Customer Reviews

OpenOffice.org 3.x Open Office Suite Software on CD-ROM for Windows (XP, Vista, 7); Latest Stable Release

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4 star:		(2)
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1 star:		(2)

 

 

OpenOffice.org version 3.2 is the latest stable release and by far, the most useful version to date. It's compatible with virtually every office suite out there, including the new Microsoft Office 2007 file formats. Older versions of OpenOffice.org were incompatible with the new file formats, but version 3.2 is now compatible and auto associates all office files upon installation. For those of you who own an older version, buy the latest or download the update and you shouldn't have any more issues with Microsoft Office 2007 compatibility.

On a side note, the WPS file format is a Microsoft Works word processing document, NOT Microsoft Word document, and is still incompatible with OpenOffice.org. The reason for this, is because the WPS format was outdated and replaced by the DOC format. For those of you who are upgrading from Works to ANY office program other than the latest Microsoft Office 2007, be sure to save all of your WPS files into RTF or DOC if available. There are also free converters out there on the internet.

As a brief overview of what OpenOffice.org can do, this is a short basic list of various projects you can do with it: Text Documents, Spreadsheets, Presentations, Drawings, Databases and Formulas. On top of this basic list, you can download thousands of FREE templates online for whatever kind of project you need. Anything from business cards, wedding invitations, greeting and holiday cards, to inventory lists, monthly budgets, crafts and much more. I highly encourage anyone to give the new 3.2 version a try!

I've used openoffice to practice law for nearly ten years and have *no* complaints.

Two caveats:

1. As with Microsoft, Corel or Apple software, there's an initial period of learning where the features are located in the software.

2. Also like Microsoft or Corel or Apple, there are occasionally issues that arise with other software users having to do with incompatible files or file-formatting.

The first issue was solved for me in a few hours by using the software. The help files and online forums are great. The interface is intuitive and similar to other office suites.

The second issue is generally solved by saving documents from openoffice in the appropriate Microsoft or another format or by exporting the document directly to pdf which openoffice does without a problem.

The free community technical support in forums and online is fast and free since openoffice is "open source" which has attracted a community of users who share information about how to use it. Since the source code is open, anyone who can code can find and fix bugs. I understand that commercial tech support packages are available, but I've never needed one.

As mentioned, my work often requires intensive text formatting, editing and other uses of word processing and spreadsheet documents. Openoffice has been a game-changer. I can't imagine that I would ever go back to Microsoft Office or Corel while openoffice is available and open source. I use it for everything, and there seems to be no limit to how it can be customized.

Unlike Microsoft products which change in frustrating and unpredictable ways every few years, openoffice has actually gotten easier to use as the years have passed.

And it's worth mentioning too that openoffice is licensed so that it can be downloaded for free from the openoffice.org website. I'm not aware of a reason to pay money to receive a copy unless maybe you need a dvd copy.

OpenOffice 3.0

`OpenOffice' is a free office product that runs in Windows 2000, XP, and other operating systems. It can be downloaded (over 320 Mb) or obtained from various sources. It uses the open end standardized ODF document format. You may find it in your public library with Internet access. OpenOffice has six main applications: `Text Document', `Spreadsheet', `Presentation', `Drawing', `Database', and `Formula'. The `Template' references existing documents, as does `Open a Document'. The applications have on-line help available for their functions.

`Text Document' allows you to create a document and save it in various formats: Rich Text Format, Microsoft Word, StarWriter, PDF, and others. Rich Text Format or Microsoft Word 95 allows the use of other word processors. It is not mentioned, but it will read WordPerfect documents (.wpd) but not save in this format.
`Spreadsheet' allows reading an Excel document (.xls). An Excel Workbook (.xlw) may not be converted correctly. You can save the spreadsheet in various formats: Microsoft Excel, dBASE, Data Interchange Format, StarCalc, Text CSV (comma separated values), and others.

`Presentation' allows creation of slide shows for presentations. You can save a document in these formats: Microsoft Power Point, StarDraw, and others. `Drawing' allows creation of documents which can be saved in these formats: StarDraw, ODF Drawing, and others.
`Database' allows the creation and editing of a database. You can only save in ODF Database format. `Formula' allows creating mathematical formulas for printing. This is a useful application for education. You can save the document in ODF Formula, StarMath, or MathML.

I found saving a document in RTF or Microsoft Word 95 to be most practical for those who use another word processor. The `Spreadsheet' could read a workbook (.xlw) but generated errors in some of the worksheeets. This was not a problem for Microsoft Excel 97, or the original Lotus 1-2-3 (.wk4) spreadsheet.
This is a good product for people who do not want a full-strength application suite. It does word processing well, and I don't use the other features.

Anyone who pays for this program has paid too much. Open Office is totally free software, available for download at it's official site, openoffice.org. There, you can download it as many times as you want, get support from their forums, and not pay a dime.

I use Lotus Symphony, which is also free, and which I have had better luck with. It's based on Open Office, but I have not had the problems with it that I had with Open Office.

I've heard that OpenOffice was supposed to be decent, so I took a chance with OO instead of paying a few hundred for upgrading to a newer version of MS Office. Glad I did!. Menus are simple to navigate, documents are easy to create & edit. I only wished I tried OpenOffice sooner!

To be clear, I like both MS Office and Open Office products. As time moves forward and I use both Suites, I find myself using Open Office more than MS Office. If you are considering this product, you might also consider Home and Student Productivity Suite 2010, 2 -CD set, Includes: Complete Office Software for Windows, Antivirus, PDF Tool, Archiver, Disk Cleaning Utility, Rich Clipart Collection and Artistic Fonts Collection as it comes with other valuable free tools in addition to OpenOffice.

I run Open Office (OO) on both Windows and Linux platforms using Writer [like MS Word], Calc [Excel], Impress [Power Point], Draw, and Math. I have to point out, this CD only contains the Windows version of Open Office. This and other versions can be downloaded for free from Open Office web site; [...], or come pre-installed and ready to run on most current Linux distributions [Ubuntu, OpenSuse, etc]. OO is also available for MAC platforms.

Open Office is a full featured office suite with a couple capabilities which don't come with the basic MS Office package, like Draw. I use OO to develop Engineering design documentation, analysis, and presentations for technical and sales topics on both Linux and Windows platforms. Making and presenting presentations with Impress is pretty much like performing the same tasks in Power Point. Initially, Impress had less art to select from, however the user community for Impress has been filling this void. At the time of this writing, I'd say MS Power Point packaged art is still slightly better. The Impress community is closing this gap.

I also find Open Office "Help" to be far more useful and intelligible than MS Help documentation, almost as if OO answers were written by others who've asked the same questions -after- they found the answers.

I tried OO when MS Office 2003 was the standard, and the Office 2003 interface is similar enough Open Office that making the transition was fairly transparent and painless. When MS changed the user interface in 2007, I decided instead of putting my energy into figuring out MS new "face" for a familiar tool set, to put my effort into moving my work to OO. I was able to quickly import and/or setup complex templates for my company documentation with complete header/footer document page information and a watermark backgrounds. I was also able to import (from Word) a full legal template document I find useful in court cases. Most of my spreadsheet skills were also immediately useful in Open Office Calc with minimal "adjustment" time.

What impresses me most about Open Office is all the features I need exist and work the same on both Windows and Linux platforms. There are a few cross platform issues (Windows/Linux), such as the data formats supported for Watermarking are different on Linux and Windows, however there is overlap. For instance I found creating my full page watermark in Draw, exporting as EMF (Enhanced Metafile Format), then setting the watermark background in Writer or Calc templates using the EMF file allows me to click "New Document" and get the same looking/same printing document on both platforms. Very time saving when making many documents for specifications, design history, test procedures, product documentation, etc which will be edited and printed using both platforms. For instance an engineer using Linux can create a document in Writer, email the document to a secretary running OO under Windows, and neither needs to be aware of the other's platform. It just works.

A single button press to create a PDF from the current Writer document, Calc spreadsheet, or Impress presentation makes sending review or publish documents out by email a snap. Excellent interoperability with MS Office at a "saved file" level makes moving between MS products and the World Standard (ISO/IEC 26300:2006) file formats produced by Open Office as easy as "File -> Save As..."

New versions of Open Office work with older archived Open Office files in document centers and revision control systems because the file format itself is a standard independent of Open Office (ISO/IEC 26300:2006 and newer managed by OASIS, [...]. so unlike MS Office which changes the .DOC file format with every new release of Word (breaking older versions of Word), the .ODT files created with different versions of Open Office will continue to work with both newer and older Open Office Suites without having to download and install translators. This saves upgrade headaches, and allows individuals happy with their machine stability and operation while meeting critical deadlines to continue using their stable configuration while the guy next door upgrades to the latest and greatest to meet his needs. Everyone is not forced to upgrade at once as MS Office requires for document sharing. I believe the newest versions of MS Office now can import/export to the standard format used by Open Office.

I find program crashes to be rare, but when they do occur (as they also do in MS Office), OO always seems to be able to recover the document I was working on, even if I hadn't recently saved it. So I haven't lost anything to program crashes over several years of using OO.

This brings up another point. Licensing of OO allows legal installation of the same CD on as many machines in your home or office as you'd like. And if you don't need a CD, the same full install package can be downloaded for free from [...]. Both are good ways to obtain this Office Suite of tools.

I installed open office with no problem and am using it instead of microsoft office 2010.
I also use mozilla thunderbird for email and its wonderful. Both thunderbird and open
office are free and easier to use.

I didn't find any use for this product. There was not a tutorial to show how to incorporate it with Microsoft Office
documents. I ended up purchasing the full version of that in the end.