I have to say that I am completely overwhelmed. It does everything I need it to do, and more. I like OOo Writer, and it's just as good as Microsoft Word.

If you haven't downloaded this yet, try it out.

OpenOffice.org

I had a computer teacher praising the shit out of it...

We use it here at QS/1 Data Systems. (www.qs1.com) I am quite impressed. I like how it will also open the MS Word documents as well. My $0.02

We use it here at QS/1 Data Systems. (www.qs1.com) I am quite impressed. I like how it will also open the MS Word documents as well. My $0.02

It's a great cost cutting method. MS Office can be expensive, especially when you're buying for 1000+ computers.

I like it...but I just found out that Open Office Writer won't open *.wps files, which I think is word perfect?

You use Turd Perfect?

2006 or 1992?

2006 or 1992?
:roll:

You use Turd Perfect?

hell no! and I was wrong, it was Microsoft Works. my classmate was the one who sent me the file.

I tried neoffice (that's the mac version of open office) for a while on my mbp. i found it to be prohibitively slow, even slower than msoffice running on rosetta.

abiword on the other hand runs very quickly, but it doesn't look as nice, and doesn't have as many features. free though :)

I use nano or pico, depending on what's available. vim is too much of a bitch to use.

LaTeX is actually real nice for professional looking documents... steep lurning curve though, but once you get the hang of it it's remarkably powerful.

nano and pico are text editors rather than word processors. they're good stuff though.

vi/vim have counterintuitive interfaces. i once saw my professor using it though, she was extremely fast so maybe there's something to it once you get past the learning curve.

nano and pico are text editors rather than word processors. they're good stuff though.

vi/vim have counterintuitive interfaces. i once saw my professor using it though, she was extremely fast so maybe there's something to it once you get past the learning curve.
Much like many *nix systems, once your fingers know the commands you don't even have to think about what you want.

Different strokes for different folks, i suppose.

I use nano or pico, depending on what's available. vim is too much of a bitch to use..

The problem with the pico family of editors is that when they wrap a line, they enter a character there. Very not cool if you're coding, or want to keep the text file as program (and screen size) independent as possible.

I don't use emacs, but I'm a staunch supporter of vi/vim. I'll be the first to admit it has very arcane syntax, but once you start to learn it, you can do a lot of complex editing in very minimal time. It's almost more like an interactive text editing language.

Here's a great link about it: http://www.viemu.com/a-why-vi-vim.html

On the OG post - I use OOo exclusively, the only "issue" I have with it is that it doesn't import power point slides quite as gracefully as I'd like - sometimes you have to go in and reedit the background/text colors.

The problem with the pico family of editors is that when they wrap a line, they enter a character there. Very not cool if you're coding, or want to keep the text file as program (and screen size) independent as possible.


That garbage makes me IRATE. It's so STUPID. I can't tell you how many times that has caused a problem for me. I used to use vi but I use nano now.

Well, we tried using Open Office here at work for a few months.

First impression was alright, it ran good on the computers with minimal learning curve.

Second impression, it blew ass. Wouldn't run a single tab through form that was built in word, not to mention the major fuck ups with formulas in excel.

So... it was back to MS Office for us.

Well, we tried using Open Office here at work for a few months.

First impression was alright, it ran good on the computers with minimal learning curve.

Second impression, it blew ass. Wouldn't run a single tab through form that was built in word, not to mention the major fuck ups with formulas in excel.

So... it was back to MS Office for us.


May I be the first to say DUH, and also OF COURSE. OOo isn't a free version of MS Office, it's it's own office suite. Of course your power users and extended functionality from MSO aren't going to work, and if they did, I'm sure there'd be a lawsuit right quick.

I'm not saying you should use it if it doesn't work for you, but not using it because it's not MSO is like not driving a Solstice because it's not a Miata. Just because it's similar doesn't mean it's supposed to be the same.

And to the post about moving to nano... I thought nano did the end-of-line "soft return" character insert as well? I know Vi and Emacs don't, so I was confused by your post.

If you have the money to run MS Office, theres no reason to run OpenOffice. Its a free alternative for those of us who can't afford the big dawg.

If you have the money to run MS Office, theres no reason to run OpenOffice. Its a free alternative for those of us who can't afford the big dawg.

Not really, but this is a perfect example of the misunderstanding surrounding free/open source software. It's not free because it's "shareware" or a crippled version, or any of that. It's free because the community that coded it doesn't believe that software should cost people anything. It's not going to be as feature rounded, or have as nice of a UI because these coders are donating their time and knowledge to the project. It's not an alternative merely for us "po' folk", but for anyone who chooses to not purchase said product.

MSO is the "big dawg" because MS donates metric craploads of licenses to schools. So "everyone" is brought up using MS products, and they become "perfectly natural". They get the tax cuts for the donations, and millions of pretrained customers. The common belief becomes what they have is what everyone needs, and what they don't have is unecessary. Their UI is what most of us have grown up with, and most of us can navigate it in our sleep. Most of us don't even know their is an alternative, at least not one that doesn't have a fruit logo and an even bigger price tag.

Use what you want to use and works best for your life and your budget. If you're a power user of MSO, you'll hate OOo, and I won't try to stop you. If you have to deal with MSO file types, OOo is not going to be ideal for your situation, though if you're willing to sit down with it, it can be made to behave. If neither of those are you, why are you giving MS your hard-earned money? And don't give me the "lol, I pirated it" bit, because MS prefers that people would use pirated versions of their software than use someone else's.

Yes, I think that most people would be perfectly happy with a Linux box running OOo. I think that most people could be shipped Ubuntu instead of Vista on their new computers, and not know the difference (other than splash screens). And don't give me any guff about needing technical knowledge to set up a Linux box. Every windows install I've ever done (and I worked in computer repair - I've built a *lot* of windows boxes) requires at least one driver install. The last 5-10 linux installations I've done have just ran out of the box, only needing to know timezone and keyboard layout (no, they didn't even ask about disk partitioning).

But this is descending into a linux rant, and not an OOo post.

Bottom line: use OOo if you like it, and are willing to put up with MS zealots. Else, pay up like all the other sheep.

So this is basically like Office? Does it have an Excel type thing?

Yeah. It even has a PowerPoint type program.

Its a pretty nifty program considering that it's free.

I do all my word processing in Photoshop. It takes a while, but DAMN does it look good!

But seriously, I played with OpenOffice and was duly impressed - this was YEARS ago, like circa 2000. (Back when it was making the transition from StarOffice). Awesome program. Back then it was Java-based (don't know if it still is) which made it kind of iffy on slower computers. But then, so is Microsoft Office. :D