That Microsoft Office sure is spendy

[Perd Hapley]

So I've got this growing collection of computers, and I need to have a word processing program on at least some of them. 

I can get Microsoft Office '07 Pro Plus (Word, Excel, P-Point, One Note) for 89.99 through the university bookstore, and use it on two computers.

Or is Open Office a good alternative? 

[jackdanson]

Open office has always worked well for me... I'd save your cash.

[Regolith]

So I've got this growing collection of computers, and I need to have a word processing program on at least some of them. 

I can get Microsoft Office '07 Pro Plus (Word, Excel, P-Point, One Note) for 89.99 through the university bookstore, and use it on two computers.

Or is Open Office a good alternative? 

Open office is decent enough.  I don't believe it's 100% compatible with Microsoft Office, though, so if you are ever going to be in a situation where it always absolutely has to work with other computers that are running Microsoft Office, I'd avoid it.

[BridgeRunner]

I couldn't stand Open Office.  Thing drove me batty(er).  I stick with Office, or in my case, Office:Mac.  The cost is annoying, but not prohibitive for the various home/student versions.

[CNYCacher]

Open office is decent enough.  I don't believe it's 100% compatible with Microsoft Office, though, so if you are ever going to be in a situation where it always absolutely has to work with other computers that are running Microsoft Office, I'd avoid it.

Interesting approach.  Buy Office now in case you might ever run into a situation where you need it?  Are you expecting it to not be available in the future?

[Vodka7]

OO in Linux is a lot more enjoyable than OO in Windows.  Faster, looks nicer.

That said, I've seen two complaints about OO:

1.) Change tracking is absolutely terrible between OO and MS Word (WW.)  This isn't a problem for 99% of non-corporate users, but a lot of development teams use it intensively.  I tried to open one of my Dad's tech docs (with change tracking enabled with a different color for each person in his team) in OO for him and he pooped masonry at the result.
2.) Things, maybe, won't look exactly in WW the way they do in OO.  Who cares?  Export to PDF, built in.

Another alternative is AbiWord.  It's only a word processor, but it's got a pretty low footprint and was faster than OO the last time I used it (several years ago.)

[K Frame]

That's one thing I LOVE about working for who I work for. The full Office Suite professional version costs me $20 under our enterprise license. If I leave the company, though, I have to uninstall it.


Lotus Symphony is also free. I downloaded a copy some months ago to try it out when the company I'm subcontracted to talked about going to it. It's OK.

http://symphony.lotus.com/software/lotus/symphony/home.nsf/home

They also have a presentations package (PowerPoint type) and a spreadsheet package (Excel type). I didn't mess with either of those.

[charby]

That's one thing I LOVE about working for who I work for. The full Office Suite professional version costs me $20 under our enterprise license. If I leave the company, though, I have to uninstall it.

Same here... work at home rights or something like that.

[Boomhauer]

Yeah, Microsoft is way too proud of Microsoft Word. And I hate Office '07, but the price is probably the best you will come across...

Open Office takes forever to load...and it's got some quirks of it's own, but I cope with it at as a student. I normally only use it for papers and such. I take notes in Wordpad because it's quick loading, clutter free, and doesn't do weird *expletive deleted*it on it's own like Microsoft Word does (Open Office isn't as bad in that respect)

[BryanP]

You should at least try Open Office.  If you're not a big user of Excel macros, it may serve you well.

I still have a copy of MS Office 2003 on one of my home machines, but the new desktop has OO, and the netbook came preinstalled with Star Office (OO is the open source  derivative of Star Office).   So far I get by fine with OO and SO.  Occasionally I have to move a file to the old machine and fire up MSOffice, but not often enough that I'm going to pay the price for the suite. 

If I got a sweetheart deal like some of the other people in this thread I'd likely stick with MSOffice.  It works well.  As it is, my pocketbook and my needs are well served.

[mtnbkr]

I liked OO, but it's formatting of documents is just different enough that I couldn't send a critical OO generated document without checking it in Word first.  It did nasty things to my resume.  Yes, I can export it as a PDF, but that isn't always an option.

It's really not a fault of OO.  If everyone was using OO, we'd be complaining about Word's formatting issues.  It's just an issue of market share.

BTW, you can get Office at a student discount if you have kids in school (elementary on up).   

Chris

[Ben]

I also have the $20 deal on MS Office. If I didn't need MS Office for work though, I'd be fine using OO. As others have said, it's almost fully compatible with MS Office, but the few little glitches mean that I would have to spend way too much time proofreading docs to look for the minor little formatting glitches that my boss' boss loves to publicly point out to people. If I didn't have that to contend with, I could do everything I want to do from the personal side with OO.

I actually also started using OO for work because of the freakin' .dbf non-support in Excel 2007. I find OO loads just as fast or faster for me than MS Office does.

[roo_ster]

For 90% of folks, Open Office will serve them as well as MS Office.

I prefer it for generation of resumes, as I can author the resume in OO and then export easily to .pdf and .html.  I export to .doc, but check to make sure it is still happy.

Work requires MS Office, though.  Too many company-developed VBA apps, too many docs with comments, etc.  I always keep a copy of OO handy at work, though, in either Portable Apps flavor or on another work machine.  OO will open corrupted/old/whatevered MS Office documents long after your version of MS Office cries out, "No mas!"

Frankly, unless you have requirements that necessitate MS Office, run OO.

There are several pros/cons of both, but I find the semi-auto word completion in OO to be just spiffy.  It even learns as you go, so your specific jargon then becomes part of its vocabulary.

[ilbob]

I have played with OO. It has some serious issues for some people, but most people will find it adequate for their needs. It is not the panacea that the the Microsoft haters claim it is, but what do you want for free?

[Brad Johnson]

I can get Microsoft Office '07 Pro Plus (Word, Excel, P-Point, One Note) for 89.99 through the university bookstore, and use it on two computers.

You think that's spendy?  Wait until you have to buy it in the real world.

Brad

[Perd Hapley]

Yes, I do think it's spendy.  A steal compared to the normal price of course.  Still spendy for my meager income.

Thanks for all the advice.  If I can create documents in OO, and then check them with Word, I guess I'll be fine.  Still might buy it, though, just to upgrade to the newer version. 

BTW, where does the "real world" actually begin?  In high school, they told me that college would be the "real world."  In college, they were still telling me about the "real world" that I hadn't reached yet.  When I quit college and went into the service, I was never accused of being "not in the real world."  Now I work a full-time civilian job, pay a mortgage, and I'm taking a couple of classes at night.  Is that not the "real world"? 

[Brad Johnson]

When you stop complaining about getting an 80% discount on something, that's real world.

Brad

[Gewehr98]

Just don't buy Quark Express or Adobe Creative Suite.

We'll never hear the end of it, then. 

[zahc]

I can get Office for "free", on my research budget. I still don't have it though, because Openoffice has always worked for me. I do however run linux; I don't know what the *dows version is like.

[Waitone]

The real world is when you DON'T get an 80% discount.

[Perd Hapley]

When you stop complaining about getting an 80% discount on something, that's real world.

Hm.  I didn't complain, but I may have had the wrong price in mind.  I was thinking it retailed at $150, but that is for a more basic version. 

[MicroBalrog]

OpenOffice works for me, and I use it for professional purposes.

[Brad Johnson]

I was thinking it retailed at $150, but that is for a more basic version. 

A single-user license for Office Pro Plus runs about $450, street.  $150 gets you the Office Standard to Office Pro upgrade license. 

Them there softwares can get 'spensive.

Brad

[lee n. field]

Or is Open Office a good alternative? 

Get it, try it.  What are you out if it doesn't do what you want?

[lee n. field]

Lotus Symphony is also free. I downloaded a copy some months ago to try it out when the company I'm subcontracted to talked about going to it. It's OK.

Oh, my.  I was completely unaware of that.

Alas, it won't run on my old iBook ("late 2001", PPC not Intel).