Format) but some have criticized the half-implementation as it lacks support for document passwords, etc.

pwnst*r
May 10th, 2009, 07:28 PM
nothing alleged about it, it supports .odf

Icehuck
May 10th, 2009, 07:31 PM
OpenOffice is great for home use and depending on the company it is good for enterprise work. However, if your company deals with external companies using MS Office you will have formatting issues. Office 2007 supports odf(only if you grab the service packs), but office 2003 and below do not.

gjoellee
May 10th, 2009, 07:34 PM
MS office wins over OpenOffice. MS Office 2007 has a way more features and a great interface. OpenOffice is in my opinion just the same as MS Office 2003. :(

nathang1392
May 10th, 2009, 07:41 PM
i really like it, and it is good enough to use and keep 200$ in your pocket. unfortunately the reason i havent used it before is that i need office for school. i wish people would revert to using open office everywhere. it would make things alot simpler and cheaper.

Mr. Picklesworth
May 10th, 2009, 07:43 PM
OpenOffice is a straight up clone of MS Office, paying particularly close attention to the warts. (Eg: Its wonderful Options dialog and obsession with toolbars that appear in random places and have absolutely no consistency to speak of in layout or position).

They are both equally terrible. The only office suite I have ever been able to use for more than 10 minutes without wishing to strangle someone has been iWork. Granted, I still wanted to break something after that time, but that was due to MacOS's horrifying mouse acceleration, and the hand-numbing "Mighty" Mouse. Not the office suite's fault directly. Although I guess it's also the software's fault for only running on MacOS.
There's a big open space here for someone to seriously innovate. (Here's a tip: We are using computers, not paper. Stop designing after old fashioned office techniques, please! That goes for PIM software, too).

SunnyRabbiera
May 10th, 2009, 07:45 PM
MS office wins over OpenOffice. MS Office 2007 has a way more features and a great interface. OpenOffice is in my opinion just the same as MS Office 2003. :(

The ribbon sucks...

As for OpenOffice, its great for what it is: a free alternative to MS office.
Sure it does not have a grammar check or a lousy ribbon but it works.
But if one is worried about compatibility you could save your formats as .doc, even Office 2007 can still read it.

maxpoweron
May 10th, 2009, 08:03 PM
I recently had to download some documents from my new employer. The documents were employment forms such as Emergency Contact, setting up direct deposit, and what not. The forms were written in Microsoft Office. Each form was designed using tables with different size cells.

When I open them in OpenOffice 3.0, they were a mess. I tried to deal with it, but it was impossible. I had to reboot into Windows XP and use MS Office 2007. Each document displayed correctly and I was able to complete each form and send it to HR.

IMHO, I think the developers should work on this issue for the next release of OpenOffice. Writer should be able to open documents with tables that have cells in defferent sizes without issues. It is the only reason I keep using Windows XP at home. I am thinking about trying CrossOver or Wine in a few weeks when everything settles down.

phrostbyte
May 10th, 2009, 08:12 PM
I use LaTeX for word processing. IMO if you are serious about creating professional looking documents (especially in the field of science or engineering), there is no other realistic option other then LaTeX. :)

starcannon
May 10th, 2009, 08:14 PM
No contest, Open Office for me, my Wife, and my Kids.

My wife is completing a Bachelors Degree in Psychology, she's done every single paper using Open Office (thats a lot of papers), I'm working on a Computer Science Degree, I have done all of my prerequisite work using Open Office (English, History, Philosophy, etc..). My kids do all of the writing projects using Open Office.

My wife and I have both used the spreadsheets, and the presentations for daily life, college courses, and professional reasons. I won't go back to MS Office, I have no need, reason, or desire to spend $$$, once were back to making a decent living Canonical and Open Office will be 2 of the FOSS software developers that will be getting donations from us. I have a list somewhere around here of what I use and feel a bit of an obligation to donate to.

Anyway, yeah, OOo for our house.

Eisenwinter
May 10th, 2009, 08:18 PM
I don't understand why people need to use these "office suits". Just use a text editor, like VIM or Medit.

Rinzwind
May 10th, 2009, 08:32 PM
MS office wins over OpenOffice. MS Office 2007 has a way more features and a great interface. OpenOffice is in my opinion just the same as MS Office 2003. :(

Looking at 2 parts of Office: Word and Excel. I use both alot but I can't think of anything I can do in Word but not in (OpenOffice) Writer. But then again I only use it as a typewriter :)
If I was the average user I would say I could do everything I want to do with Word with WordPad or NotePad++ under Windows. Absolutely no need for Word for me.

Excel I love. But it does nothing really special compared to Calc. Calc tends to be easier (example: splitting text goes automatically in Calc).

Thing is... when it comes to non-free software most of the time you use 20% of all the things you can do with a program. That kind of software tends to have loads and loads and loads of options. Where loads and loads of them are not used by me. Still leaves 1 load of option ;) but to be honest: those options are not worth the retailprice of Office.

benj1
May 10th, 2009, 08:35 PM
nothing alleged about it, it supports .odf

except excel chews up formulas.


anyway i've never had any problem with open office as far as compatibility goes, my only problems are slow loading, and the fact its a bit too much like office (why why the light bulb???).

pwnst*r
May 10th, 2009, 08:46 PM
I don't understand why people need to use these "office suits". Just use a text editor, like VIM or Medit.

work. especially a corporate environment. i have to live by Outlook 07, which is a fabulous email client.

mamamia88
May 10th, 2009, 09:27 PM
i use both and if i have the choice i'll use office 2007 anyday. got it for $10 bucks from my school not sure i would have paid $200 for it. but hey i had a class last semester where all we did was learn all the tricks of office 2007 and have to say i'm in love with the ribon now it totally changes depending on what you are doing it's almost like it's reading your mind

Chilli Bob
May 11th, 2009, 12:09 AM
I use Open Office exclusively at home, and a Combination of MS Office and Open Office at work. The main thing to note is that exchanging files between the two is not an exact science. The word processors often have problems with equivelent fonts and page breaks. Opening a OO.o document in Word, or vice-versa almost always changes the layout, sometimes quite badly. This is worse where you have text floating around tables and images.

You also get strange layout issues when opening a OO.o spreadsheet in excel or vice-versa. In particular I was having a recurrent problem with an invoicing spreadsheet that was created in Excel, but I was using OO.o to convert to PDF. For some reason the totals column, which was all align-right in excel would alternate between align-right and align-left cell by cell as you go down the column when opened in OO.o. Only the one column on the whole spreadsheet would do this, and I would have to manually correct each cell before I could use the spreadsheet. A very strange bug indeed.

The PDF convert feature was what first started me using OO.o at work, and it it awesome. Works better than the commercial add-on we bought of MS Office. I also found that the OO.o spreadsheet was superior to Excel. In particular there were a number of functions, especially date related functions, that I could not find equivalents for in Excel. Unfortunately no-one else in the Office wanted to use open source software, so for compatability reasond I mostly used MS Office. As mentioned earlier, MS Outlook is an excellent program for an office environment.

I have only have a little experience of using OO.o Impress files in Powerpoint, but have yet to find compatability problems. I found Impress slightly easier to use than Powerpont.


The ribbon sucks...

Agreed, a ridiculous idea. Office 2007 takes 2 or 3 clicks to achieve what I can do with one click in Office 2003. Why do they do these things?


I use LaTeX for word processing. IMO if you are serious about creating professional looking documents (especially in the field of science or engineering), there is no other realistic option other then LaTeX.

Yeah, LaTex is good for about 0.5% of users who need that, but the learning curve, and difficulty of document sharing makes it impractical for nearly everyone else.


I don't understand why people need to use these "office suits". Just use a text editor, like VIM or Medit.

I hope that was a joke, if not.......no, I don't have the energy.

Nuked
May 11th, 2009, 12:21 AM
I do have to say that I absolutely love Open Office... Just wish that it included something that could compete with microsoft outlook and the exchange server... For that I am sad.

Compatibility issues will differ based on your personal uses, however for the most part I will continue to blame microsoft for that. ;)



I hope that was a joke, if not.......no, I don't have the energy.

heheheh

swoll1980
May 11th, 2009, 12:43 AM
I don't understand why people need to use these "office suits". Just use a text editor, like VIM or Medit.

That would be like using a spoon to dig a ditch, sure it would get the job done, but who the hell wants to bother with it.

JC Cheloven
May 11th, 2009, 01:19 AM
As I always tell when talking about free software: "It will improve if we use it".

OOo is not as fancy as office 07, sure.
If you are a student, you'll get a cheap '07 lisence, sure.
If you are a home user, the big company will not sue you for using an illegal copy, sure.

But wait, this is about freedom. Today, M$ policy is to push "plain people" to use their products under whatever conditions, even for free, in order to remain the one and only in the market. If you use it at home, and you don't know anything else, you'll ask for that at work. Corporate users are easier to control and mercyless charged. They pay for everyone, and the one and only option remain alone, as intended. And our freedom to choose remain at zero, as intended.

It could be different: use open formats. Use open office if you don't really need the fancy features. It will improve if it gets a significant marketshare.

pwnst*r
May 11th, 2009, 01:35 AM
But wait, this is about freedom.

for you, maybe. for me it's about productivity in a corporate environment.

stwschool
May 11th, 2009, 02:21 AM
I recently had to download some documents from my new employer. The documents were employment forms such as Emergency Contact, setting up direct deposit, and what not. The forms were written in Microsoft Office. Each form was designed using tables with different size cells.

When I open them in OpenOffice 3.0, they were a mess. I tried to deal with it, but it was impossible. I had to reboot into Windows XP and use MS Office 2007. Each document displayed correctly and I was able to complete each form and send it to HR.

IMHO, I think the developers should work on this issue for the next release of OpenOffice. Writer should be able to open documents with tables that have cells in defferent sizes without issues. It is the only reason I keep using Windows XP at home. I am thinking about trying CrossOver or Wine in a few weeks when everything settles down.
Crossover is excellent, I've been using it for ages now with no issues.

-grubby
May 11th, 2009, 02:36 AM
MS Office 2007 is the only office suite I can stand.

drawkcab
May 11th, 2009, 03:52 AM
95 times out of 100 open office word processor gets the job done.

It's just that sometimes putting together a more complex document is easier in MSoffice 2007. The same goes for powerpoint which I also use a lot.

mightyteegar
May 11th, 2009, 04:00 AM
Being an extensive user of both, here's what I've seen and what I think of each.

Word vs. Writer -- about equal. I can't think of anything off the top of my head that I can do in one but not the other. Word scores points for the Quick Format feature -- the way it's laid out is very nice -- but once I figured out the Styles feature in Writer I could work just as efficiently. I like Word's Outline Mode better than Writer's Navigator, but that's probably just personal preference.
Writer -> .DOC faithfulness: about 98% in my experience. Complex tables and anything beyond basic image manipulation in Writer don't translate well to .DOCs.

Excel vs. Calc -- about equal on spreadsheet-only features, but Excel's charting and graphing features and its handling of extremely large files smokes Calc. Supposedly, version 3 of OpenOffice takes major steps to close the file-size and charting/graphing gaps, but I've not used v3 enough to be able to judge. Also, if Calc had a function similar to Excel's Pivot Tables that worked as well as Excel's does, that would sway many more Excel users over to Calc.
Calc -> .XLS faithfulness: about 95% for spreadsheets, but I usually have to re-create any Calc charts or graphs in Excel.

PowerPoint vs. Impress -- feature-wise I don't know if I can call them equal; each has features the other doesn't. However, bearing in mind that presentations are used more by non-techies than techies, PowerPoint's interface blows Impress's out of the water.
Impress -> .PPT faithfulness: all over the place. I've never been able to trust Impress to generate PPTs when I needed to.

Access vs. Base -- Access is one of those programs that is an absolute nightmare to use and master, and it's a serious pain to support Access databases. But in the hands of an experienced developer Access does allow for the creation of more or less solid, easy-to-use apps for simple business and personal functions. Base strikes me as an interesting hybrid of Access and Filemaker, but with many more DB backend options than both of them put together. Base is much easier to use than Access, but it still has an unfinished feel to it. If OOo ever polishes it up, it will be truly awesome.

MS-Office vs. OpenOffice (general): OpenOffice scores huge points with native export to PDF. MS Office has (what I think are) better language tools. OpenOffice is free and MS Office is not. MS Office is installed in most corporate environments; OpenOffice is not and cannot be fully trusted to reliably generate MS Office docs for other users.

I've use OOo since 2002 and exclusively at home for since '05. I've used MS Office since version '97 and exclusively at work and school most of my life.

SunnyRabbiera
May 11th, 2009, 04:09 AM
Being an extensive user of both, here's what I've seen and what I think of each.

Word vs. Writer -- about equal. I can't think of anything off the top of my head that I can do in one but not the other. Word scores points for the Quick Format feature -- the way it's laid out is very nice -- but once I figured out the Styles feature in Writer I could work just as efficiently. I like Word's Outline Mode better than Writer's Navigator, but that's probably just personal preference.
Writer -> .DOC faithfulness: about 98% in my experience. Complex tables and anything beyond basic image manipulation in Writer don't translate well to .DOCs.

Excel vs. Calc -- about equal on spreadsheet-only features, but Excel's charting and graphing features and its handling of extremely large files smokes Calc. Supposedly, version 3 of OpenOffice takes major steps to close the file-size and charting/graphing gaps, but I've not used v3 enough to be able to judge. Also, if Calc had a function similar to Excel's Pivot Tables that worked as well as Excel's does, that would sway many more Excel users over to Calc.
Calc -> .XLS faithfulness: about 95% for spreadsheets, but I usually have to re-create any Calc charts or graphs in Excel.

PowerPoint vs. Impress -- feature-wise I don't know if I can call them equal; each has features the other doesn't. However, bearing in mind that presentations are used more by non-techies than techies, PowerPoint's interface blows Impress's out of the water.
Impress -> .PPT faithfulness: all over the place. I've never been able to trust Impress to generate PPTs when I needed to.

Access vs. Base -- Access is one of those programs that is an absolute nightmare to use and master, and it's a serious pain to support Access databases. But in the hands of an experienced developer Access does allow for the creation of more or less solid, easy-to-use apps for simple business and personal functions. Base strikes me as an interesting hybrid of Access and Filemaker, but with many more DB backend options than both of them put together. Base is much easier to use than Access, but it still has an unfinished feel to it. If OOo ever polishes it up, it will be truly awesome.

MS-Office vs. OpenOffice (general): OpenOffice scores huge points with native export to PDF. MS Office has (what I think are) better language tools. OpenOffice is free and MS Office is not. MS Office is installed in most corporate environments; OpenOffice is not and cannot be fully trusted to reliably generate MS Office docs for other users.

I've use OOo since 2002 and exclusively at home for since '05. I've used MS Office since version '97 and exclusively at work and school most of my life.

But still support for MS office is support for broken standards and support for a corrupt company that has long since outlived its usefulness.
OpenOffice can only do so much on its own, we are talking about a community based app versus a commercial one.
I never expect perfection out of OO, but it does its job well for what it is...

mightyteegar
May 11th, 2009, 04:32 AM
But still support for MS office is support for broken standards and support for a corrupt company that has long since outlived its usefulness.
OpenOffice can only do so much on its own, we are talking about a community based app versus a commercial one.
I never expect perfection out of OO, but it does its job well for what it is...

I agree with you and I dearly wish OpenOffice had a larger presence in modern business enviros, but that doesn't change the cold reality of the situation. DOC, XLS and PPT are still the kings whether I like it or not, and in my role as IT provider for several dozen small to mid-sized businesses I have to respect that. It's easy for you and I to adjust and adapt, but not so for many users who need to get work done and don't have time or can't afford learning a new way of doing things.

No way MSO ever makes it onto any of my home systems, though. Not unless I'm absolutely forced to do it.

thisllub
May 11th, 2009, 05:31 AM
The ribbon sucks...


The ribbon is the most popular feature of Office 2007. So much so that the PM got the gig as PM for Windows 7.

If you learn how to use it it is OK.

I would be happier if they fixed tables. Getting a table format right is still a pain.

Although I use both the necessity to use DOC format files for one particular purpose is restricting me to MS Word at the moment.

For serious document work I prefer latex. The source documents are much better to work with.

monsterstack
May 11th, 2009, 05:39 AM
But still support for MS office is support for broken standards and support for a corrupt company that has long since outlived its usefulness.
OpenOffice can only do so much on its own, we are talking about a community based app versus a commercial one.
I never expect perfection out of OO, but it does its job well for what it is...

Microsoft is losing money, and their dominance in office suites is one of their last reliable cashcows. I think users can expect more attempts to subjugate and marginalise OpenOffice [cf the ongoing ODF debacle].


For serious document work I prefer latex. The source documents are much better to work with.

I'm interested in getting started with LaTex. Can you suggest some good applications that are good for working with LaTex?

Warpnow
May 11th, 2009, 06:55 AM
OO writer is on equal footing with MS Word.

OOs other components do not even come close to competing with Office, though.

thisllub
May 11th, 2009, 07:18 AM
Microsoft is losing money, and their dominance in office suites is one of their last reliable cashcows. I think users can expect more attempts to subjugate and marginalise OpenOffice [cf the ongoing ODF debacle].



I'm interested in getting started with LaTex. Can you suggest some good applications that are good for working with LaTex?

Winefish is probably the easiest.
Lyx is easy but not true Latex
I use GVim with a plugin.
I have barely started but I like the way document source looks in Latex.

monsterstack
May 11th, 2009, 07:32 AM
Winefish is probably the easiest.
Lyx is easy but not true Latex
I use GVim with a plugin.
I have barely started but I like the way document source looks in Latex.

Thanks. I'll have a look at winefish. Never been keen on Vim or its GUI equivalent, but I might try those out too.

bryncoles
May 11th, 2009, 11:30 AM
I'm interested in getting started with LaTex. Can you suggest some good applications that are good for working with LaTex?

i recently started playing with LaTeX too. id aviod lyx, and go for texmaker instead - its cross platform so you can use it on windows, mac, unix and linux systems.

also, do a quick google for: 'the not so short introduction to latex'. its a good explanatory guide, and free pdf!

TjankMjaster
May 11th, 2009, 11:57 AM
Today, M$ policy is to push "plain people" to use their products under whatever conditions, even for free, in order to remain the one and only in the market. If you use it at home, and you don't know anything else, you'll ask for that at work. Corporate users are easier to control and mercyless charged. They pay for everyone, and the one and only option remain alone, as intended. And our freedom to choose remain at zero, as intended.

Can a brother get an "AMEN"? AMEN!:guitar:

__ __
I'm fairly new to OpenOffice, but so far no issues with key spreadsheets and docs. I use some very involved Access DB's at work, and to bring them over to Database just hasn't worked,.. but the raw data can be brought over and re-engineered in OODatabase, so it's like I get new things to play with... (such a child)

Newbie and happie!:-?

KegHead
May 11th, 2009, 01:49 PM
Hi!

I'm using open office 3.1.

Works well for me, a few formating bugs.

KegHead

sirjoebob
May 11th, 2009, 05:46 PM
MS office wins over OpenOffice. MS Office 2007 has a way more features and a great interface. OpenOffice is in my opinion just the same as MS Office 2003. :(

Couldn't disagree more. I think Office 2k7 has one of the least productive interfaces I have ever seen. The ribbon menu garbage does not work for me, I like the "antiquated" menu bar :guitar:

Therion
May 11th, 2009, 06:07 PM
For my use, Open Office is about an 80% solution. For really hardcore stuff like charting (e.g. 3D Surface charts), pivot tables and graphing data, MS Excel is still the go-to app.
Still, and too its credit, I get probably 80%-90% of my day-to-day work done in OO just fine.

nathang1392
May 11th, 2009, 09:18 PM
As I always tell when talking about free software: "It will improve if we use it".

OOo is not as fancy as office 07, sure.
If you are a student, you'll get a cheap '07 lisence, sure.
If you are a home user, the big company will not sue you for using an illegal copy, sure.

But wait, this is about freedom. Today, M$ policy is to push "plain people" to use their products under whatever conditions, even for free, in order to remain the one and only in the market. If you use it at home, and you don't know anything else, you'll ask for that at work. Corporate users are easier to control and mercyless charged. They pay for everyone, and the one and only option remain alone, as intended. And our freedom to choose remain at zero, as intended.

It could be different: use open formats. Use open office if you don't really need the fancy features. It will improve if it gets a significant marketshare.

i think you are right. the more we use the software the more push there will be for it to improve. this is really a good thought.

Wiebelhaus
May 11th, 2009, 09:26 PM
I think they are two completely different beasts that produce the same end result , I've installed Open office on 7,000+ PC's and a mere 20 maybe didn't like it.

The end justifies the means , anything you can do in MS Office I can do and maybe better in Open Office and with Open Office being able to read and write many file extensions as well as be compatible with the international standard I don't see any reason what so ever to use MS Office.

If the person you are sharing with is using Ms Office 07 save in .doc and if the person you are sharing with is using MS Office 2003 or below save in .doc and if the person you are sharing with is using Open Office save in .doc unless you know they are then use ODF and you've covered all your bases.

LinuxGuy1234
May 11th, 2009, 09:32 PM
OpenOffice > MS Office.

OOo is much more easier to use than MS Office.

mamamia88
May 11th, 2009, 10:48 PM
OpenOffice > MS Office.

OOo is much more easier to use than MS Office.

yeah but once you learn the ribbon you won't want to go back trust me. convoluted menu systems aren't useful anymore open office is basically a clone of the older versions of office

fjf
May 11th, 2009, 11:03 PM
I wonder why everyone must call "ribbon" like it is a new world wonder to just a tabbed menu. Once you learn where everything is, you get there, with tabs or with no tabs.

I have to admit that M$ knows how to sell vulgarities as genial inventions that people are happy to buy.

lancest
May 11th, 2009, 11:48 PM
Recently on an old Windows pc I used OO to open .pptx files when office 2003 would not. At minimum it seems like one of many good reasons to keep OO around.

andrewabc
May 12th, 2009, 03:30 AM
I don't understand why people need to use these "office suits". Just use a text editor, like VIM or Medit.

Please explain how I am to manage a 130,000 cell spreadsheet with complex formulas in a text editor?

I've thought about using a database, but I know how to use spreadsheets and it works fine and does exactly what I need it to.