OpenOffice 2 is ready to replace Microsoft Office 97/2000/XP/2003 ? Some personal experience? Some suggestion? Some friend has suggest to me to use this program. Some suggestion?
Bye
I am a user of OpenOffice, and I like it a lot.
You will probably find more answers and information on the suite on the OOo forum which is located at http://www.oooforum.org, than here on the avast! forum.
In my opinion, the new 2.0.2 release is an extremely competent alternative to MS Office. But, depending on what you need to do with it, your mileage may vary. I use Writer and Calc extensively, but have limited experience with the other applications.
I was using second hand MS Office :-[ but i noticed i really don’t need it anymore.
OpenOffice suits me just fine for all my basic needs for text, spreadsheets and presentations. And it’s completelly free. I really can’t ask for more.
I had no problems opening MS Office documents, except few presentations that were rendered a bit too fast. Other than that i’m very happy with it.
Opens all sorts of MS documents plus it’s own formats. Pretty nice 
Yep, I like OpenOffice also.
I don’t use open office because I need MS excel to do linear regressions, data analysis, etc. But, if you don’t need MS for specific things, Openoffice is very good.
Can anybody please tell me: does the new Writer have a characters counter like Word? What I mean is, if I select a text can it tell me how many characters (with spaces) the selected text has? (In ms word, this option is under the “tools”).
Thanks.
Can’t remember in the 1.0 version, which I didn’t use much, but in 2.0.2, which I do use now instead of MS Office, it certainly does.
Edit:
I’ll save you a search. Here’s a list of the new features in 2.0:
Thanks, OrangeCrate.
I had tried the first version, but it didn’t have that option - which I need for my work.
I think users of OO will appreciate this site:
http://ooextras.sourceforge.net/ 8)
is there a spell checker in it like microsoft word has,my son usses it all the time?
bri,
Yes there is.
thanks orangecrate,i think ill give it a try
But no grammar checker yet, I believe?
Staind,
Nope, not yet. I think there are some add ons for foreign language use, that does some grammatical stuff when translating, but I’m not sure.
Spyros,
Cool site. Thanks.
Bri,
When you install, there will be a page to set the defaults for the MS Office products in OOo. (Watch for it, it’s easy to skip.) Do that. Then in Writer, there will be an option to set the default doc type to Word Documents. Do that, and you’re all set. You can save everything manually everytime you save a document, but it’s a hassle, and frankly, for now, I don’t know anyone that uses the OOo format. Until MS recognizes it, it won’t be used a lot.
The above instructions are available (and probably a lot more clear) on the OOo forum as a “sticky” if I remember correctly. A link to the forum is in an earlier post in this thread.
Good luck.
For those interested in open source projects, and OpenOffice vs. MS Office in particular, here’s an interesting article:
http://www.idealware.org/articles/msoffice_vs_openoffice.php
Bri,
It took me a while to find it again, but here are some customization issues for OOo. Particularly, setting the defaults in OpenOffice for MS Office formats. (It’s a better explanation than I offered above.)
Thanks for that link, OrangeCrate, as it will come in handy for me and others.
^,
You’re welcome, I’m happy to help. Since upgrading to 2.0.2, I haven’t had any problems with OOo. It’s a great program for my intensive, but limited use, and I recommend it to all. Personally, I even like the interface better than Word.
After setting the defaults to mimic MS Office, the only issue that’s a bit hard to understand for many is page numbering. There’s a pretty simple explanation to that, and if anyone is interested, I’ll post it here.
By the way, this thread should probably be in Off Topic, and not here on the main board. Oh well.
That’s a very useful link OrangeCrate. Thank you. Sorta wish I’d read it before I installed…
I’d be VERY interested in page numbering information. (You wouldn’t believe how this MS Word- familiar user struggled with page numbers in her newspaper column last week - the result was far from pretty but deadlines are deadlines and “I didn’t have time to change it”. Apologies to Arlo)
Cheers and Happy Days to all.
Here’s the “standard” tutorial on page numbering referenced several times on the OOo forum:
http://www.8daysaweek.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=34
Frankly, I find that explanation a little daunting. So, once you’re familiar with the concept, just remember and do this:
Start with a first page style. Then insert the header/footer and the page number into the second page, which will be the default style. This will start the numbering at page 2.
Once you do this a couple of times, it’ll become automatic. (And in my opinion, easier than putzing around with headers or footers in Word.)