How compatible is it with MS Office? I bring my work home a lot and I have Excel, World, Power Point docs I'd like to with. Can I actually use Open Office to work with them or will I have formatting issues that will make it not worth it to deal with?
Open Office... How compatible is it with MS Office?
- Thread starter Don
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to my knowledge it is completely compatible. i have not heard of any problems with current releasesHow compatible is it with MS Office? I bring my work home a lot and I have Excel, World, Power Point docs I'd like to with. Can I actually use Open Office to work with them or will I have formatting issues that will make it not worth it to deal with?
documents and spreadsheets very compatibleHow compatible is it with MS Office? I bring my work home a lot and I have Excel, World, Power Point docs I'd like to with. Can I actually use Open Office to work with them or will I have formatting issues that will make it not worth it to deal with?
Powerpoint animation is different -- presenation is compatible but the animation is gone
To my knowledge it's not, my livelihood depends to some extent on being totally compatible with MS Word and I've had issues before. If there is a lot of formating and/or templates involved, I wouldn't take the risk that your workplace will point the finger at OO.
Looked at Open Office many times.
There are formatting issues. Headers and footers are a problem, lines and graphics are a problem, numbered lists have issues.
If format is critical it is not worth the aggravation. We look at it every 6 months to a year and it never works clean. So we stick with M$.
BTW: M$ 2010 full professional version in BETA is free from Microsoft until October. We've been using that and are satisfied, but it means come October having to buy the licenses.
There are formatting issues. Headers and footers are a problem, lines and graphics are a problem, numbered lists have issues.
If format is critical it is not worth the aggravation. We look at it every 6 months to a year and it never works clean. So we stick with M$.
BTW: M$ 2010 full professional version in BETA is free from Microsoft until October. We've been using that and are satisfied, but it means come October having to buy the licenses.
I just tried to use OO as a home version of the work MS Office. Very bad feeling. I don't do much. Just word and excel. But when i opened word and click-clicked a doc file that i usually use to start mail-merge and it didn't work! I gave up. Immediately. Bought MS Office Home and works fine. MS Office 2010 upgrade will be a free download when it is released.
If I were only using OO, that would be fine. But the two, I wouldn't do it.
If I were only using OO, that would be fine. But the two, I wouldn't do it.
That's it in a nutshell.If I were only using OO, that would be fine. But the two, I wouldn't do it.
Yeah I agree. I decided it is not worth the hassle to save a few (hundred) bucks.That's it in a nutshell.
you can get it to work flawlessly compatible, but you have to look into the open source software coding and know how to change it to work as you wish... everything is only a search away... but, there is some programming involved.
I find the biggest stock incompatibilities are with the presentation programs, but word and writer work very well together.
I keep OO and a couple other important OpenSource software programs (content management, graphics, photo/video editing) on a USB stick so that I can use it anywhere there's a computer.
I find the biggest stock incompatibilities are with the presentation programs, but word and writer work very well together.
I keep OO and a couple other important OpenSource software programs (content management, graphics, photo/video editing) on a USB stick so that I can use it anywhere there's a computer.
i can see a few smarties doing this. i can't see the general population ever being capable. so we're back to..out of the box, it's not. I know MS Office Professional costs a lot, but Home was only $150 for 3 licenses. Depends on how serious you areor your need is.you can get it to work flawlessly compatible, but you have to look into the open source software coding
As mentioned above, there are a lot of things which can be easily transferred between MSOffice and OpenOffice.org; however, Microsoft doesn't like to follow specs too exactly, so their products render fonts slightly off-spec, leading to formatting differences with OOo.
For some, these formatting differences are very important; for others, less so.
Better to use OOo at both home and the office, if that option is available to you.
For some, these formatting differences are very important; for others, less so.
Better to use OOo at both home and the office, if that option is available to you.
It depends. I have used OO on a netbook I have, and it works flawlessly with MS office (words and excel), but then again,Yeah I agree. I decided it is not worth the hassle to save a few (hundred) bucks.
I was in software development for 25 years and I fasticiously avoids advanced features of words and excel.
Depends on what you're doing. Even Word has formatting issues between Mac/Windows, different Word versions, and even different PCs - the program has been bloated for years and will probably never work properly unless they start from scratch...
Agreed. It is great for doing individual work but becomes a problem when you have to share it with people who are trying to use it on MS Office.
To my knowledge it's not, my livelihood depends to some extent on being totally compatible with MS Word and I've had issues before. If there is a lot of formating and/or templates involved, I wouldn't take the risk that your workplace will point the finger at OO.
yup. Even something as simple as a formatted table doesn't transfer well from OO to MSOAs mentioned above, there are a lot of things which can be easily transferred between MSOffice and OpenOffice.org; however, Microsoft doesn't like to follow specs too exactly, so their products render fonts slightly off-spec, leading to formatting differences with OOo.
For some, these formatting differences are very important; for others, less so.
Better to use OOo at both home and the office, if that option is available to you.
