Microsoft Word Alternative??

I am not an Outlook user,therefore I use Oxygen OO without probs (and free ofcourse).

Gerard

 

Efficient to use or efficient in system resources ?

Office 07 UI attempts to be better but fails and makes it a worse user experience for our non-techy office users.
Not only does it not meet MS's own GUI standards, but ALL the office apps vary, why do most have a Ribbon, but some not (eg visio, outlook), why does tab not work correctly going through the ribbon items?
Why is word MDI but Excel SDI ?

Open Office is compatible with as many STANDARD text formats are Office. It lacks in MS Office compatible file formats, but they are in no way standard (which is different from common).

OpenOffice might not have as many slick UI features as MSO, but it is far more consistent which out weights inconstancies by far from a user-friendly perspective.
This makes it harder to learn (and train dumb users from personal experience). Because they have actually introduced more differences from the previous versions and is different from the standard way XP/Vista [should] implement UI.

So does Office (XP, 2003 and 2007).

I disagree.
His point was that MOST users won't need anything that MSO offers over OO.
For most users money will go to waste.

For most users (not just the people who use photoshop day to day professionally), what does Photoshop offer that gimp does not ?

I have nothing against paying for what you need and gives you better value in the long run, but many people will not benefit.

At home I only fire up OO a few times a month and I've never been stuck with lacking features of OO, so why pay simple because its a "class leader" ?

That's the problem with most closed source programs.
They tend to be buggy and incompatible.

I find most open source apps are more compatible with published standards than closed source equivalents.

Bugs - IMHO open and closed have similar proportions of good and bad examples.

Overall features they are better for sure. Possible even better value for money if you can utilise those features, but not better for everyone.

Why would there be no competition ?

Why does it matter ?

I would say at the moment that is mostly right.

 

Lets not forget that MS ripped off the GUI idea from Apple and the core from OS/2. Even the newer Vista is a shameful copy of Mac OSX.

 

Nope.........since I was once a proud owner of the MS full version I would gladly use OO even if I have to pay for it.

 

I would have to agree with this statement. The first time I used Office'07, it took me 3x as long to create a simple Excel or Word document than it would in Office'03. I have switched back to the latter since keyboard shortcuts are much more intuitive in the '03 version.

However, many people that I have talked to say that the ribbon makes them much more productive. They agree it needed a learning curve of a couple of months, but they do things much faster pointing and clicking in '07 than they did in '03.

 

Are you not aware that there is a paid version that is based on the same code base ?

http://www.sun.com/software/staroffice/index.jsp

 

Why buy a 18 wheeler to go shopping Asda/Walmart in ?

Best saving your money and spend it wisely elsewhere.

 

Indeed, I will spend it on my second quad core and add it to my dual socket board to have 8 cores by next month

 

MS did have the Apple machine and were developing a gui in secret. Apple weren't the ones who invented the GUI either though. Also, Vista is not a ripoff OSX. No need to MS bash in a thread on office alternatives.

 

No one is bashing MS..........let the truth be known. GUI and mouse credit goes to HP actually.

 

Actually doesn't that go to Xerox?

 

I'll agree with the learning curve in the new MSO. Nothing is where it used to be and, if you don't use a feature regularly, you spend minutes hunting for it again. But, in my case it was a freebie - and their ain't too many of them from MS - so I use it. I'll never learn it, nor will I ever use 75% of the features.

I have OpenOffice 3 beta 2 on my desktop. Probably should check to see if there's a newer version.

 

As a student, you can't go wrong with OO, for all practical purposes, it probably does what you need. I wish they would add an email client like MSO, but perhaps they will in time. I don't think you can expect a free product to compete fully with a paid product. If the free offering was every bit as good and full featured as the paid, then nobody would buy the paid product, and we'd all use the freebie..

I also don't think money is really the issue. For anyone working, $120-200 is not much to pay for MS Office and Outlook. If it's something you use extensively, then that justifies the $$. Perhaps many don't really need the full benefit of the paid MS Office, in which case, OO is quite sufficient, and saves you some $$.

 

1) As per KookyMan, credit for the gui goes to Xerox.
2) Vista's apparent similarity to OSX is an opinion, not "the truth"

I would use OO but this all goes back file format compatibility. I cant use OO just becaues it cant read everyone elses documents properly. Also doc files saved by OO will come out different in MS office.

 

I can't understand why people are even saving their files in the new office format, '.docx'.

Others receiving the file will either need to install a 'compatibility pack' or the program itself. ( There are other programs to convert it. I use the online converter www.zamzar.com )

Anyway, why aren't people, for more simple documents that is, just sending it in rich text format .rtf? It loads faster and doesn't have all the private data attached (previous track changes and so on).

 

Btw........Go Office does docx.

 

This is what I was trying to point out.
MSO works with almost ALL document formats.
'Docx' is smaller in size than 'doc' and 'rtf' documents.

 

What learning curve?

The new GUI is a lot easier than the previous GUI, since all the commands are easier to locate with the tabs.
Seriously, do you really use MSO 07?

 

Hi

I've used MSO 07, and it is quite confusing at first. But after a while it is easier to use than 03.

 

Hi

The reviewer here found Jarte to be very good: http://www.techsupportalert.com/content/word-processor-replacement.htm

 

LOL, yes I really have Office 7 Ultimate. I got it mainly for Word and Powerpoint. I did load a couple of other things. I've used Word since DOS, and still have a book with 5 1/4 floppies of Word somewhere in the house.

I'm not saying it isn't a good program, just that I'm still hunting for things that I don't use every day (in Word). So far, I haven't had any reason to use anything but Word, and may never use Excel. I might use Powerpoint a few times a year.

I've got Office Ultimate, like I said earlier,only because I participated in that program MS had some months ago, where they loaded some program and occasionally monitored your computer or Internet habits. I selected Office and got it free at the end of the program. Otherwise, I'd have OpenOffice on this laptop, same as on my desktop machine.

 

Size is down to it being compressed (like a zip file).

There is support in open office for docx files.

http://download.novell.com/Download?buildid=GuM6LMM9SR4~

Many other programs support the OOXML standard.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_Open_XML#Application_support

 

I don't think the "standard" will be applied in Office 07. Only the next version..

 

Are you talking about the Office Open XML?

 

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2008/may08/05-21ExpandedFormatsPR.mspx