Which is better MS Office 07 or OpenOffice?

[TechCom0018]

I was just wondering which is better is to have Microsoft Office 2007, which ever version, or OpenOffice? Now don't base this on price because OpenOfice is free and MS Office 07 cost over $100. I would like to know which is easier to use, takes up less space when installing the software, which has better features, etc...

 

[_simon_]

Depends what you use it for and it's very difficult not to make a decision on price as that can be a huge influence!

OpenOffice does everything I need it to do and more and came as part of my Ubuntu install.

I've used MS Office for years in Windows environments, switching to OpenOffice was very easy. A few options are in different places, but it's just a case of memorising the new places.

Excluding price, I would say OpenOffice is better simply for reliability. I have seen so many machines and posts on forums where Office has stopped working, perhaps from an update or in some cases for no apparent reason.
OpenOffice doesn't seem to have these issues.

 

[patrickv]

dozens of threads here comparing the office suites to the linux alternative.

 

[_simon_]

OpenOffice isn't just for Linux though and I'm guessing they aren't a Linux user?

 

[patrickv]

yeah i know there's OO for windows

 

[Tuffie]

I have seen so many machines and posts on forums where Office has stopped working, perhaps from an update or in some cases for no apparent reason.
OpenOffice doesn't seem to have these issues.

Maybe the difference is that hounreds of thousands of people use Office?

Just don't uderestimate a programs integrity unless you have thought it out.

Kent.

 

[_simon_]

Maybe the difference is that hounreds of thousands of people use Office?

Just don't uderestimate a programs integrity unless you have thought it out.

Kent.

Ok, going by personal experience, forget posts on forums. OpenOffice is more stable than MS Office.

 

[JamesBart]

im going to say ms office! its one of them things i reckon you pay fro what you get and is open office free? i dont have any against freeware but ms is good i use it and i like it!

 

[charly]

save money, use OO

i ran on ms several years, and i did a lot includet vba programming.
it's package and includet classes helps a lot to build vba modules, especially when you want to use functions form the other package (like generating mails from excel or access)
BUT
excel sheets run on OO also, and all other are compatibel to OO as long you don't run macros. powerpoint etc. will be handlet by OO so at home i run only on OO + firefox + thunderbird and that's for free and does nearly the same.

and if you wanna do some macros, OO has it also.

 

[tlarkin]

I am a big fan of office 2k3 but office 2k7 not so much, but I do like the fact that they are moving their documents to a more universal format, hence the XML support now in office 2007. I don't like how they totally rearranged the interface. To quote my old man, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

Open Office and its other open source projects are great free utilities, and if it came down to me paying for a license or using open source, I would use open source because of the money I would save, and with that money I could spend it on beer and taking out women, which is better than owning MS office.

 

[maroon1]

Excluding price, Microsoft Office 2007 is by far much better than OpenOffice.

 

[tlarkin]

Oh, and we are talking about current open office versus office 2k7, so realize that yeah about 7 years ago open office sucked big time. It was slow, buggy, and ran like crap. It has gotten leagues better. I remember running open office in 1999-2000 era on my windows 98se machine, and it took forever to load.

These days, the performance is very close but I would want to say on a windows box, MS Office probably out performs open office. The question is, how would that really effect the user? Would be it a deal breaker to spend the extra money for the MS product??

 

[Le GoogelGuRu]

Microsoft Office 2007 looks nice but if you are looking for a free solution, OpenOffice.org is the way to go.

 

[Shane]

Excluding price, Microsoft Office 2007 is by far much better than OpenOffice.

agreed

 

[heyman421]

MS is way nicer.

OO is free.

I guess it just depends on how often you need it......

I mean, if you're just casually going to be typing one or two papers a year (be honest here) then there's no point buying office. You can make due with a lesser interface, and save some cash. Simple.

 

[INTELCRAZY]

I am a certified specialist in MS Word, Excel, and Powerpoint. There are ways to get MS Office for a discount or free, like I did. I took a few tests at a college, got my certification. MS Office is most 'standardized', I don't expect my grandparents to tell a difference between Corel and MS but, yeah, MS Office is the norm. The certification helped me get mine for free.

 

[Geoff]

Microsoft Office is obviously better, but price is a major part in deciding. If money is tight I would get Open Office, but you can get MS Office for only $150 for the student edition.

 

[tlarkin]

Microsoft Office is obviously better, but price is a major part in deciding. If money is tight I would get Open Office, but you can get MS Office for only $150 for the student edition.

the problem is you can't upgrade those editions, so you are forced to pay $150.00 every time a new version comes out. Overall, $150.00 is not a lot of money per se, but at the same time I mean if you don't use office every day, or don't use it extensively enough open office can do every thing MS office can. MS office just has a prettier interface and runs a bit faster.

For my needs, I use a smiple text editor for all my work that I would need a text editor for. Again though, I don't write papers, I write sripts, and some basic html coding, so plain text is all I need. Someone who is a writer by profession and needs all those extra bells and whistles may want MS office over Open Office because it may just feel more comfortable to use. Even though there are very little features that MS Office has over Open Office. The best feature MS office has, is that temporary back up file, so if your system crashes, it has saved a temp file of that doc to your HD. I do remember writing up a proposal for work (one of the few times I needed a rich text editor) and I had music playing while I was typing it. Got through about 4 or 5 pages of typed info and was going to save it for the first time, windows explorer crashed and I had to reboot. I was scared that my 45 minutes of typing were just lost and I would have to start over, but lone and behold there was a temp file already saved to my HD and I recovered from there and not a single sentence lost. I believe open office now has similar features, but that is something that MS did right I think.

It all depends on what you need, and if your needs justify spending the extra money then it is worth it, because in the end you will be more productive with that product.

This not only applies to Office Suites, it applies to all computer related hardware and software in general.

 

[Ev0la]

I've gotten so used to openoffice that I have forgotten how to use microsoft word! LOL. I've tried Microsoft Office 2007, and I hate the eyecandy of the whole interface. It is just disgusting. I just want a plain word processor.

 

[patrickv]

it goes down to the end user itself. I on one hand can use openoffice but it won't do me any good, i work with database a lot and officebase is just pure crap. i have 2 database admin in the office and if i go ahead and introduce them to officebase thats like stabbing myself with a knife.
it's just a matter of what the end user wants