Use OpenOffice.org

Whenever I’ve used it in the past it’s been incredibly slow to get anything done, and I’ve had all sorts of weird compatibility problems swapping files with people who use Microsoft Office. Makes my life easier to just use Microsoft Office.

I see it’s a bit clunky and a bit buggy on my system, there are some options I don’t have from Word that I’d like, but overall I’m happy with it.

My PC didn’t come with Microsoft Office and and the cost (£369.99 RRP) is slightly prohibitive for me. A lot of people dislike Microsoft for reasons that they find hard to articulate but probably have something to do with big corporations (boo! hiss!) and monopolies. Personally, it’s a more pragmatic decision for me if I want to be able to use anything other than a bog standard word processing application or if I want to view and edit Office files that others send me.

My first impressions are good. The installation was quick and easy and didn’t try to hijack my system by default. The interface is intuitive and has a couple of quirky little tricks. Some of the tricks I learned in Office aren’t available but that’s the price you pay. Other than that the price I paid was zero.

It does all I need it to do. The requirements for a word-processor are not that great in my everyday-usage, but still, it feels good to use free software that gets the job done.

It would be nice if the open-document files became succesfull in the MS-Office user-base, but I don’t expect much. Untill then it can be difficult to work together with Word-users, mailing one file back and forth without wrecking the lay-out.

I’ve been using OpenOffice.org exclusively since the early milestone releases before versions 1.0. I’ve found it logical, fully featured and easy to use.

I used to use a dodgy licensed copy of Office 2000 before switching, I couldn’t afford to pay the MS tax when I was a student and when OpenOffice.org became available I switched and all my guilt went away. I’ve continued to use it in my job and my continuing part-time studies. I never install any other Office program on a computer I have to Maintain.

I really like using Open Office for all my word processing needs. The fact that it converts to Word files so easily makes me especially happy that I didn’t fork over hundreds of dollars getting another Microsoft product.

that OpenOffice takes over MSOffice.

I exclusively on OpenOffice now. Junked that MS that had to be re-register after a harddisk upgrade.