OpenOffice

[Matblack]

Does anyone here use this?

I managed to find a decent copy go Office 2007 for myself but now my parents want it I any having trouble turning it up so decided to try OpenOffice instead, from what I can see it seems OK and will probably do what they need. Anyone have anymore extensive experience that just installing it and seeing if it works though :D

MB

[PvtPyle]

I used it for a while and it is a decent bit of kit. Only stopped because the native file formats are not compatible with MS which I needed them to be. For most word-processing tasks and similar it will more than do the job, and it doesn't inexplicably do all the infuriating stuff that M$ Office does, such as randomly change fonts or bugger up your tabs.

[Dymetrie]

I believe Mr Slater uses it's freeware goodness, I shall nudge him this way next time I see him :)

[Kell_ee001]

I installed it on my Mums last laptop and it worked a treat. :)

[Stan_Lite]

I used it for a while and got on perfectly fine with it. It's very similar to MS Office to use and you can configure it to automatically save files in MS format if you want so that MS users can open your files.

Only reason I stopped using it is because I love Outlook and if I'm going to use Outlook, I may as well use the rest of the suite.

I would heartily recommend it - one of the best pieces of (official ;)) freeware I've ever used.

[Daz]

Agree with the Bij one on all counts :) My only niggle with it has been startup times, but it's a small annoyance.

[Belmit]

We now have this installed on all PCs by default at work, as well as MS Office. So far the only advantage I can see is that you can create pdf files with it, which we find a lot of people want to do. Of course if you don't have MS Office then this is a great free alternative.

Edit: Something tells me you may now be able to create pdfs in Office 2007 too, but I can't remember.

[Dr. Z]

OpenOffice is great if you cant get Office 2007, but like BigStan and Daz, Outlook is just so important to me that I wouldn't bother with OO.org just because of that really.

Its also hellishly slow on Windows in comparison to MS Office

[MarcLister]

Think all I can say has been said already. So I shall say it again. :p

You can make PDFs in OO but Office 2007 lets you do that, with a plugin. OO can be a bit slow on Windows and the interface is a bit difficult to get used to but I suspect that is due to being used to MS Office for so long.

I don't use Outlook 'cos I hate it. I use Thunderbird for my email although I could be converted. ;)

If you want something cheap and something that will be the same for Windows and Linux then OO is good.

[Stan_Lite]

I forgot about the PDF bit, that's a good enough selling point on it's own. I agree about the start-up, it does take a bit longer than MS but if you think about it, it only takes about 20 seconds longer to open and you'll probably be working on a document or spreadsheet for up to an hour or more - what's 20 seconds?

I like Thunderbird, it's a pretty good tool but Outlook just does everything so much better.

[semi-pro waster]

I use it and have done for a couple of years since I decided that I wanted to try and use legal software wherever possible.

I find a few things less intuitive than in Microsoft Office but that could just be down to having used MS Office first and for longer. The speed thing is a pretty minor annoyance really, I simply assumed it was down to the fact that my PC is getting on a bit now, it does however seem significantly faster on the second time of your session when you open up a file.

[Matblack]

Thanks chaps, I've shoved a copy on the MyBook Arthur I bought him along with some films for him to watch :)

We'll see how he gets on, if he hates it he can pay for M$ Offfice

MB

[Mark]

Good luck with it. I installed it on the 'rents old laptop but they were happier using Works so I didn't bother when they got the new system (mind you - the state of their new system shows they are more then capable of installing their own stuffs ;)).

[Garp]

I use it at work on my Linux box and on the home machine as well. It does perform a lot nicer under *nix than under Windows. Not sure what it'll be like on OS X, but hopefully similar to *nix. Its perfectly serviceable as a replacement for Office.

Not particulalry keen on Outlook, too bloated, to over the top.
Thunderbird isn't so nice either, now I'm used to seeing what it does to back end servers (Thunderbird's IMAP stuff is extremely ugly.) but I still use that at home in preference.

[MarcLister]

Not particulalry keen on Outlook, too bloated, to over the top.Pretty much why I don't bother with it. Admittedly I haven't tried Outlook 2007 so perhaps I should. I also had to use Outlook at work for two years and it wasn't that bad, perhaps I just had bad memories of Outlook Express. :o

Thunderbird isn't so nice either, now I'm used to seeing what it does to back end servers (Thunderbird's IMAP stuff is extremely ugly.) but I still use that at home in preference.Would you mind expanding on that or perhaps PMing me? I quite like Thunderbird so I'd like to know what is bad about the IMAP code.

Sometimes I think I should stop using Thunderbird and just use the webmail interfaces for my three email accounts.

[kaiowas]

I have OO installed at work but I only use for fixing corrupt Excel files. Most files that Excel gets upset about can still be opened in OO then they can be saved and Excel is then happy with them.

[Goose]

I tend to use both, as I need to write code that works with MS and OO. OO always seems to be a little better, but MS tends to win due to familiarity. MS = less objects though, which was a surprise. My OO is a bit out of date though.

I echo Garps comments on Outlook. Hideous dog. Don't care what is going on behind the scenes, I just want a lightweight, fast mail system (that has a GUI!).

[MarcLister]

I just want a lightweight, fast mail system (that has a GUI!).What do you use now? Have you used Thunderbird? Or have you and are looking for something else? :D

[Goose]

At home, Thunderbird (which is starting to hack me off)

At work, Outlook (which has been annyoing me since day 1!)

Edit: I'm probably being a bit harsh on Thunderbird. I think the fact that my PC is dying makes me angry with every bit of software installed.

[MarcLister]

:D Sounds about right. What is Thunderbird doing or not doing to hack you off? I don't know anyone else amongst my group of mates who use Thunderbird. I do know that some of my lecturers use Thunderbird and Firefox. Silly boys! Thunderbird and Opera is where its at. :D

[Goose]

I just made a sneaky edit. I'm angry at every bit of software on my dying PC.

So angry I can't even spell.

[MarcLister]

Oooh sneaky. :D

What layout do you have TB in? I have mine in Wide so I get the full benefit of my widescreen monitor BABY! :D

Oooh: http://lifehacker.com/358105/what-do-you-want-to-see-in-thunderbird

[Garp]

Would you mind expanding on that or perhaps PMing me? I quite like Thunderbird so I'd like to know what is bad about the IMAP code.


Hmm.. its a little hard to provide specifics, but our best guess is that Thunderbird has a rediculously sensitive IMAP timeout on it. We've seen repeated problems with people that try and delete more than a thousand or so e-mails from a folder. Our best guess is that if the server doesn't respond satisfactorily within xx minutes it opens another connection to the server and repeats the command. We can pick stuff out of the logs that prove its doing multiple connections. Usually tied in with a staff member deleting a few k of e-mails is the server's load going up through the roof, and exim then dropping out. We can change exim to be less sensitive, but when thunderbird does its thang the server starts struggling anyway so Exim refusing to accept an e-mail is usually the first indicator we get to a problem.
I get somewhere in the region of 4k - 5k e-mails a day, as does everyone else on my team, and whilst most of us use Thunderbird on a day to day basis, all of us now use the program "mutt" to do e-mail deletion as it does it without even batting an eyelid.

The other thing sorely wrong with Thunderbird is that in its default implementation it doesn't automatically check subfolders. You have to go into about:config and edit a setting inside there before it'll do it.

[MarcLister]

Hmm sounds a bit familiar. I sometimes get a message telling me that imap.messagingengine.com or imap.gmail.com isn't an IMAP server. No, that'd be why its imap.gmail.com then?

Surely the IMAP timeout can be edited in the config?

[Garp]

Hmm sounds a bit familiar. I sometimes get a message telling me that imap.messagingengine.com or imap.gmail.com isn't an IMAP server. No, that'd be why its imap.gmail.com then?

Surely the IMAP timeout can be edited in the config?

Yup it does that fairly frequently to me.
As far as can see it can't be edited in config, looks to be hard coded somewhere.

[MarcLister]

Hmm another disadvantage to TB then. :(