MIcrosoft Office 2003 V StarOffice 8 V OpenOffice 2.0.2

[Kernel Sanders]

I would like to get everyone's opinions on this if I may....... :-k

I own Microsoft Office 2003, and have downloaded StarOffice 8 and OpenOffice 2.0.2

So I have the latest versions of each (to make it fair)

My own personal opinion is that MS Office 2003 is the best. This is simply due to the fact that .doc and .xls are pretty much insustry standard document formats, and that if you have to send a file to someone, or share a file with others (a group of people passing around the same file after editing it for example), its pretty much a given that they want it sent to them in .doc or .xls format. Although StarOffice/OpenOffice "officially" support these formats, the tests that I have performed on opening my own .doc and .xls files with them required me to fix a LOT of little errors, which is just not practical to do all the time.

However, for personal letter writing/essays/anything that doesnt require you to use the microsoft document formats, then StarOffice and OpenOffice are more than capable.

Feature wise, I dont find a lot of difference between any of the 3 programs? Nothing that the average/intermediate user would notice anyway? The only thing that makes Office 2003 stand out is the industry standard document formats that it uses.

**P.S Does anyone know what the difference is between StarOffice and OpenOffice? They seem pretty much identical IMHO, although StarOffice costs £40?** :confused:

Which do *you* feel is the better program, and why? I would really like to get all your opinions on this! :-k

John \\:D/

[dabear]

Microsoft office (2003) is far better than openoffice IMO, it's more compatible (they invented .xls, they have the best implementation), it looks nicer and when run in crossover it starts quicker than ooo. Besides, ooo takes up too much of the memory (possibly because of JAVA?).

For word processing, I use abiword. Don't really use spreadsheets no more, so that's not a problem.

ooo is bloat.

[colo]

OpenOffice of course, since it's Free Software under LGPL.

[simone.brunozzi]

Well, I think that M$ Office is slightly better (and slower); however, you don't have to pay license fees with OpenOffice.

OpenOffice, on the other hand, can open and save files in M$ formats.

M$ is going to adopt international, open and standardized file formats for the future... so the incompatibility problem is going to cease.

Cheers,

[Kernel Sanders]

I think that its particularly unfortunate that Microsoft has such a strangle-hold on .doc and .xls for example, because thats pretty much the ONLY advantage it has over StarOffice and OpenOffice.

10 years behind my......... :cool:

[Kernel Sanders]

Well, I think that M$ Office is slightly better (and slower); however, you don't have to pay license fees with OpenOffice.

OpenOffice, on the other hand, can open and save files in M$ formats.

M$ is going to adopt international, open and standardized file formats for the future... so the incompatibility problem is going to cease.

Cheers,

But sadly..... not very well......... :-|

It works......... but just needs a little too much error fixing after the file has loaded. :cry:

(I tried loading up my MS Word saved CV with OpenOffice and StarOffice, and just thought...... "What a mess!" :cry: )

[Swiss]

StarOffice & OpenOffice are the same thing! It's funny! StarO is around $100 last I checked, OO is free (as you all know) the features are identical! I couldn't tell them apart cept' SO has nicer Icons. Thats all. :rolleyes:

[FISHERMAN]

...
M$ is going to adopt international, open and standardized file formats for the future... so the incompatibility problem is going to cease.

I have some serious doubts about their standardized format. It will probably have some strings attached.

[ShanghaiTeej]

Unfortunately MO2003 is the best, but I solely use OO on principle alone.....

[DigitalDuality]

I always hear alot of stuff about these office suites,

why is K Office never really mentioned all that much? I haven't used it once... but from what i'm reading.. it seems to accomplish what OOo does..and alot better. Not to mention a wide range of applications.

[ComplexNumber]

I always hear alot of stuff about these office suites,

why is K Office never really mentioned all that much? I haven't used it once... but from what i'm reading.. it seems to accomplish what OOo does..and alot better. Not to mention a wide range of applications.
koffice is rubbish. its nowhere near as good as open office in any department apart from speed of loading. kspread and kword were described by a leading linux magazine recently as being "a disaster area waiting to happen". the best open source office sites are OO, then crossover office, then gnome office, then koffice.

[prizrak]

I haven't used Star Office but since it's basically an enhanced OpenOffice I'm sure they are not that different. As much as I love FOSS I must say that MS Office is an excellent product with great functionality. They did a really good job on the whole line of it.
Note: For my needs VI is more than enough though :)

[public_void]

TBH I'm use MS Office more as its on my uni's computers, and for what it does it is good. Having said that when I've used OO I liked it. For the price its amazing.

Kinda OT, but I saw a demo of the new MS Office 12, and I was impressed. Even my friend who uses SUSE, who can be very anti-MS, said it was a good improvement on the previous version. Altough he'll still use OO.

[GoA]

Office 2003 is better, however openoffice2 is enough for my home use. And it's legal compared to the another one. :$

[DigitalDuality]

Well to answer the original post..

what is better?

In terms of a better app... MS 2003 hands down. But it's not worth what you pay for. It's the coach bag of office software really. I'll pick OOo anyday of the week.

[Kernel Sanders]

Thanks for the feedback guys! \\:D/

I was wondering though, what makes StarOffice worth £40? Particularly when OpenOffice is £0?

Whats better about StarOffice?

John

[ubuntu27]

OpenOffice & MS Office: http://openoffice.blogs.com/

[dosed150]

i think the thing about staroffice costing is there are some people who dont trust free software staroffice could be for them

[cowlip]

MS Office is way better, but if I had my way I'd use Office 2000 not XP or 2003. I use the grammar and readability heck feature a lot, and it's easier to make silly flyers for school in, with a better drawing tool

[bored2k]

Clean and simple: All hail Microsoft Office.

[RS3York]

I guess in some regards people's answers will change depending on their situation/perspective. If you're looking at cost/features...it's not even close - OOo2 by far (even if you list its cost as equal to the cost of the bandwidth to download it).

If you've grown accustomed to MS Office throughout the years then "retraining" becomes a problem. Especially if you use high-level features. However, if you plan on upgrading to MSO 2007, some level of retraining is unavoidable (although I'm surprised MS hasn't announced some sort of "legacy UI mode")

Since I'm not a hardcore Excel user I'd say that OpenOffice.org2 is better than MSO 2003. OpenOffice.org2 Vs. MSO 2003 Student & Teacher Edition isn't much of a contest for me. Even if you drop Base, Draw & Math...For me, built-in Export to PDF & Flash seal the deal.

I haven't used StarOffice so I can't comment on it.

As someone else mentioned the only real significant benefit of MSO is that so many people use it and therefore they use its file formats. I've only had 1 .doc file render 'wrong' in OOo2. OpenOffice.org's support is bad for MSO files? Try opening OpenDocument files in MSO ;)

Now of course the standard response is "you'll never have to!" - That may be true for now, but the "universal" nature of .doc, .xls & .ppt will change especially since even MSO 2007 defaults to new file formats. OOo2 attempts and does a good job of handling the blackbox formats of MSO 2003 and prior, yet MS refuses to support an open file format..the formation of which MS participated in. The argument that MSO is better simply because it's formats are used the most is like saying that crooked HTML + ActiveX is better than W3C-compliant code because IE is the most popular browser. Just because it's passable for now, doesn't mean it's the best route.

[sapo]

This is simply due to the fact that .doc and .xls are pretty much insustry standard document formats

NO! This is MICROSOFT standard, and is how they maintain their users stuck with them :evil:

[Robgould]

I voted for Open Office. You can't beat the price.

[towsonu2003]

never use staroffice. ms office uses proprietary stuff and is too expensive. it is also too bloated and too dependent on web. I also keep bumping into bugs in it that frustrate me. and, well, it is made by ms. I like more ooo bc it is free, I can use it wherever I want (windows, linux, windows where I have no permissions tru portableapplication ooo). it is free so I don't have to worry about licenses. and i can use the same file without messing the format or anything in both win and lin.

PS. I don't like the idea that .doc is the standard. to me and to people who review my manuscripts, it is not. hell, they think I use pdf office ;) (export to pdf).

[ndhskp]

None of the above, Abiword all the way.

[Kernel Sanders]

None of the above, Abiword all the way.

I did consider adding abiword, but thats not part of a widely distributed office suite is it? :confused:

And i'm trying to compare whole office suites not individual programs, so I didnt include it....... SORRY!!! :cry:

[bored2k]

never use staroffice. ms office uses proprietary stuff and is too expensive. it is also too bloated and too dependent on web. I also keep bumping into bugs in it that frustrate me. and, well, it is made by ms. I like more ooo bc it is free, I can use it wherever I want (windows, linux, windows where I have no permissions tru portableapplication ooo). it is free so I don't have to worry about licenses. and i can use the same file without messing the format or anything in both win and lin.

PS. I don't like the idea that .doc is the standard. to me and to people who review my manuscripts, it is not. hell, they think I use pdf office ;) (export to pdf).
Microsoft Office is bloated?! What about OOo then?!

[Kvark]

A text editor is best for writing text. Because simple text editors are easier then word processors while advanced text editors have more functions that are actually related to the actual writing. And you can be sure that you will be able to open the file with any version of any text editor.

MS Excell is best for spreadsheets. MS Publisher (and not a word processor) is best for formatting text for print. MS Powerpoint is best for preparing text for presentations with a projector. Macromedia Dreamweaver is best for formatting text for online view. But perhaps I just think so because thats the programs that I had to spend time learning all the cool functions of in high school.

Well, if you really want the best possible end result then you should learn to write code like HTML for online veiw for example. It gives far more flexibility and control then any program can offer. If you are not that desperate to get a good end result then anything that can do the job will be good enough for you so just go with OOo.

[ndhskp]

I did consider adding abiword, but thats not part of a widely distributed office suite is it? :confused:

And i'm trying to compare whole office suites not individual programs, so I didnt include it....... SORRY!!! :cry:But really who ever uses more than the word processor. I am willing to bet that better than 90% of people never use anything more than word processors, mind you that's my opinion and if you have statistical data that says otherwise let me know. My mom uses Microsoft access so I am familiar with people who use other componets. I think the vast majority use office suites in buisness and not home. Ubuntu should make abiword the default as very few benefit from the bloat of OO in my opinion. Ubuntu and it's users should focus on a high quality word processor and get rid of this silly office suite mentallity.

[Stormy Eyes]

I prefer OOO, even if it is "bloatware". I've got RAM and CPU to burn, and a metric arseload of disk space. All StarOffice has to offer is a printed manual, more fonts and clip art, and a knockoff of Access and Quattro (WordPerfect's Access knockoff). I don't give a rip about .doc and .xls; if I'm going to share docs with others I'll send them PDF files unless I need them to have alterable copies, so why in Chaos should I waste $200 for MS Office, plus $50 for a rebottled WINE?

[Stormy Eyes]

why is K Office never really mentioned all that much?

Kbecause kit ksucks.

[Kernel Sanders]

I think we need a new definition of "bloatware" because its banded around so freely these days its starting to become just a worthless slur....... :-k

How about this as far as software goes, it should be considered "bloated" if it contains lots of useless/needless crap?

Examples: Vista is bloated, Norton products are bloated, how the hell does "bloated" apply to OOo?

:confused: *implodes* :confused:

[Stormy Eyes]

Examples: Vista is bloated, Norton products are bloated, how the hell does "bloated" apply to OOo?

Possibly because most people might only use OOo for the word processor and the spreadsheet, and don't want the rest of the stuff "cluttering" their precious little hard drives and depriving them of space they'd rather use for porn or bootleg media.

[ComplexNumber]

to add to the definition of bloated, if i may? i would say that something is bloated if the developers of an application add functionality that is outside the scope of an application that should realistically only be designed for 1 main task (eg a word processor, an image viewer, a cd player, an mp3 player, a text editor, a code editor, an IDE, etc. for example: amarok and emacs are bloated.

[atoponce]

OpenOffice.org is the best in my personal opinion, because it utilizes fully the Open Document format, it is fully featured, contains enough filters for most document formats available, contains a PDF printer, and it is completely OSS. The *only* issue I have with OOo, is the Java implementation. Because of this, OOo will never be as robust as Microsoft Office. Get rid of Java, then you're talking.

[ComplexNumber]

java applications are only slow and cumbersome when loading. alledgedly, they can approach the speed of a typical C/C++ applications when its up and running. i would have thought that, in terms of robustness, being written in java would give it an advantage over MS office which is written in C++.

[Stormy Eyes]

for example: amarok and emacs are bloated.

Your definition makes sense, but I don't agree with the examples you offer. How exactly is amarok "bloated"? Yes, it plays audio files, and also handles tag editing, playlist management, and displays album covers. Yes, it also invokes Konqueror for displaying Wikipedia info, but it's not like it has its own web browser.

As for Emacs: is it really just a text editor, or is it a virtual machine for running LISP programs? I'd have to ask Richard Stallman.

[kadymae]

Very reluctantly, I choose MS Office as best.

Polish, baby, polish.

I <i>really, really</i> tried to limp along in OS X without Office. The whole point of my switching OS X was to ditch MS.

Until very recently there were no native ports of OO or Abi Word to OS X.

I couldn't find what I had done with my bundled appleworks disk, and frankly, I don't like Appleworks's word processor. It punishes you if you try save directly as a .rtf or .doc file and not the appleworks format. (Long story short, you're going to end up with a minimum of 2 copies of the file on your HD.)

I tried Think Free Office. Slow, and version 1 was a pile of glop.

So I tried OO under YDL 3. Slow, and while it had support for frelling smart quotes (which were a PITA to turn off) there was NO COPY AND PASTE support, nor could you drag and drop to reorganize pargraphs. (Talk about bassackwards priorities.)

So I went out and bought a disk of Unix programs for OS X because it had X windows and a newer version of OO which supported C&P. Only there was no way to copy and paste between the two windowing systems and 95% of what I needed to to was copy out of my email program and paste into a word processor.

So, I broke down and shelled out for an educational version of Office for X.

It. Just. Works.

And instead of using OO on my Ubuntu 'puter, I just went ahead and installed Abi word.

It. Just. Works.

(Faster and with less fuss than OO)

---

And I say all this as some one who used (and was okay with) Star Office 5.x on my W 98 box.

[ComplexNumber]

Your definition makes sense, but I don't agree with the examples you offer. How exactly is amarok "bloated"? Yes, it plays audio files, and also handles tag editing, playlist management, and displays album covers. Yes, it also invokes Konqueror for displaying Wikipedia info, but it's not like it has its own web browser.

As for Emacs: is it really just a text editor, or is it a virtual machine for running LISP programs? I'd have to ask Richard Stallman.
if i'm not mistaken, isn't amarok meant to be an audio player?
to add to the list, i think konqueror is bloated too because its meant to be a file manager.

[benplaut]

considering the number of people vouching of ms office, i'm suprised at the poll results.

While it's almost on par with 2003, OO.o has always played catch-up. I use it, but i still prefer ms office when on windows.

[Iandefor]

Microsoft office (2003) is far better than openoffice IMO, it's more compatible (they invented .xls, they have the best implementation), it looks nicer and when run in crossover it starts quicker than ooo. Besides, ooo takes up too much of the memory (possibly because of JAVA?).

For word processing, I use abiword. Don't really use spreadsheets no more, so that's not a problem.

ooo is bloat. It may have something to do with Java, but I think it also has to do with the fact that OpenOffice.org is a single program- the word processor and the spreadsheet and everything else is invoked by command line arguments. So, if you want to open up a document and edit it, you can't just load up OO.o write, you have to load up the spreadsheet and everything else in the suite, too. It'd be like opening up Word to edit a document and having to load Excel and Powerpoint, too.

[Lux Perpetua]

MS Office. If it used an open document format, then it would be better in every way. As it is, it's only better in almost every way.

Actually, the first thing I was struck by when I began using OpenOffice was how much it tried to be like MS Office...but didn't quite measure up in usability, functionality, or documentation.

However, OpenOffice is improving pretty quickly. I would like it better if it were more distinctive and innovative, though; I'm always embarrassed by software which has clearly copied its interface from some other popular piece of software. (This problem is not unique to OpenOffice or to Linux.)

[Stormy Eyes]

And instead of using OO on my Ubuntu 'puter, I just went ahead and installed Abi word.

It. Just. Works.

Are you able to create and use styles in AbiWord? No matter how many times I RTFM, I can't get AbiWord to do what I want, even though I have no trouble using OpenOffice.org's styles.

[BWF89]

I think OOo is the better program because:
# I can run the same exact program/version on a varety of OS's
# It doesn't cost a few hundred dollars
# OpenDocument is an open standard
# It's open source software and can be freely redistributed and modified under the LGPL

[RS3York]

Actually, the first thing I was struck by when I began using OpenOffice was how much it tried to be like MS Office...but didn't quite measure up in usability, functionality, or documentation.

However, OpenOffice is improving pretty quickly. I would like it better if it were more distinctive and innovative, though; I'm always embarrassed by software which has clearly copied its interface from some other popular piece of software. (This problem is not unique to OpenOffice or to Linux.)

It's funny I've been thinking about the much praised "Microsoft Office 12(2007) UI". And the common concern that Open Source Software is about "imitation and not innovation". Frankly if OpenOffice.org 2 was released with a UI that was like Office 12...that is released with a ribbon-style UI months before people knew about Microsoft's new look...people would complain that OpenOffice's UI was too different from the "standard" and thus not worth trying or retraining staff.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

OpenOffice.org isn't perfect by any means but it doesn't matter what the OOo Team does, people will complain about it and anything else that isn't Microsoft Office. Meanwhile, no matter what MS does short of stripping Word down to Notepad will be worthwhile simply because of the mindshare MSO has. It's like the Nike hardcores that will buy whatever Air Jordan shoe even if the same design by Adidas/Puma/Blackspot/Whoever would be somehow unacceptable.

*I'm making no claim as to the goodness or badness of MSO 2007's interface*

[nickle]

Well for writing complicated documents with equations, cross-references, indices, toc, bilbiography etc, it is hard to beat Latex. While there is a learning curve (as with everthing complicated), it beats most text programmes hands down. And what I like best, you end up with a beautifully formatted document that's a pleasure to read.
If you want a GUI for latex, kile or lyx are quite good. By the way latex costs nothing and has a vast amount of online documentation....

[Lord Illidan]

Reluctantly, Microsoft Office 2003.
It is expensive, but on Windows, it just works. The real cincher is the presentations, however. Open Office Impress is slower and buggier when it comes to presentations.
Regarding speed, Open Office just sucks. Apart from the time it takes to load, normal work takes 1.5 times longer than MS Office 2003.
Still, I use OpenOffice, because I hosed my Windows partition ;)

However, for writing normal documents, I use Open Office/Abiword.

One thing MS Office can't beat, the price of OOffice. What OOffice needs now is a speed booster.

[commodore]

You people should compare the program itself. It's not OpenOffice's and StarOffice's fault people use .doc and .xls. By comparing the programs NOT the usage of the file formats, I think OpenOffice.org is the best.

It's like saying Linux is **** because people use Mac OS X and Windows. So when people use Linux then Mac OS X and Windows are **** because people use Linux.

[Kernel Sanders]

You people should compare the program itself. It's not OpenOffice's and StarOffice's fault people use .doc and .xls. By comparing the programs NOT the usage of the file formats, I think OpenOffice.org is the best.

It's like saying Linux is **** because people use Mac OS X and Windows. So when people use Linux then Mac OS X and Windows are **** because people use Linux.

I see what your getting at, but I dont agree.....

MS Office 2003 OWNS because the majority of the world want things in MS Office file formats, and OOo is a little too buggy at using MS Office file formats IMHO.....

Ignore file formats, and there really is no reason to use MS Office 2003 over OOo.

Your Linux example is flawed, a better example would be people calling Linux **** *if* linux could not be networked with anything other than other Linux machines.

[Stormy Eyes]

MS Office 2003 OWNS because the majority of the world want things in MS Office file formats, and OOo is a little too buggy at using MS Office file formats IMHO.....

Logical fallacy detected: argument from popularity. I got news for you: 69 million Windows users can be wrong -- and usually are. Popularity doesn't mean a demon-ridden thing.

[BWF89]

A friend came up to me at school and asked me if I had anything that he could use to do a PowerPoint project for one of his classes. I told him about OpenOffice and burned him a CD with OOo and and a file explaining how to correct the error that constantly disables your default language making spellcheck not work.

A few days later I asked him how it was working out and he said that it was working great and he had allready done 10 out of 22 of his PowerPoint slides.

Than one of his friends asked him if he could have OOo so he burned it for him but since he was running Windows ME the program wouldn't run. They should really make a port of OOo for ME and older versions of Windows, theres still people out there running them.

[BoyOfDestiny]

I would like to get everyone's opinions on this if I may....... :-k

I own Microsoft Office 2003, and have downloaded StarOffice 8 and OpenOffice 2.0.2

So I have the latest versions of each (to make it fair)

My own personal opinion is that MS Office 2003 is the best. This is simply due to the fact that .doc and .xls are pretty much insustry standard document formats, and that if you have to send a file to someone, or share a file with others (a group of people passing around the same file after editing it for example), its pretty much a given that they want it sent to them in .doc or .xls format.

*snip*

I find this kind of funny. Your reason for liking it the best, is essentially the vendor lock-in. It used to be quite the opposite for Free Software users...

Some even made the effort to refuse these file types...

Although abiword, OOo, etc can read .doc formats now (and other ms formats, pretty well.)

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html

Frankly nothing beats .txt in terms of being able to read/write it anywhere...

I'd put my money on open formats for being able to read them on any machine present and future without a lot of hackery...

Anyway, not to make my post meaningless, I vote for OOo, since it does everything I need for word processing, presentations, etc.

[timczer]

Discounting the cost factor ( not everybody pays for a copy of Microsoft Office), I have to still give the vote to MSO.

Unfortunately, we still live in a world dominated with Windows and Office documents. Although I can open and work on word and excel documents in Openoffice (which is what I use on my home PC) they don't always come out formatted exactly as they are in Office. This creates some issue of people opening your Openoffice docs in MS and it not looking right or vice-versa. I know this invokes the open format arguement, but in the real world I have to create documents others can use, so I have to say in this respect, MS Office is better for me.

One big plus for Openoffice right now is the ability to export documents into pdf. This function I use a lot in my work.

A couple of negatives for Openoffice are Impress and printing. I cannot work on impress presentations as easily as I can powerpoint. It seems very buggy, crashes alot, doesn't format as well. And I still hate printing from Openoffice. I don't like having to always select the information in a page in a spreadsheet in order to print, where as I can simply print in excel and it defaults to printing only the current tab (when you have a spreadsheet that comes to 200+ pages, it sucks to just hit print and forget the "selecting" requirement in Openoffice). It also takes forever to print a selected section of a large spreadsheet in Openoffice.

So in summation, ease of use with others in the company, better printing and better presentations give MS Office my vote right now (improve the printing and presentations, throw in the pdf function and we would probably have a tie).

[TrendyDark]

.doc and .xls are industry standard because the "industry" doesn't realize that Microsoft is putting their grip around their neck.

[Kernel Sanders]

.doc and .xls are industry standard because the "industry" doesn't realize that Microsoft is putting their grip around their neck.

Correct, but as the majority of users are still demanding files with Microsoft Office extensions, MS Office is more functional.

Thats why, even though Ubuntu rocks, Windows is more functional because its compatable with 99% of software

[imagine]

I tell you, OOo rules and all other office suites suck. This isn't my opinion, it's the truth.
I hope this statement fits well enough into this thread...



To add something constructive: StarOffice is OpenOffice.org plus support, other icons, some cliparts, more templates and fonts, thesaurus, spellchecker (the gratis dictionaries aren't that great) and some other small differences.
Both OpenOffice.org and StarOffice are mainly developed by Sun employees, just that OOo is free of charge, opensource and for home users whereas SO costs money and is targeted at business users. Software without paid support is a no-go in an enterprise environment.

Btw neither OOo nor SO are Java applications. So bad luck for all people who are on a "Java is slow" crusade.

[imagine]

Frankly nothing beats .txt in terms of being able to read/write it anywhere... Yep, but the OpenDocument format is also nothing more than ASCII files put in a zip archive. Try it out.
All you need is access to a compression utility or knowledge about the compression algorithm to extract the archive and then you're able to read the XML files in every text editor or print them out.

[BWF89]

This is an EXCELLENT reason why you shouldn't use the .doc format and why you should encourage others do to so without getting into the whole software ethics arguement:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3154479.stm

EDIT: OpenDocument doesn't do the same thing does it?

[Kernel Sanders]

This is an EXCELLENT reason why you shouldn't use the .doc format and why you should encourage others do to so without getting into the whole software ethics arguement:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3154479.stm

EDIT: OpenDocument doesn't do the same thing does it?

Just tick one box and this doesnt happen.... but of course the British Government decided to spend X amount of taxpayers cash on an adobe acrobat professional licence...... surely a memo to tick the box would have sufficed? :rolleyes:

[BWF89]

Just tick one box and this doesnt happen.... but of course the British Government decided to spend X amount of taxpayers cash on an adobe acrobat professional licence...... surely a memo to tick the box would have sufficed? :rolleyes:
What box would that be, I don't have MS Office? Does OpenOffice w/OpenDocument do the same thing?

Why would they have to spend any amount of money on an Acrobat licence? All you have to do is tell MS Office to save as PDF format or get PDF Creator for free?

[Kernel Sanders]

What box would that be, I don't have MS Office? Does OpenOffice w/OpenDocument do the same thing?

Why would they have to spend any amount of money on an Acrobat licence? All you have to do is tell MS Office to save as PDF format or get PDF Creator for free?

1) In the security tab of Office options, there is a "dont save private...uh.... whatever" tick box. Tick it, and everything you save from that point onwards I believe wont save metadata? (I believe so anyway?)

2) MS Office doesnt *DO* PDF files..... (OOo 1 - 0 Office)

3) Open Office doesnt save metadata, so I believe your files are safe in OOo

Hope that helps!

John \\:D/

[Bolverk]

I prefer OpenOffice because its free. I like that it's open source, but $0 is what interests me more. :mrgreen:

I don't know whether I'll be able to continue using it, though, since Westlaw's Cite Check only runs on MS word. Feh. Cite check looks better and better each day. I've asked the Westlaw rep to pass along a suggestion to develop a plugin for OOo.

[zAo]

I had to vote for MS Office because I still can't convert all my MS-doc's normally.

:rolleyes:

[jeremy]

I had to vote AGAINST MS Office because you still can't convert all your MS-doc's normally.

[nursegirl]

Printing mailing labels is still so clunky, buggy and unintuitive on OOo. I have to vote for the MS product until the OOo team realises what a central task this is for business-type users of OOo.

[BWF89]

Printing mailing labels is still so clunky, buggy and unintuitive on OOo. I have to vote for the MS product until the OOo team realises what a central task this is for business-type users of OOo.
I tried to make mail lables to easily send out christmas cards but ended up giving up. OpenOffice needs to work on getting alot of premade templates like Microsoft Office does.

As soon as you start MS Office or MS Works you are greeted with the option to begin on a blank page or to use one of their many templates to make your job easier. This is a big area that OOo needs to catch up on.

[kadymae]

Are you able to create and use styles in AbiWord? No matter how many times I RTFM, I can't get AbiWord to do what I want, even though I have no trouble using OpenOffice.org's styles.

Ah, touche. I have never created/used styles in any word processing program.

[GolfGeek]

I haven't used MS2003 but I would make an interesting comment here, especially about some of the compatibility issues. I have a number of clients that continue to use Office97 because they don't want to pay a hefty price to MS and my experience is that OO has no problems with doc and xls from that generation. I now use it exclusively and have found no problems at all. My vote is OO in view of the cost.

[jeremy]

Printing mailing labels is still so clunky, buggy and unintuitive on OOo. I have to vote for the MS product until the OOo team realises what a central task this is for business-type users of OOo.
A large collection of free templates for labels is available at
http://www.worldlabel.com/Pages/openoffice-template.htm

[opticyclic]

Which is the better program?
It comes down to the definition of 'better'.

As you can see some people use price in their definition of better.
And some people include interoperability.
Interoperability shouldn't be an issue in the definition either, but realisticly it is in the business world.
I think you should ignore price (for now) and just compare the features.

Argue which does its job best first, then argue about interoperability and price.


For a lot of users the look of the application counts for a lot (someone mentioned polish).
I think MSOffice wins hands down in this respect.

I feel that Open Office is better than MSOffice 97 and about the same as MSOffice 2000.
However, I feel that OOo is lacking some of the extra features that have come in with MSOfficeXP and 2003.

[BoyOfDestiny]

Which is the better program?
It comes down to the definition of 'better'.

As you can see some people use price in their definition of better.
And some people include interoperability.
Interoperability shouldn't be an issue in the definition either, but realisticly it is in the business world.
I think you should ignore price (for now) and just compare the features.

Argue which does its job best first, then argue about interoperability and price.


For a lot of users the look of the application counts for a lot (someone mentioned polish).
I think MSOffice wins hands down in this respect.

I feel that Open Office is better than MSOffice 97 and about the same as MSOffice 2000.
However, I feel that OOo is lacking some of the extra features that have come in with MSOfficeXP and 2003.

Regardless of price, I can't ignore the free aspect as the source code is available. One cannot say the same about MS office. This is a feature in the sense people can build upon it, and it can be portable...

Anyway, what "extra features" are lacking that newer MS Office's bring? Do you use these features often?

[opticyclic]

The easiest thing I can think of off the top of my head is the graph feature in Excel compared to Calc.
Try creating a graph in Calc from a series of different rows/columns.
Then try subsequently adding a series to that graph.

I would concede that Writer is as good as Word, but I think Calc lacks functionality to Excel for power users.
VBA is one thing.
Watch Window is another.
This is a window that enables you to constantly monitor a selected set of cells.

I also think Powerpoint is easy to use than Impress.

Having said all that, you also need to define better for whom.
For all I have said MSOffice is better for the business, but the 'betterness' is not relevant for the majority of home users and the free aspect rears its head and makes OOo better for home users.

All down to the definition of 'better' :D

[SpEcIeS]

Not because OpenOffice has all of the features of Microsoft Office, but you cannot beat the price. Besides, MO is far too busy, and if you need all of the features then pay the enormous price. Aside from that there is no need.

OpenOffice has got to be the best.

Support your open source not greedy corporations :D

[opticyclic]

Better if you don't need the features because you save on money.

But not better in terms of the use of the product........Yet ;)

[sudomania4]

Even though I like free open source software, I voted Microsoft Office 2003, because its menus are less cluttered. It is very intuitive and easy to find things. Even though OOo and MS Office 2003 are both full of unused features (imho), MS Office makes it easier to find the features you do use. This is even with customized toolbars in each prog.

Also, about writer being as good as word, some paste options with only pasting certain formatting are lacking in OOo Writer. It is also hard to remove hyperlinks sometimes. The right click menu is easier to navigate in MS Office 2003.

[zero0w]

To Asian users, OpenOffice.org 2.0.2 on Linux presents some great leap in usability because virtual bold and italic style for the first time shows up for CJK fonts on Linux.

This changes a lot in the visual appearance for OOo Linux users. I hope to push some more CJK improvements in OOo 2.0.3 or later versions to the upstream.

[mvaniersel]

MS Office still beats the pants off OOo anytime performance wise. At work I regularly have to work with XLS files of 10+ Mb. Opening them in Excel takes about 5 seconds. Opening them in Calc takes 50 seconds. This is on a workstation with 2 Gb memory. Any heavy calculations you do in Calc on sheets of this size are painfully slow.

I still haven't found a way to simply open tab-delimited text files in OOo. Whatever I do, Calc detects it is a text file and hands it of to Writer. But I want to open it in Calc! In windows I can just right-click, open with... Excel and Excel will detect it is a tab delimited text file and open it as a normal spreadsheet.

I'm an Office Power user. I know all the keyboard shortcuts by heart, and it is quite annoying that they are different in OOo. You may argue that the shortcuts are better on OOo or whatever, that doesn't matter, I'll even concede tot that. What matters is that I'm completely used to the MS way of things, and I don't want to learn to do it differently. There should be an option to mimic the shortcuts to make the switch easier. Does anybody know if such an option exists?

In Impress, there is no way to multi-select graphical elements. In Powerpoint, just hold ctrl and click on the ones you want to select. In Impress, this seems to be impossible.

At work I keep a long list of "OOo annoyances". But these are the main ones.

[blueturtl]

* I prefer OpenOffice for it's price tag. As a student I do not have multiple hundreds of monetary units to waste on something like Windows and Microsoft Office.

* OpenOffice has better compatibility in all directions! I mean come on, it supports Microsoft's old formats better than Microsoft itself does, and the current ones are supported enough well for me to work with them. OpenOffice also runs on all major platforms unlike MS Office.

* The OpenDocument format is the way of the future, no need to mess with stuff that won't open in a few years.

* OpenOffice may not have the functionality or the speed of Microsoft Office, but it has a (much) smaller install size and for what most students like me use it for (word processing, moderate spreadsheeting) I find it's quite fully featured and fast enough.

[auroraborealis]

For word processing, I use abiword. Don't really use spreadsheets no more, so that's not a problem.

ooo is bloat.
For word processing, I use LaTeX. It makes any documents beautiful.

[Iandefor]

I like OO.o a lot, but I've recently been using Goffice and have been impressed. Abiword is the weakest link, as far as I can see, but I really love Gnumeric (I primarily do word processing and spreadsheets). I've had a lot of crashes with Abiword, but it looks like the Dapper version isn't so bad. It's also a hell of a lot lighter than OO.o.

[mundano]

I have lots of spreadsheets that i really need, most of them with macros, and none work as expected in OO... So, it's not an option, I have to use MS Office..

I hope that one day i can switch from MS Office to OO... But OO2 in this moment isn't at the same level...

[unbuntu]

I've used all three of them, although didn't spend too much time with StarOffice.
I'd give MS Office the edge, primarily because it's ubiquitous. OpenOffice is also good, but isn't in the same league as MS so far. Not sure about StarOffice. Once in our school's lab they have StarOffice installed on every machine, but every student hates it, and the administrator had to change them back to MS Office...

[awakatanka]

Using msoffice because I'm forced to use it, almost every company uses it.

But at home i use koffice i find it faster and for the thing i need it's enough, don't need anything more. Kexi a good database for the home user, krita a good drawing prg that has very good integration with kword and the rest of the office.

[eecon]

Where is the none of the above option?

I prefer Abiword and Gnumeric for my office productivity needs. They do what I need them to without the horrible bloat of Open Office and they work on my OS of choice. When I am forced to use it at work, MS Office gets the job done, however I find most of the 'features' implemented since 1997 more annoying than helpful.

[henriquemaia]

OpenOffice.org .

Price beater, does everything I need, even open dull .pps presentations everyone sends me.

[louis_nichols]

well... I've used all: MS office, ooo, abiword, gnumeric, koffice, star office and probably others, that I don't remember now...

I use ooo exclusively (both in win and Linux) and my vote goes to it. It really does everything a medium office suite user needs. Myself, i've never found any options in MS office that ooo doesn't have. Hell, even the equation editor is easier to use.

As for using MS because of widespread formats, that's bull! It's exactly the wrong way of thinking, the way MS forces its products on ppl and why we need a Linux and FOSS software community.

Can't read open document format? Download the damn software! It's free and easily available to everyone. I usually send pdf's to ppl, anyways, be it documents or presentations. As for spreadsheets, I can make an exception and save as xls, since compatibility, as far as my own experience has taught me, is better than with documents.

[nab]

Well, my vote goes to OO.

Last StarO I used was version 6, so I can't compare.

For the things I do in OO and in MSO, both versions behave the same, mostly formatted texts and tables with more text to write specifications.

I switch almost daily between the version and have little problem with formation. I can't compare the speed because my PC at work is way faster than my notebook. For bugs, well you can crash both Offices if you like, but with time you know how to behave that everythings runs smoothly :-D

The price-tag, the fast support in user-forums, the indepence of OS, open formats and the pdf-export were the main reason to choose OO.

But in the end it's just a personal choice.

Regards,
Niko

[funkyade]

Use a combination of AbiWord and OO. In the process of switching all my business to use Linux, as I am fed up of having to 'maintain' Windows installations and fight the bugs in Office that remain unfixed until the next major release (i.e. every 12 months)...

also M$O is not free and open and doesn't support ODT formats.

The ONLY feature I miss is the excellent track changes.... otherwise I am not looking back..

[Turgon]

I havn't used star office before, but between open and ms office htere is no doubt in my mind: Open office is the winner!

Open Office does not have all the irritating extra functions I never use unless MS Office force them on me (and it does quite offen, which is most irritating). Open office got a cleaner look (in my opinion) and its free of charge.

[unbuntu]

What's the difference between OpenOffice and StarOffice besides that StarOffice costs like $70?

[sixsixone]

A lot of posts are from people here saying they 'can't do without' MS office.

Atm I'm using Oo2 & MS office 2007 (yeah, beta) and I gotta say in terms of pure functionality there's not a lot between them.

I can tell Microsoft has spent millions on user interface design and the newer, openGL look is pretty impressive. However the whole suite further entrenches people's dependency on M$ with stuff like the SharePoint crap at the heart of it all.

Being a single user I can't see how any of the collaborative stuff in M$ gives it the edge so as such I'm really loathed to reccommend it over openoffice...

If it makes it any better it's a beta (so i didnt pay for it) and I'm just running it on Wine....

[Iandefor]

What's the difference between OpenOffice and StarOffice besides that StarOffice costs like $70? StarOffice comes with a support package. I don't really know of any other differences between the two.

[louis_nichols]

I can tell Microsoft has spent millions on user interface design and the newer, openGL look is pretty impressive. However the whole suite further entrenches people's dependency on M$ with stuff like the SharePoint crap at the heart of it all.


OpenGL? Are you sure? I thought they wanted to ditch it in favor of direct3d (besides, I don't really see a point in using advanced 3d rendering technology for word processing software)

[DirtDawg]

I personally like OpenOffice more than MicroOffice, but not for any moral reasons. Openoffice is easier to work. Turning on/off options, even finding options in the first place, seems easier to me in Ooo.

[Lord Illidan]

A lot of posts are from people here saying they 'can't do without' MS office.

Atm I'm using Oo2 & MS office 2007 (yeah, beta) and I gotta say in terms of pure functionality there's not a lot between them.

I can tell Microsoft has spent millions on user interface design and the newer, openGL look is pretty impressive. However the whole suite further entrenches people's dependency on M$ with stuff like the SharePoint crap at the heart of it all.

Being a single user I can't see how any of the collaborative stuff in M$ gives it the edge so as such I'm really loathed to reccommend it over openoffice...

If it makes it any better it's a beta (so i didnt pay for it) and I'm just running it on Wine....

Direct 3D, I am sure. They would be crazy to run it on Open GL when Vista is going to cripple OpenGL functionality!

[nocturn]

Microsoft office (2003) is far better than openoffice IMO, it's more compatible (they invented .xls, they have the best implementation), i


I disagree about compatibility. My OO opens both sxw, odt and doc files in addition to many of the older formats I still have on my backups.
Word is unable to handle both sxw, odt and most of my old formats, but even has difficulties with .doc files from previous versions.

[GarethMB]

I voted OOo.

Simply because all i need to do is on a personal level. I don't need compatibility with others formats. I just use it to type my essays. As it doesn't cost anything its a better choice than office. That said i tend to save in Microsoft formats, just in case i have to do anything for anyone else.

[ayllu]

I have open office and M$ office and well dependes in which programs for example in the words the doferens i s just that in M$ you can print a document like a book, and is all but in the presetation M$ have better animation and acceibility to work better in the grafical editor are likely but the publisher make a big diference wiht the linux software but we have to admit tha M$ crashes is sowly and cost but you can do actually the same in bouth software's

[BuffaloX]

Microsoft Word is a pain.
I always hated the way it automattically creates weird formatting, which is then extremely difficult to remove.
Just when I think I have it configured right, it turns out that some automation still ruins what I'm trying to do.
Also I don't like the way Microsoft handles files, with no option of using standard formats. filetype .doc is not a standard, but a totally closed microsoft propritary format. Which will soon be illegal to utilize in public services in Denmark, because only open standards will be legal.
Why will MS Word refuse to open documents from MS word of newer version?
Even when no special features are used, I suspect Microsoft does this to force people to by upgrades, or they will not be able to communio

It would be nice if everybody would stop using these closed and limited formats, which are not designed for any kind of communication of documents with others, except if they also use the same software. How Microsoft has convinced the world to use microsoft Word is beyond me.
Productivity tests in the past, has clearly shown MS Word to be your worst choice. Still people continues to use it???
I guess powerpoint and Excel are pretty good, but they still have the fileformat problems.

[kopilo]

Personally I dislike Office 2003, I use it at uni and it's just annoying to manuver.

Open Office 2 is good and I use it for a lot of assignments, however I view open office and MS Office as apples and oragnes so I can't help you there.

But, I do have a full copy of StarOffice 8 (thank you PC Authority) and there are a good number of differences, such as StarOffice has a total of 12 dictionaries where Open Office has up to 32 different dictionaries avaliable. StarOffice seems to be more aimed at corporate clients.

See here (http://www.sun.com/software/star/openoffice/docs/SO_Comparison_OOo.pdf#search=%22staroffice%20vs%20 open%20office%22) for a comparison page.

In my honest opinion, MS office is a good backup for OpenOffice and OpenOffice is a good backup for MS Office.

The MS Office 2007 beta blows MS Office 2003 away. If it is publically avaliable and free, grab it while you still can. I'd even go as far to say that MS office 2000 is better then 2003 in some reguards.

[Kateikyoushi]

Well it is not only MS word what is quite dominant on the market despite having better choices.

I am using oo and I also tried the new office beta, luckily most documents i get are written with older offices so I can o pen them with OO.

So far the most common problem in the offices where i install oo that they save docs in default oo formats what MS office can't open.

While I like the new MS office I am not willing to fork out that much for it, I use the beta till it expires, not writing much on my windows machine anyway.

[Rhubarb]

I voted for OOo, as I use Office at work.
Office is great for Macros in vb, but that's about it.
OOo lacks info about their Base program, but other than that, OOo is great! I can export pdfs easily - Huzzzah!

[the.dark.lord]

So I have the latest versions of each (to make it fair)


The latest version of OpenOffice is 2.0.3 [this was released on June 29, 2006]... and 2.0.4 is just around the corner.

[the.dark.lord]

Hey... this thread was started on March 11th this year.... what the heck is still doing here?

[BWF89]

I was walking through CompUSA while heading for the Apple section to convince my dad to buy an iMac for the family for Christmas when I looked onto a shelf to my right and saw they were selling Star Office 8. This is the first time I've ever seen StarOffice being sold in a physical store. They had it way in the back of the store though, I don't think most people would have seen it had they been looking to buy an office app.

If you don't use either MS Office, Star Office, or OpenOffice you should post in my poll I made awhile ago: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=87694