Mike Meyer wrote: > On Fri, 04 Dec 2009 16:34:36 -0500 > Paul Gress <pgress at optonline.net> wrote: > > >> Tomas Bodzar wrote: >> >>> OpenOffice != MS Office >>> >> Gee, I don't want to start a war, but what can you do in MS Office you >> can't do in Openoffice. >> > > Reliably share documents with people using MS-Office. OpenOffice is > better than pretty much anything but MS-Office (which isn't so hot at > this itself) than that, but it's always been an issue for me. > > I can open most (~85%) MS Office ndocuments with no problems. For the ones with problems it's just usually two things. The tables and pictures aren't exactly located correctly, which I cleanup in a matter of minutes by right clicking and selecting automatic sizing and font sizing aren't exact. All the information gets through OK, it's just minor format problems. As far as functionality, there isn't anything you can't do.
> I'm sure it's gotten better since I last looked, but templates didn't > work worth beans, and the OpenOffice generated .doc files would > sometimes lock up Windows boxes when they were loaded into MS-Office > (just some machines, but reliably on those, until someone who didn't > have this problem saved it back out). > > I've never had a problem opening up templates. All the doc files I've saved for others to open up with MS Office have never locked up. I guess it must be much more refined. It even opens up docx files, but will not save them. No problem, who uses that format anyway. > Besides, he also said Outlook, which could mean a lot more than just > "some form of user mail agent". It may be enough; he may need Sunbird > as well; he may need a better MAPI client; he may need a serious > enterprise suite. Without more details, it's hard to say. > > Evolution is considered very similar to Outlook, but I have never used it. Opera functions similar to Outlook also, and can import Outlook e-mails, but also has browser function built it. Thunderbird is not similar, but still imports Outlook e-mails. > One alternative - assuming the client hardware in question is up to it > - is VirtualBox or VMWare on the clients, running Windows as a > guest. VirtualBox on OpenSolaris is a good choice if you just want > casual use of the Windows clients. Last time I looked, VMWare was way > ahead of it if you wanted really tight integration. > > He stated "this is mostly because of license issue" so running Windows may be an issue. There a varying web posts on Windows Programs -> Linux Programs (where mostly Opensolaris will work also). One such link is: http://wiki.linuxquestions.org/wiki/Linux_software_equivalent_to_Windows_software Paul