Glenn Reynolds made mention of Open Office, a free office suite that I've been using for the past few years. While the first version I downloaded and installed some years ago, Open Office 1.1, wasn't exactly perfect, it was far better than nothing at all. Since then it has improved greatly to the point where I prefer it over Bill Gates' flawed Microsoft Office.
I presently use Open Office 2.4 on both my Windows and Linux machines and I find it to be far more useful to me than MS Office (I use MS Office at work). While it doesn't have all the bells and whistles of MS Office, it does do everything I want or need it to do, and does it well. But the one biggest kudo I have for Open Office is that it doesn't try to help me or automatically format a document I'm working on when I don't want it to. That is one of Microsoft Office's biggest annoyances, that it “knows better” what I want to do than I do. I've lost count of how many times I've had to undo something MS Office insisted I wanted to do even though I had no intention of doing what MS Office did for me.
Other than a few obscure functions available in MS Office, I haven't found anything that I do in MS Office at work that I can't do in Open Office. In many cases Open Office does it better.
These days I steer friends to Open Office if they're in the market for an Office suite. If nothing else the price is right: Free!
Comparing OO to M$ is not fair. M$ is the standard for intrusive apps. Not hard to beat.
ReplyDeleteCompare it to Lotus Word Pro if you want a good test. The only reason I switched is that OO Writer gives you a one-click PDF with embedded fonts. That's not a trivial feature.
I have more need for a good spreadsheet app rather than a word processor. The OO spreadsheet program performs well in XP for me.
ReplyDeleteFWIW, I occasionally dabble in Linux (PCLinuxOS) and the few times I've used it in that OS the spreadsheet app works just fine.
MS has lost touch with what a GUI productivity app needs to be, IMHO. Since a mandatory switch over to Office2007 at work, I've started using Google Calendar, Thunderbird for EMail and OO for all Office functionality. Works for me, and I don't have to change mindsets when I get home.
ReplyDeleteI made the switch to Mac over a year ago, and love every minute of it. I didn't use OOo on the Mac due to the X11 issues, instead working with the very nice NeoOffice.
ReplyDeleteNow, with the 3.0 Beta release, OOo is back on my Mac. So far, it's looks incredibly sweet, and way nicer to work with than MS Office.
Open Office's Base is a joke, no where near competing with MS Access. Sorry, MS Office is irreplaceable.
ReplyDeleteJustin said:
ReplyDeleteOpen Office's Base is a joke, no where near competing with MS Access. Sorry, MS Office is irreplaceable.
That may be so, but how many of us out there actually use Access or its equivalent? For most folks like me, it's Word, Excel, and Powerpoint. Open Office does really well at those three things. I haven't used Base (or Access) so I can't comment about the difference between the two.
Yeah, Base is a joke, but so is Access. Both are "toy" databases with the habit of corrupting data, being very slow, and totally unsuitable for multi-user, web applications.
ReplyDeleteWhat is cool about Base is that it can connect to, and use, MySQL databases. One of the really great things about MySQL is that using mysqldump you get full backup of your database. You can even set that as a cron job, done automatically.
Even better, you can migrate to a web-based application while prototyping on your desktop. It's easy and handy. There are guides around to walk you through setting up MySQL access through Base. Which is personally, what I would do. It gives you a nice, easy gui in front of the DB, and real stuff you won't get in Access -- stored procedures, nested queries, triggers, etc. Integrates like a dream of course with PHP. If that's your need.
Oligonicella said:
ReplyDeleteCompare it to Lotus Word Pro if you want a good test. The only reason I switched is that OO Writer gives you a one-click PDF with embedded fonts. That's not a trivial feature.
I still use Word Pro when I'm writing a book. It was easy for me to set up manuscript templates and I've stuck with it for that purpose. Everything else is OO. But the two are very similar. Glenn Reynolds has claimed OO is also close to Word Perfect in its set up and ease of use.
I appreciate the comment, whiskey_199, but um Access is just as connectible to other data sources as Base, if not more so, including MySQL. It makes a particularly great front end for SQL Server--a paring that no open source solution can touch. Stored procedures, nested queries, etc. Base is still playing catchup.
ReplyDeleteBut I'll take PHP over ASP any day.