Comments on: Trash MS Word and find freedom with OpenOffice.org

By: Dean Rieck

Dean Rieck — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 01:03:32 +0000

Pat,

You’re right. If you need all the horsepower of Word, OpenOffice isn’t going to work for you. But I think the average person, even most copywriters, would find OpenOffice to be sufficient.

What I like is that it’s simple and fast. Word has become too feature-heavy and complex … for me at least. And the beauty is, it’s free, so you can try it with no risk. If you don’t like it, you’re out nothing.

By: Pat

Pat — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 00:08:37 +0000

I used to use OpenOffice a few years back, and it wasn’t impressive. But, like all big open source projects, it has come a long way since then.

After reading this article, I may give it a go again.

But in my case, I use a bit more than 10% of the features of MS Word. I don’t just type words and make some bold. I use styles, tabs, headers, references, drawings, track changes… last week I even did a mail merge.

The barriers to adopting OpenOffice in business and government are:
(a) training, and
(b) document exchange.

Training is more about macros and special features. The OpenOffice user interface is easy to learn, because it is a clone of MS Word pre-2007. And everybody who knows how to use a computer knows how to use MS Word 2003.

Document exchange is less of a problem nowadays when people use PDFs. Document exchange is still a problem when people are collaborating on a document and using MS Word track changes. If OpenOffice and MS Word 2003 can play nice together on track changes, then problem solved.

Document exchange is very different across industries. For copywriters, maybe you just need to hand in text with a couple of headings. In litigation, lawyers exchange paper documents, and sometimes PDFs. Inside Australian government agencies, MS Word 2003 .doc is the standard for document storage and exchange.

A good trend in governments, such as the US Government, is publishing in PDF – everything from stats to rulings to regulations to handbooks. Even though most documents are prepared using MS Word, they are published in PDF form. So we don’t need Windows just to see their pretty formatting.

By: Dean Rieck

Dean Rieck — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 16:29:46 +0000

One little gripe I have is that OO documents saved in a Word format sometimes can’t hold tabs. I have templates for various things, and now and then something I’ve lined up shifts. Minor complaint though. Word is so complex now, I’d never even think of using it again.

By: MJ Ces

MJ Ces — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 16:17:05 +0000

I got introduced to OpenOffice.org about 3 years ago when the company I was working for decided to cut costs and opted on open-sourced software.

At first I wanted to rebel. I had been using MS Office (Word in particular) since I was in college and I thought the change to OpenOffice.org was a big mistake. Good thing I was wrong.

Just like what you said, I also didn’t look back. Up to now all of my writing activities are done on OpenOffice.org Writer.

By: Dean Rieck

Dean Rieck — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 15:08:28 +0000

Paul:
Seems I use a lot of open source software now. OpenOffice, WordPress, FileZilla, etc. In most cases, these programs work better than commercial products.

By: Paul Troke

Paul Troke — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 07:51:08 +0000

I agree with your views on OpenOffice. I use the Linux operating system and OpenOffice comes bundled with most distributions. I have also used it with Windows. I find it simple to use, and it exchanges documents with Microsoft Office and other suites very well. And, of course, it’s free!