Open Office vs Word-which is better?

[loribee59]

is Open Office any better than Word? just curious...that's all

 

[Dark_Lite]

What do you mean by "better?" OpenOffice is better in one sense because it's free. I would also argue it's better for most regular users, simply because it is free. Microsoft Office has some esoteric features that businesses may need, but for regular writing of papers and maintaining of spreadsheets, OpenOffice is infinitely cheaper.

 

[wiggsfly]

I have both on my computers but tend to use OpenOffice. Not only can it do pretty much everything the other can, but it can open MS Office files while MS Office cannot open OpenOffice files without addons.

 

[wiggsfly]

Also forgot to point out that a document made in OpenOffice will look the same regardless of platform (Linux, Mac, Win) while MS Office documents often look quite different even from windows to Man versions of the suite.

 

[Dark_Lite]

Office 2007 SP1 actually added OpenDocument support.

I find that kind of funny.

 

[loribee59]

What do you mean by "better?" OpenOffice is better in one sense because it's free. I would also argue it's better for most regular users, simply because it is free. Microsoft Office has some esoteric features that businesses may need, but for regular writing of papers and maintaining of spreadsheets, OpenOffice is infinitely cheaper.

I should have clarified what I meant: is it better in doing all the things that MS Word does that I'm used to doing? does it have everything that MS Word has or do I need to get plug ins to make it work/act like MS Word?

I'm only using it for personal use.

 

[Leesy]

As a personal opinion i recon MS office looks nicer and does stuff a bit better and is easier to make slightly better looking documents however i do most of my work in linux so i normally use open office and it seems to do everything fine.

 

[NiobiumTragedy]

I used MS Office, then switched to Open Office, and now I'm back to MS Office.
I found that especially for things like PowerPoint Presentations, MS Office just does it better. Open Office I found a bit laggy at times even in writer where MS Office feels faster.

MS Office 2010 looks very good thus far as well.
But Open Office is still free.

 

[Sketcher]

I figure it's free, why not give it a shot. Nothing to lose, really.

 

[Qyöt27]

I'm long past using anything vaguely MS Office/Works-like, although I do use OpenOffice Calc. It doesn't do the kinds of weird stuff the Works Spreadsheet does concerning text separation, nor does it complain about me having a ton of fonts installed. If I have to type something up I just use Notepad or Wordpad instead. :shrug:

 

[Trelawrence]

I tend to prefer MS Word, though I do love OpenOffice.

 

[SithDoughnut]

OpenOffice is free. Microsoft Office prices are in the high double/triple digits. Not much more to be said really, unless you specifically want to use it for a certain job.

 

[Rocklee]

Choose Word/MS Office.

The best thing about Open Office is that its free, and that is also its biggest problem. There are a number of crucial features I needed that was not available in OO, such as cropping images. MS Office is simply leaps and bounds for people who just wants to get things done quickly without installing too many things. Remember, Microsoft has been developing this product for a long long time, in fact it is their flagship product (even Apple promotes it as one of their recommended software).

OO is not widely used so there is no really need for MS Office to try and open ODT files, its DOC and now DOCX files that all the suites follow as well as their own.

I run linux on my systems and while OO is handy to have around, I still use MS Office (using Wine) and have no problems. I'm a bigger fan of Linux than Windows but there are some Windows products I can't live without (Photoshop is the other).

If you are on a budget or interested in the basic features then OO will be just fine.

Otherwise even MS Office 2000 or 2003 would be a better option.

 

[Dark_Lite]

such as cropping images.

How do I crop an image in my drawing? - OpenOffice.org Wiki

Not the most user-friendly way, but it is there.

 

[Rocklee]

Yes there is the manual crop function which you need to enter the exact locations of the part you want cropped out. That's the old way.

The current way is dragging the borders which is far easier, and already a standard feature on the internet.

OO will support this kind of cropping if you import a plugin for OO (CropOOo), but it doesn't always work as advertised as I was not always able to revert some cropping actions.