OpenOffice.Org poll

[Bluescout]

The only thing I wish OO had was a way to switch it to MS Compatible with 1 click.

[picker13]

I use MS product at work, but have never really liked them. I liked the old WordPerfect for Windows, and prefered Quattro for a spreadsheet to Excel. At home I used to use the Corel package, but now have begun using OO and find I like it. I guess I'm one of the guys that pull for the underdog....

[niomosy]

I'll use it if I'm on a Linux box since I normally don't go through the ordeal of getting Wine up and running.

Normally I just use Office. It's what I've got installed at work.

By choice? I'd still use Office. I run across too many spreadsheets that don't work in OO and know Office better.

[rcz]

Do your profs need to edit the files you send them? Personally, I always send things as pdfs. The formatting is set and it looks more neat (and thus, imo, more professional) when read on the screen.

 

 

i do this as well, and it's way easier with the built-in .pdf export feature of OOo. i use MS at work, but at home it's all OOo. i don't use either to any great extent, though, so i view them as largely interchangeable, if slightly different.

 

robb.

[vanlatte]

As I've said before, I've installed and tried it, but it is always short lived as it doesn't sync with my other professional programs.

 

 

This is always where things get bungled for me too, it's fine for quick and dirty home use. But anything beyond a very basic spreadsheet and it all falls apart.

[Loud_is_better]

I use OO pretty exclusively but I keep Wordpad in my quickstart area for those instant ideas I need to save. But I can open Wordpad in OO or Abiword too.

I totally hated Word Perfect (Corel) and even though I have it for free, it sits unused in my cd-case - what for, I don't know.

GoogleDocs is great, but if there's any hidden HTML in a boilerplate document that you might copy/paste, it's pretty hard to edit. You've gotta go to the source page and dump the existing HTML markup to get it off the document and then you can do what you want with it from that point.

[Super Bass]

I use OOO at home and MS Office at work. I could get a heavy discount on MS Office from my employer but I never bothered with it. I don't use it enough at home so it's not a priority.

[bdegrande]

I have OpenOffice on every machine I own. On Linux I use it pretty much exclusively. On Macs I tend to use iWork, which has a betrer user interface, but it's not as powerful and there were times I used OpenOffice. On Windows, I use OpenOfice at least as much as Microsoft Office, it actually read Microsoft's new DOCX format sooner than Microsoft's own software did.

 

I also use OpenOffice in Windows virtual machines, since I don't have to deal with licensing and activation rituals when reinstalling the VM.

 

It's good and free, which is a nice combination. About the only thing I use Microsoft Office for on any sort of regular basis is Access.

[PaulyWally]

I like Open Office. It does everything I need to do, and a lot more. But I have found numerous compatibility issues going between Microsoft Office and Open Office.

 

I work on stuff here, and at school. And I don't have the time to spend anywhere from 10-30 minutes reformatting a document when I open it in a different suite.

 

Again, Open Office is great. And it's not Open Office's fault either. That's just the way it is. But the rest of the world uses Microsoft. That's the only reason I prefer Microsoft over Open Office. Using Microsoft, I never have any compatibility issues.

 

 

it actually read Microsoft's new DOCX format sooner than Microsoft's own software did.

 

 

Not true. Ever since DOCX, there's been a download available from Microsoft that'll take care of that for older Office versions. It is installable all the way back to Office 2000 (at least).

[mlwarriner]

i use open office exclusively at home, but can't use it at work. i've also turned my whole family (excluding the mother in law who believes that microsoft can do no wrong) onto open office as well.

[Detox]

I have OO, I use it, and I prefer the interface to MS Office's (especially the newest version of Office - blah!). OTOH, I've kept Office on one of my computers, in case I run into a really major compatibility problem somewhere down the line.