Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2006/07/01

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Subject: [Leica] OT: OpenOffice Suite
From: nathan at nathanfoto.com (Nathan Wajsman)
Date: Sat Jul 1 00:08:16 2006
References: <5.1.0.14.2.20060630175250.00c043d0@mail.2alpha.com>

Hi Peter,

You have several good replies already. I used Open Office on Windows 
back in 2004, partly to try it and partly because I needed a Polish word 
processor for a project and did not want to shell out the money for a 
MS-Office language pack. I found that OO worked well and compatibility 
with MS-Office was pretty good, except for some of Excel's more advanced 
features, and some formatting in Word or Powerpoint (for example, 
bullets in a Word document sometimes would come across as bullets, but 
with a different character used for the bullet).

When I added a Mac to my computing environment a couple of months ago, I 
faced a similar dillema as you--my MS Office licenses are all Windows, 
so I tried using Open Office on the Powerbook at first. Again, it worked 
OK but the issues I mentioned above and the fact that it was quite slow 
(I read a technical explanation for this somewhere), I decided to get MS 
Office 2004 for OSX in the end. It helps that their licensing policy for 
the educational license (which you can get if you have any school-going 
children in the household) is pretty liberal--I could install the 
package on 2 other computers in the house (a moot point for me, since I 
only have this one Mac). Also, the MS-Office is unexpectedly nice on the 
Mac (and fast).

As others have said, try downloading a copy of Open Office and see how 
well it works for you. It may be just fine, and it is always good to try 
out alternatives to M$ products.

Nathan

Peter Klein wrote:
> Off-Topic Question, but I'm sure I'll get the answer here:
>
> We're becoming a two-computer household.  Per my company's agreement 
> with MS, we may buy Office 2003 from the "work at home" program for a 
> nominal fee. But we are only allowed to use it on one computer, or one 
> desktop and one portable.
>
> Well, I've now got two desktops.  They will be on a simple home 
> network with Internet access.  I really don't relish shelling out 
> another $200 (employee purchase) for another copy of the Office suite. 
> Since I wish to be legal here, I'm considering several alternatives:
>
> 1.  Switch to Sun's OpenOffice suite, which is free, and can 
> supposedly read and write documents in Office's formats. My wife can 
> use the Office Suite.
> 2.  I have an old licensed copy of Word 97 I could use (but it's old).
> 3.  Buy a standalone copy of Word upgrade for $110. She uses that, I 
> use the Office suite.
>
> Complications:  My wife needs to stick with current MS stuff, as 
> that's what they use at her job.  I don't think she needs anything but 
> the word processor, and some multi-lingual capabilities provided 
> through the OS (she's a translator).
>
> I don't do a lot of document work at home.  I mostly write letters, 
> plus the occasional article, and I mess with the occasional 
> spreadsheet. I'm not sure I want to get involved with something whose 
> user interface is very different from the standard MS stuff, since 
> that's what I support at work. But free is nice, and I don't like The 
> Monopoly and their retail prices.
>
> Thoughts, anyone?  I'm particularly interested in people who used 
> OpenOffice for themselves when they use MS-Office at work, or 
> collaborate with people who do.  Is this practical?
>
> --Peter
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Leica Users Group.
> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information
>
>

-- 
Nathan Wajsman
Almere, The Netherlands

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In reply to: Message from pklein at 2alpha.net (Peter Klein) ([Leica] OT: OpenOffice Suite)