Office 07 or Open Office?

Which would you recommend? I loved Office 03, but used 07 on the new school computers and had no idea how to use it... although it did look cool. Used Open Office once or twice on my dad's computer, it was pretty cool too. Which would you recommend?

 

Well.... Free ?

 

Microsoft Office 2007.

It's such an easy choice, it's not even funny.

 

Comes down to if you got money to spare or not to be honest, if you dont mind the price go for office 2007, if you want to spend anything Open office, simple

 

IF you have a free option for the Office 07 - go with it. OpenOffice.org is good for people, who don't have the means to buy Office 2007.

 

Office 07 hands down.

 

I like how Open Office is free, but it is miles and miles behind MS Office in terms of interface and the quality of things you make. Open Office's version of PointPoint is just terrible; the slideshows aren’t something you can show off in public in this day and age.

The other programs like Word/Excel type programs are much closer in functionality, but since everyone you ever meet will be working in MS Office; you should pick it if you have any ability too.

 

I think the key question is "what do you want to do".

Open Office has been getting better every year - but won't have all the functions of Office 2007.
However, many of the functions in Office will not be needed in "normal use".

An example is the Visual Basic Makros in Excel - I only knowabout that due to my maths course - I don't think Open Offie has them in that form - but it mkes Office Exel much more powerful (you have a ful programming language to help you).

If you aren't bound to Office due to your course you can try OpenOffice - you do't loose anything.

Please keep in mind too that the next Office, Office 2010 is on the horizon - you may want to wait for that and bridge the gap with Open Office.

A word of warning:
If you get used to OpenOffice, Office 2007 will seem very different and vice versa.

I think I'll vote Office 2007 - this is my choice - also because 3 or so years ago I found OpenOffice a bit lacking - with a simple bug in "Powerpoint" - but things have evolved a lot since, I believe one of my friends uses Open Office.

 

true that man true that....cant go wrong with office 2007 that thing has everything u need for school/office..........and the layout is so easy to understand love office 2007

 

Office 2007, using it right now and satisfied with it

 

OO is probably comparable to MS Office 2003 even though it is free, but Office 2007 is beyond comparison.

 

Office is a truly fantastic application, it really is.
Microsoft just charges ridiculous amounts for it... honestly...
I now have a full office 2007 professional thanks to Gophn

lots of luv to ya babe!

 

Office 07 or use Open Office 3 till Office 2010 comes. Office just works better and is more responsive. Main gripe I have is Office 07 has such a simple equation editor compared to Open Office. Also I notice longer documents and files in Open Office, tend to lag it down to a standstill sometimes. I only notice that in Office 07 when I have a document full of pictures and I'm running on battery saver. You'll get used to the Ribbon interface pretty quick, it is pretty intuitive if you just read the labels. I was suprised how quickly I became accustomed to it from Office XP.

 

Look at that poll. Landslide victory!

 

Well, price really isn't an issue. Microsoft Office 07 is $88.99 new on Amazon, or I can buy it at my school's bookstore at a discounted price. Also, the only programs I need are Word and Excel (maybe Powerpoint, maybe)... Microsoft Office is winning, so I guess I'll probably get that haha

 

home and student version (word, excel, powerpoint, onenote (that one is great)), 3 licencees on Newegg: $88.95. that's < 30$ per person, if you share it with two from your family, or your best friends, what ever.

no, that's not a ridiculous high price imho. definitely worth the comfort and quality of office 2007.

 

ok amazinggrace was faster. but he forgot to mentoin that it's for 3 computers.

 

writing as a guy who sees around 10 power point presentations each and every week........

If a vendor comes into my office and lights off a pretty power point show that obviously cost a lot of time and $$ to develop, I tend to jump in and stop the show. I tell the vendor that I'm not buying power point, I'm buying what she has for sale and I need info, not images.

If at that point the vendor rep can carry on without the power point, then we have a good start. If not, then why should I buy anything from anyone who doesn't know, from memory, the details of their product?

If I wanted to buy something from a screen I'd hit the web and go by what is posted there. There is no way I'm going to commit 100s of thousands of my capex $$ for something that can't be sold by a human being working face to face with another.

 

jup. powerpoint is terrible overused in companies for stuff that shouldn't need it.

i like the presentations on ted. they often have no powerpoint, or maybe 3-5 sheets. except if they have to show tons of pictures or what ever. then, powerpoint obviously makes sense

we learned at school how to make good powerpoint presentations (only the essential information in, and such, etc).

 

I cannot stress how much I love Office 2007 and the Ribbon.

 

They are not even comparable man. Office hands down

 

...saddly they don't seem to do it enough nowadays

I did the same in Germany - put the essential stuff on, talk about the rest.

The british think its a good idea to plaser test all over the slide - from edge to edge... and then they wonder why I think their presentations are junk...

(Not all people do - but too many)

 

Don't forget about this deal: http://www.microsoft.com/student/discounts/theultimatesteal-us/default.aspx

Office 2007 Ultimate for $60 for current students.

 

OpenOffice is still a bit slow and clunky. While Word 2007 instantly fades in when I click on its icon, OpenOffice sits there loading up with a progress bar.

Office 2007 looks better and feels more responsive. The new *.*x format is much better than the older ones as well, both in terms of data recovery and size. The ribbon interface may take some getting used to.

Two tips that I have are: Install the Search Commands addon. It gives you a search bar, so if you want to change text to be ALL CAPS, just type in "change case". Best of all, it tells you how to navigate to the command within the ribbon interface. The second thing is, pay attention to keyboard shortcuts. Press Alt, and look at the tooltips. Saves time and clicking.

I bought my copy of Office Ultimate with the Ultimate Steal program, and I have to say, it was money well spent, given how long I will continue to use the software.

 

I am using Office 07 now.

 

Office 2007, except that I HATE the ribbon. Thankfully they kept the kb shortcuts, but there are still times when I spend 5 mins hunting for something, not exactly what I call better productivity.

 

Yes, it does come down to money. I'd love to have the latest versions of Office, but they cost just way too much. Since I will probably be joining TechNet Plus when Windows 7 is released, it will be my opportunity. Otherwise, for the time being, I can either use Office XP (is that 2001?) which I own free and clear or OpenOffice. In my case I think Open Office is clearly the better choice.

 

Holy COW! I need to see if my current school will issue us an edu email address.

 

I never found the Exchange client in OpenOffice to be as versatile as Outlook.

 

Office 2007 Ultimate is $60 for students in the United States, so price shouldn't be much of an issue. I'd pick MS Office every time because it's what most people know how to use. I'd happily spend $60 to have something that was easy to figure out instead of having to find some feature on my own because I chose to use something no one else was using.

 

That all depends on what you're going to be doing with it. If you'll just be writing papers and other documents where the file itself will not be sent to other people (e.g., term papers where you just turn in hard copy, or letters that will only be sent via snail-mail), then you'd be just fine with OpenOffice.

On the other hand, if you're going to be sending a lot of documents electronically, then you'd probably be better off using Word because you'll get much better compatibility with almost everyone to whom you'll send, or from whom you'll receive, documents. Given that you're in school, and if one assumes that you will, eventually, graduate and start looking for a career, this point should be kept in mind as a substantial number of employers now want resumes and the like in electronic format.

 

Unless you're not a student then Office Ultimate costs $679!

 

i dont understand the full question.

do you have to pay for office 2007 or you already have it. also, do u already have office 03? if you already have 03, i think that is definitely your best bet, you just need to download something to convert other people's docx documents.

 

Office 2007 is worth the learning curve from Office 2003/lower. I used Office 2000 for years (and Office XP/2003 at school), and was pretty used to it. Office 2007 does take some time to get used to. But once you adapt to it - which won't happen in a day or a week - I think you'll find the changes to be worth it.

I also used Open Office 3 for about a month after I uninstalled Office before realizing I didn't have the reinstall discs. Its .doc/.xls/.ppt compatibility is not good. You'll have to download the Powerpoint/Word/Excel viewers to view things properly, but you won't be able to modify some of your old files. And the layout of its features doesn't always make sense (try changing the color of font in Impress, its Powerpoint equivalent, for instance). I was not at all sad to be back to good 'ol proprietary Microsoft Office once I had my install discs again.

On the other hand, if you already have Office '03, there's no great need to buy Office '07 instead. And I certainly wouldn't switch from Office '03 to Open Office. I'd rather use Office 2000 than Open Office - compatibility alone is reason to. Hopefully Open Office will improve that in later versions, but for now, their compatibility is just not up to par.

 

I use OpenOffice.org, I'd rather not spend on buying a product if I can use OpenOffice.org for free, and that has all of the features that I need.

I support Open Source Software as well, too.

 

office 07.. similar to the majority of NBR.

--

 

Well, just as Ram said, seems like that NotebookReview's Community favors Office 2007... by a large margin.

 

So, if it's so highly favored, anyone know how I can get a copy for cheap? I really don't have $679 to spend on an office suite!

 

I am eligible for the ulimate steal. I am hesitant though because it is a download and not a software delivered to the buyer. I rather have a CD than do a download.

Should I just go ahead with the download?

Or should I wait till my college orientation and get a free CD copy of Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007?

 

I am not really sure, sorry, man.

You should just wait until your College Orientation, in case that something messes up, you have a Physical Copy that you can exchange.

 

You don't *need" the Ultimate version, the Home and Student version costs much much less.

Well, you can't beat the price of the latter version...

The Ultimate Steal gives you download access to the Office setup package for 30 days, I believe, and gives you a key that will last forever. Just download the single setup file, burn it and the key to physical media, and you'll be fine.

 

In the Uk I believe you can order it on a CD too - at a slightly higher price.
(at least to the best of my knowledg a fellow student did)

Just check the site, dig around a bit.

 

OpenOffice has ruined some of my word documents

 

OpenOffice can't do some stuff that Powerpoint can. :O