The latest version of the open-source office suite OpenOffice.org 3.1 has just arrived, and it's a good one. While some of the improvements are visible to the naked eye, I found that the most important changes were hidden under the hood.
What is it? OpenOffice.org 3.1 is a set of office productivity applications: Writer (word processor), Calc (spreadsheet), Impress (presentation manager) and Base (database manager). It's missing an Outlook substitute, but otherwise it's a complete replacement for Microsoft Office. The suite is available as a free download for Linux, Mac OS X, Solaris, and Windows; there are versions for most major languages.
What does it do? The first thing you'll notice about the new OpenOffice.org is that it just looks better. Thanks to its use of anti-aliasing, the program menus, letters and images it displays are sharper and clearer. (You can see examples at Sun's OpenOffice.org engineering blog.)
I completely agree.
The new MS office 2007 is very nice to look at but still does not hold a candle to Open office's simpler interface.
Even at 100.00 for the student/home version MS office is still overpriced compared to what Open office does.
I have been using Open Office for several years and actually can not use the newer MS office. MS office is just to confusing now.
by Anonymous (not verified) on 5/13/09 at 7:34 am |reply
Works Great
I've been using Open Office for years (since it was Star Office, owned by Star Division). It works very well. Calc has been rather slow for large sheets - spending allot of time "adjusting row height" but I've always felt it worked better than Excel. If performance in that regard is improved it will be major for me.
by Adam Tauno Williams (not verified) on 5/13/09 at 8:21 am |reply
Schools need OpenOffice
Our state is cutting school funding. Nevada already is near the bottom of school funding in the U.S. so this is no small event. The school district pays Microsoft $1.2M a year for licenses and more for updates. The district has been sold a bill of goods by MS that students MUST know MSOffice or they will fail. The reality is that anyone learning the fundamentals of, say, word processing can move between any "brand." So, why not use OpenOffice and take that $1.2M and apply it to better facilities or more teachers instead of sending it as a "tax" to MS?
by Sheri Elpern (not verified) on 5/13/09 at 12:03 pm |reply
Sidekick: The Good News & the Bad News Either way you look at it Microsoft Data Center management did not follow standards or best practices in this failure. In which case it makes me wonder more about the outsourcing of corporate data much less personal data.
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Open office in general
I completely agree.The new MS office 2007 is very nice to look at but still does not hold a candle to Open office's simpler interface.
Even at 100.00 for the student/home version MS office is still overpriced compared to what Open office does.
I have been using Open Office for several years and actually can not use the newer MS office. MS office is just to confusing now.
Works Great
I've been using Open Office for years (since it was Star Office, owned by Star Division). It works very well. Calc has been rather slow for large sheets - spending allot of time "adjusting row height" but I've always felt it worked better than Excel. If performance in that regard is improved it will be major for me.Schools need OpenOffice
Our state is cutting school funding. Nevada already is near the bottom of school funding in the U.S. so this is no small event. The school district pays Microsoft $1.2M a year for licenses and more for updates. The district has been sold a bill of goods by MS that students MUST know MSOffice or they will fail. The reality is that anyone learning the fundamentals of, say, word processing can move between any "brand." So, why not use OpenOffice and take that $1.2M and apply it to better facilities or more teachers instead of sending it as a "tax" to MS?