OpenOffice Survey

phaedrus · n00b Joined: 09 Sep 2003 Posts: 4 Location: Auckland, NZ

Hi All,

I'm currently 'migrating' to total open-source apps, and wanted to know what you guys all thought of OpenOffice?
I know it's got raves (and what it's capable of), but is anyone here regularly using it to edit documents/spreadsheets etc made in MSOffice?

I need to edit the odd MSOffice file at home for work, and I want to make absolutely sure it's worthwhile moving before I spend hours downloading through my 56k.

I mean, can it handle MSOffice files to the extent MSOffice can?

christsong84 · Posted: Thu Sep 11, 2003 11:35 pm Post subject: Re: OpenOffice Survey

arand · Apprentice Joined: 22 Apr 2003 Posts: 215

In my experience it has not to bad. For most stuff like for me 75 % of documetns it opens up ok or with minor errors that I can fix quickly. The ones that don't are that kind that have some really wierd formatting in them. I have seen this from both word and excel documents. When I say wierd one that comes to mind was a dual column documetn with a big textbox and a bunch of check boxes.

Also all my experience has ben with the 1.0.x series I have not tried the 1.1 series yet but they say the filters have improved. I am looking forward to the stable ebuild for that.

My suggestion to you would be to take your most complicted document or spread sheet to a computer with openoffice is on and see what happens.

viperlin · Veteran Joined: 15 Apr 2003 Posts: 1319 Location: UK

i love it, it's my #1 office suite

shm · Posted: Fri Sep 12, 2003 12:17 am Post subject: Re: OpenOffice Survey

syscrash · Guru Joined: 14 Apr 2003 Posts: 541

I'm not sure about word documents, but the 5 that I did try opened correctly

. I always use openoffice, and I save my files in the openoffice format. It is a great alternative to ms word (ugh).

pjp · Administrator Joined: 16 Apr 2002 Posts: 20067

Moved from Desktop Environments.
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Unne · l33t Joined: 21 Jul 2003 Posts: 616

OO.o is all I have to use, so I use it. I've used it in the past for assignments at college. We had to install OO.o on all the lab computers once, because there was no MS Office and no way to get it to put it on them. OO.o is as compatible as I need it to be. If it can create .doc files and change fonts, line spacing, alignment, etc. it's powerful enough for what paltry use I need to get out of it.

phaedrus · n00b Joined: 09 Sep 2003 Posts: 4 Location: Auckland, NZ

Okay, it looks like I have all the reviews I need!

Now it's just scheduling time to download... :roll:

Thanks all...

noff · Posted: Fri Sep 12, 2003 2:47 am Post subject: I use it

I use it for MS stuff and it does very well. Except for most templates and what not. OO completely butchered my old resume I had made using the resume wizard in word. I prefer it over excel, however I find powerpoint to be much nicer than impress (that wasn't your question though). It can be a little sluggy at times though I here this has improved in 1.1.
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mattsavigear · Posted: Fri Sep 12, 2003 9:56 am Post subject:

I've been using OOo for several months. It imports MS document extremely well, but the export to Word at least can be a bit flaky. I find it tends to lose formatting quite a bit, which is not ideal as I'd rather not have to review every export in the MS application to fix the problems.
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charlieg · Posted: Fri Sep 12, 2003 10:58 am Post subject:

I've been using OpenOffice-1.1-rc3 on Windows and it's great. I actually prefer it to MS Office. It's probably lacking one or two advanced features, but I'm just making standard documents - indexing, headings, etc - and find OOo easily satisfies my every Office need.
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gsfgf · Veteran Joined: 08 May 2002 Posts: 1266

Writer: Never had a problem.
Calc: Never tried it
Impress: I had lots of formatting problems with SO5, but i haven't tried it wit oo.org 1.0
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SIR · Posted: Fri Sep 12, 2003 8:52 pm Post subject:

For just about everything I've tried, I haven't had a problem.

I've seen slight formatting differences, especially with graphics and other objects in the writer, and I couldn't use built in VBA and Excel solver stuff for some of the spreadsheets I've used.

But overall, I like it!

shm · Posted: Fri Sep 12, 2003 9:07 pm Post subject: