Now I know Open Office has been mentioned as an aside in other threads, but I thought I'd start one to collect any info or feedback on it as a product in and of itself.

Is it truly and completel compatible with Microsoft Office products?

I love anything open source, and free is a good quality for software too - especially with Office Suites in the hundreds of dollars.

Does anyone use Open Office strictly and instead of MS Office? Does anyone use both?

By the way, you can get the free Open Office package via download here.

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Hey Tess,

I use openoffice (i have a linux system as well as windows) on both. There can be some formatting issues with things like business cards when opening a word doc into openoffice, but otherwise there are usually no problems.

I find oo writer to be a lot more intuitive than ms word.... altho I think if you're used to word, you'll be hunting for a few commands.

I use oo draw for a LOT of forms (I do all the forms for the fire department) as well as newsletters, my planner pages (love making them, just never use them *grin*) etc.

I've never had any problems with opening or saving any spreadsheets with oo calc.

I've never bothered with the presentation software - in either ms or oo so can't comment on that...

It's a lot faster and less of a memory glutton...

I offer the whole suite to any small business owner i run into... beats paying ransom for ms products

I use Open Office but still have MS Office on my computer. Of the group, I only occasionally use Publisher. To date, the only compatibility problem I've had was when I couldn't open a Word 2007 (.docx) file. However, I solved that problem by downloading an enhanced version of OpenOffice called Oxygen Office Professional which uses an xmlfilter. It also comes with lots of extras that take up hard drive space. Some may like that, others may not. For those who don't, Open Office is supposed to have the xmlfilter in version 3, projected to be released Sept. 2008.

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Mattie Stokes

I use Open Office on my laptop and Microsoft Office on my desktop computer. Open Office is a little different but works just as well. The one thing I really like about Open Office is that when you go to save a document, it gives you the option to save it in a .doc format so that it opens immediately with Microsot Office products. So far, Open Office has been a great product!

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Tammi Metzler ~ The Write Associate
Free call: "How to Write Email Subject Lines That Grab Attention!"

I'm going to have to try it. Open Office is really creating a storm. And I just discovered GIMP yesterday - open source graphics, a lot like Adobe. Amazing! Any of y'all use GIMP?

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Mary H. Ruth/Virtual Writing & Communications
http://www.writingVA.com

I've only had one document that would not open correctly in OO for me and that was a 12 page newsletter that a client had done herself in Word (I'm a snob - I don't like newsletters done in Word).

It easily creates pdf files too with one click.

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Jeanne
NowAssistingYou.com
Virtual Assistant :: Web/Blog Design & Hosting :: Writer

Also wanted to say that my husband is a Mechanical Engineer and my oldest daughter is studying to be a Mechanical Engineer and they both were having fun with OO Math (yes - they were having "fun" with it).

It's interesting to note that Walmart and maybe some other retailers, are selling computers preloaded with OO now.

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Jeanne
NowAssistingYou.com
Virtual Assistant :: Web/Blog Design & Hosting :: Writer

I don't understand why anyone would want to get Open Office. I downloaded it and it really didn't impress me that much and didn't have near the options as MS Office. Why would I want to go backwards. I guess I can understand if you don't have enough money to purchase the latest MS Office, but that would be the only reason I would use Open Office.

Well I use open office, but is use to MS because to me it's easier. I recently got a new computer and can't find my product key number. So until I purchase another product key (As instructed by MS) I will be using Open office. It takes some time to get use to and the formatting is off a bit, I'd prefer to stick to MS makes my life easier.

I personally have been frustrated IN THE PAST by OO's lack of really DECENT fonts... this is the primary reason why I stick with M$2003. But open-source software development is so RAPID, I really need to take another looksie.

I have not graduated to M$2007 ... I played with it for a few days, but that's about it.... it's a resource hog and, quite frankly OVERKILL, imho.

I'd love to chuck M$office and stick with OO, but I am afraid of compatibility/professionalism problems with regards to fonts and other nitty-gritty formatting issues. I am especially afraid of sending a file I wrote on OO and then having a client open it in M$ - only to find a hot mess!

If it were JUST ME and I never shared .doc files with clients, then maybe M$office would do the trick... except the fonts problem. Grrr!

As for the question about GIMP, it's really a transition from Photoshop, the two programs do not mimic one another - transitioning from one to the other is not intuitive. At least it wasn't a couple of years back.

My brother-in-low told me to take another look at GIMP prior to purchasing PHOTOSHOP.... so I guess I need to do that soon.

Honestly, based on the time I spent "courting" GIMP two years ago, I was going to not bother with it again, but my BIL said it's made A LOT of improvements in the past 18 months... so I guess I'll have to give it another whirl.

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Susan Davis ~ EcoGreenREVA