Microsoft Office vs. Open Office

So, on my laptop I installed OpenOffice to save some money. My desktop has Microsoft Office XP and it's decent.

Anyway, basic question, what are some main differences between the two, and which one do you prefer?

OpenOffice files are support/same as Microsoft Office files right?

 

I prefer office 2007. I got it for free so why choose open office or microsoft works when i could have a better product.

 

The main difference is, OpenOffice is free and open-source. It's great, especially if you can't afford the significant financial investment for Microsoft Office.

As far as the actual quality of the programs, I think they're pretty comparable. I use the OpenOffice suite on my two personal computers, and I use Microsoft Office 2007 fairly regularly on the school computers. I really can't see anything obvious that OpenOffice doesn't do that Microsoft Office does. If there is anything like that, then it's nothing I've ever had a use for, and probably won't miss it.

I've used the Microsoft Office format compatibility with OpenOffice several times (written papers for school in OpenOffice, saved to a Microsoft-compatible .doc format), with no issues on countless occasions.

My favorite feature about OpenOffice Writer that Microsoft Word seems to lack is the ability to export a document as a PDF file.

The way I see it: if you already own Microsoft Office, then you don't have to bother with OpenOffice, as you really won't be gaining anything (other than PDF export support ). It is an excellent alternative if you don't already own Microsoft Office, though.

 

Open Office is just about the best you can get without paying a dime. I've used it for just about all my school work, like a 10 page MLA format Research paper I did earlier today. Open Office is great for those who don't want to pay ridiculous prices for Microsoft's software.

The only problem I had with Open Office was for a high school pre-calculus essay. Open Office didn't have the math symbols/formatting I needed to complete the paper, so I had to use Microsoft Word at school to complete it.

I'd gladly take MS Office if it were free

 

Clearly you haven't updated to Office 07 SP2 - now you can export all Office documents to PDF.

I prefer Office, as I got it for free, for one, and also I like the ribbon interface. I generally find Office to be more "smooth" and streamlined, although OO3 is a great free alternative.

 

Um... I use this feature in Word 2007 all the time. There's a free plugin from MS (windows needs to be genuine) or there's a paid plugin when you installed Adobe Acrobat Professional (adobe distiller plugin i think).

SP2 for office incldues this free pdf plugin from MS. If you don't want to update to SP2, you can download the plugin from MS directly.

 

I choose M$ Office simply because it's more "feature-ful" plus it's free for all students/faculty/staff in our school.

 

Which school do you go to?

 

If you own it or can get it for cheap, then get MS Office 2007. It's grrrreat! However, OpenOffice is an excellent choice if you don't want to or can't spend a bunch of money for MS Office.

BTW, as mentioned, Office 2007 has "save as PDF" for Word as a free plugin.

 

Openoffice can be just as good, you just need to get accustomed to it.

Microsoft office has been standardized so much that its hard to change to another.

 

I personally prefer and use Office 2007, although I find Open Office a very capable replacement.

 

If you never work with tables and only write simple documents, with little formatting, then you can make do with OpenOffice.

However, aside from being free, it is inferior to MS Office in every other way.

 

Haha, joke's on me, I guess.

And of course I'm not updated to the latest Office 2007; I don't own it myself. Like I say, I just use it on the school computers because that's what's installed. I've never seen the PDF export option, so I assume the university IT department hasn't gotten around to updating yet.

Either way, it's good that Microsoft included that this time. I'll be sticking to OpenOffice for my personal use anyway, though; the university only offers me a discount on MS Office, not a freebie.

 

MS Office is better, especially advanced users. MS Office is so ahead of the competition and is the business standard.

With that said, Open Office is decent.

 

I think Open office would do just fine for most users, but for those that uses large speadsheet files, Calc can be very stubborn compared to Excel.

 

OpenOffice gets the job done, however it needs a general refresh (improved interface, faster startup, etc.). There are some projects under way to do this though.

I was recently given a free copy of Microsoft Office 2007, so I'm using that at the moment. Before that I used OpenOffice for years and it was fine.

 

Open Office is great if your not dealing with heavy Office 2007 files all the time. Its a great drop in replacement for Office 2003 and can handle 03 and older formats well. 3.0 does have a 2007 converter but its not that great at this time.

I have Office 2003 but rather then upgrading to 2007 or sticking with 2003 i ditched them both for openoffice.org

 

Until there is better support for VBA, MS Office is my weapon of choice. However, Open Office is coming on leaps and bounds in this area.

 

Office 07 for three reasons:

Got it through the ultimate steal promotion

A grammar checker I can trust-I know that add-on's exist for OpenOffice but they all seemed of dubious lineage, and there were so many of them to choose from, who knows what grammar rules each one had.

An abundance of built in clip-art: I know, I know, google.com/images but I must say that, in some cases, the clip-art included in Office is better, higher quality, and easy to find.

I do agree that Open Office is more powerful than Works though. Works includes a grammar checker though....

 

I think MS Office is much better than OO feature-wise. But I use one OO feature that is lacking in MS Office -- Draw, which is used to make figures. I use it to make all my scientific diagrams. The best you can do with MS Office in that respect is drawing with Powerpoint, which is much worse.

But although MS definitely are ahead of the competition, I only use it because I don't have to pay for it.

 

Vote: MS Office

The UI is win. Can't stand how hideous OO is.

 

I thought 3.0.1 has a built in grammar checker? I don't use it nor do I use the one in office, I like my horrid grammar. I just did a clean install of windows like 5 minutes ago. I will re-install and check later.

 

To make diagrams in office suite, you'll need to use a drawing canvas in office programs to make better and more complex ones.

I would usually use photoshop (2d) or Maya 2009 (3d) to make diagrams then just import them into word.

 

Photoshop and Maya are overkill and expensive for my purposes. Regarding your drawing canvas suggestion, I have no clue of what you are talking about (don't explain to me -- I'll Google it, so we don't digress on this great thread).

I'd like to take this chance to add that I'm a really REALLY novice user of Office. My girlfriend hasn't used Office in something like 5 years and still knows more about it than me.

 

Don't worry, there are tonnes of people like you in the world. You're probably above average.

 

You can get MO for $60 if you're a student in the US.

 

You can get OO for $0 if you're a student, worker, unemployed, or homeless anywhere in the world.

 

I doubt homeless peopel can get OO for free. It'll will cost them at least $250 for a comptuer, electricity to run the computer and an internet connection to download OO. They'll also need a tutor to teach them how to use a computer.

 

Yeah, well, that's paying for a computer, electricity, internet service, and a tutor. Not OpenOffice.

 

During this current economic "crysis" there are plenty of skilled and intellegent people living in tent villages that qualify as homeless. Don't assume their all idiots, some just more unfortunate then others.

But yeah electricity is a slightly minor issue if they dont happen to own a solar cell lol.

 

You need all that excluding a tutor to have OO for a homeless person, assuming he isn't going to some place that lets him use pc's for free.

 

the home and students version is <35$ per installation, so it's not really expensive (at least from a quick check on newegg i found the 3-licence version for 99$).

i personally think microsoft office (espencially 2007) to be superior in every way. very fast, amazing stable, great ui to use (the auto-preview f.e. when you hover something is great), nice default style templates. simply a package that is great to use. and for that price, one doesn't even have to think about more cheap alternatives.. compared to the investment of a pc (even a netbook), the additional cost is very low.

 

Without a doubt Office 2007. Virtually every company out there uses some implementation of Office, by using some free alternative such as Open Office you're just shooting yourself in the foot. I'd rather spend time learning a program that will be beneficial in the future. Those who are on a tight budget: buy cheap beans for a week and buy Office. I'm quite happy to feed the Microsoft money pit.

 

I guess you have to decide what you pay with: money (MS Windows, Office, etc) or time spent learning non-mainstream programs and making sure you create stuff compatible with the mainstream people (Linux, OO, etc). Having tried XP, Vista and Ubuntu, and having MS Office at home and OO at work, I can honestly say that I see myself continuing to pay Microsoft for their products. And although I think Ubuntu is closing in on Windows in usability for the typical user, I think OO is not.

 

Sorry, this made me chuckle. You know a computer game is incredibly popular when it's title replaces the correct spelling of a word in the English dictionary

 

I use Open Office for everything, its a great program that fulfill the needs of most anyone that uses an office suite.

The only exception of this is Excel... I LOVE excel... I would marry and have Excel's babies if I could.

Now I still use open offices version of it for most things, but i'f i'm heavy spreadsheeting then I pretty much need Excel for productivity. In a year or two that might no longer be the case though as Open Office is getting very good very quickly.

 

Na uh uh uh, me & Excel have been together for over 10 years; aint nobody but me having it's babies!

Can you hear the "Go Jerry, Go Jerry" chants in the background......

 

MS Office 2007 is so much better than Open Office, it's not even funny.

 

Apart from the technical differences, I absolutely adore Fluid (the user interface of Office 2007). It's so intuitive and easy to use while still retaining full power features.

 

I chose MS Office. I get it for free and just feel like I can do more with, though that may not be the case as I really haven't used OO much.

It's just pure opinion with OO and MS Office. Though if you have the dough, grab MS Office.

 

If something has a price, it'll be ALWAYS better than the free alternative.

 

I like OO. I don't do any heavy spread sheeting (I can understand why anyone who does needs excel) and I personally really dislike MS's ribbons UI.

I disagree. Firefox and Chrome are way better than IE (if you consider it to be part of the cost of windows), GIMP is every bit as good as photoshop, and open source programs are never a one time investment, they are constantly being improved upon and can keep up with changing needs.

I can't argue with anyone who is getting office for free, but for the average home user, OO fulfills all needs and doesn't cost a dime.

 

MSO here, especially 2007. Anything before 2007 for me can be replaced with Open Offce. Why? I love the ease of that equation editor of Word. Making equations in Open Office was like.... no even explainable really. If Open Office did get a GUI for their equation editor that was much more user friendly, then maybe, just maybe. But theres also OneNote which I use exclusively for note taking in my classes. Probably stick with MSO.

 

I used open office to write my college application essay's... I noticed just before I submitted that some words were misspelled even after running the Open Office spell checker...

got a copy of office 2003, copy & paste, red & green all over...

I have not used the Open Office word processor since, this was a year and a half ago, but, come on...

 

There are two reasons why I favor MS Office:

1. It runs well and gets the job done.
2. Everyone else has it.

 

Maybe you should learn how to spell and write your language correctly?
j/k

It is sad though, how much we depend on spell checkers and language checkers now. It's like we have forgotten how to do it ourselves. I dont think I could write a presentation with out a spell checker anymore... it would take forever

 

Anyday would stick on to the MS Office because of it easiness and global usage of it.

 

I do not think it's sad.

I think it's great, if you can get across your ideas effectively, a computer doing the mundane tasks like one of the first steps of proofreading, shouldn't really be a measure of your effectiveness.

 

When you pay for Windows you are paying for the OS and not for the little programs like Movie Maker, IE, Paint, Windows Media Player, and to infinity and beyond, right? Those programs are free. If they were with a price, Microsoft wouldn't let us download the new versions for free, right?

If GIMP was this good, then why, a site for image manipulating and whatnot like Worth1000 is primary consisted of images, made by Photoshop professionals and not GIMP ones?

Now that depends on a lot of stuff. Let's say you're a developer. Would you make an effort and invest time on a non-profit open-source program or one with a price tag attached to it?

 

I believe the comment was in relation to the fact that people are beginning to depend upon technology too much in this respect. Some things that technology allows us to 'side step' are causing our youth to also 'side step' the knowledge gained through learning.

I see this all the time when some of the younger people on my team give presentations or send emails. You can easily see that they've spell checked, but because the word is still in the dictionary it has not been picked up. Another common problem I see is when people try to use the Thesaurus to make their work sound better, but they do not truly understand the difference in meaning for some words and hence they convey a slightly different message. Oh and who here hates when they see txt tlk in busnis......