Hi Rakshit
Dear OpenOffice Team,
I'm not on the "OpenOffice Team", just a satisfied user, but I'd love to
make a couple of comments.
I am using version 2.0 of OpenOffice. My request is that as a long-time
MS-Office user (and being quite comfortable with it!) it would help me
to know of the Features that OpenOffice offers which are not available
with MS-Office.
I use Microsoft Office at work, and am quite familiar with it. Over the
years it has become a reasonable office suite, and has lost some of the
shortcomings that frustrated me in its earlier days. (Yes, I'm getting
old.)
Just to get it out of the way, one of OpenOffice.org's obvious advantages
is price. At home, I would find it very difficult to afford Microsoft
Office. I have a large family, and we have well over 10 computers.
Microsoft require me to purchase one license per computer. I've never done
the sums, and don't want to, but I imagine that adds up to more money than
I would want to spend. I wouldn't want to spend the hundreds of dollars it
costs for one copy!
In the business world Microsoft's option is also quite expensive. A few
years ago I worked for a charity here in Australia that was offering
computer training to unemployed people. Microsoft were quite generous, and
offered us $15,000 (Australian) worth of software. Now, $15,000 is very
generous, and we were very grateful. But what did that $15,000 get us? 10
Windows XP licenses, and 9 Office licenses: not quite enough for half of
our computers.
So the price of OpenOffice.org (or lack of price) is definitely a
significant advantage. But it's not enough to be cheap - I want the
software to be good as well!
To summarise, let me say that virually any job that I can accomplish in
Microsoft Office, I can also accomplish in OpenOffice.org. Sometimes the
method is different, but the result is equivalent.
Additionally, there are some areas the OpenOffice.org does better than
Microsoft Office (in my opinion). Some that I appreciate are:
- More effective styles. OpenOffice.org is "styles-centric", whereas
styles feel like an add-on in Word. I get very used to using styles in the
early 90's when I used the Ami Pro word processor, and desktop publishing
software. I find it a very productive way to work.
- Automatic spell checking in Calc. People at work have been trying to do
this with Excel for years, but it doesn't work.
- Auto-complete. I touch type, and usually hate features like this (and I
know a lot of people hate it in OpenOffice - at least you can turn it
off!). OpenOffice.org contains the first auto-complete function that I
have found useable. When completing my thesis, it made my life much easier
when typing long technical words.
- Draw. I find Draw close in usefulness to CorelDraw (but without many of
the advanced features), and have been able to do many of the jobs I used
to use CorelDraw for in OpenOffice.org now. (These are normally page
layout and desktop publishing type of jobs.) Microsoft has nothing that
compares with this.
- I find features like the gallery, navigator, and data sources very
useful information in accessing extra data (database fields and graphics),
and getting around the document. The navigator works very well, and almost
makes up for the lack of an outliner in OpenOffice.org. Microsoft Word
does have an outliner, but I never found it came close to the features and
convenience of Ami Pro's and Ecco Pro's outlining. OpenOffice.org Impress
does do basic outlining.
- OpenDocument support. The world now has a standard set file formats (ISO
standards). OpenOffice has supported them for over a year so far.
Microsoft does not (yet) support these formats, although they were on the
committee that created the standard in the first place. OpenDocument is
still in its early days, and I look forward to see what stand Microsoft
will take in the future. But I already know where OpenOffice.org stands.
There are a few "extra features" to start with. I'm sure you'll hear of
more. OpenOffice.org is free. Why not download it and try it out, and see
if you discover any for yourself.
For completeness, and to be honest, here are a few things that
OpenOffice.org doesn't do as well as Microsoft:
- Slower loading time, especially the first time you start the program.
- A few of the advanced spreadsheet features are more limited.
- Base is a more immature database compared with Access.
Also, there may be some (minor or major) compatibility issues with
Microsoft. This isn't a "disadvantage" of OpenOffice, but may be something
to be aware of if you are migrating. To comment on this, we would need to
know more about your situation.
Hope this email isn't too long, and that you find it helpful.
Adrian
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