Staroffice vs OpenOffice.org vs MS Office

Whaleboy · December 6, 2003, 21:11

I downloaded OpenOffice.org 1.1 and used it for a while, and liked it a lot. It was much faster than the old one and had some nice new stuff, the pdf export thingy is pretty handy. My one problem with it was the thesaurus, which didn't exist on the English UK langauge setting. As I prefer excessive U usage to excessive Z usage, this was annoying to me.

I downloaded Staroffice 7 (free by claiming to be an educator

) (though I'm a student so I may not have actually been naughty), and installed it, and though I still have OOo on my system, Staroffice is my default.

Asides for minor cosmetic changes, they seem to be pretty much identical, though SO seems somewhat more complete, with extra addons but I suppose if you're paying money for it, it needs to distinguish itself from its completely free twin.

I like them both, but how do you think they compare, both individually against each other and against MS Office (of which I have had no experience for years), and together as pretty much the same piece of code against MS Office?

Also, what do you think of the file format? I like it, its open, its clean, it can be accessed on any machine with something using ZIP and a text editor/web browser.

Also consider Abiword 2.0.1. Its fast, and its coming on nicely. You should download both plugin packs though, then you get to use the greatest thesaurus I have ever seen (Aiksaurus). Its blisteringly quick, and it uses a plaintext file format, which I imagine is less flexible than OOo/SO format but its faster due to no decompression/compression, and will be readable on machines with no ZIP capacity.

This is a spin off from a post someone made in Azazels new desktop thread.

Q Classic · December 6, 2003, 21:21

i dislike openoffice. it takes forever to launch and to do other things. that alone is enough of a performance issue for me that i'd rather use other stuff instead. therefore, in linux, i almost never install openoffice; i use abiword, which opens almost instantly.

staroffice is ok.

i myself still like microsoft office (i'm now on version 2003). i got it for free from multiple sources: 1. home use rights for volume licensing programs; 2. i attended the microsoft office 2003 system launch event, and they gave that and onenote2003 away free. i stand to get it at around $15 when i get back to uchicago.

loads up fast, it's the industry standard, and i've never had an issue with it.

Whaleboy · December 6, 2003, 21:35

I'm paranoid about not being in control of all the info in my documents. I'd like to see MS Office use a standard like the OOo file format system.

Nonetheless, is there anywhere where I can download MS Office for free?

Q Classic · December 6, 2003, 21:46

can't.

not unless you're a member of a volume licensing deal, at which point you can access http://licensing.microsoft.com

Whaleboy · December 6, 2003, 21:49

Quote:

volume licensing deal

And that costs money right?

Q Classic · December 6, 2003, 22:00

oodles. although it gets cheaper per unit the more you get, it's still in the multi-thousand range.

Urban Ranger · December 7, 2003, 06:34

Quote:

Originally posted by Q Cubed
i dislike openoffice. it takes forever to launch and to do other things.

It takes sometime to launch but otherwise it's instantaneous. Launch time is hardly an issue for me because I can be doing other things, like editing my programs or surfing on 'Poly

As for MS Office, the first problem is it costs two arms and five legs, and you never use all of the features anyway, not even remotely close. Compatibility is a big issue in companies with multiple versions so that everybody has to save to same baseline version like Office 97, which kills off some of the features. Then it also has security problems. The funny thing is some patches available for the English version are not available for versions in other languages. Oh, and it's handling of right-to-left languages is poor.

Solver · December 7, 2003, 06:57

If against MS Office 97, OpenOffice is definitely my pick. Probably against 2000, too. Office XP, though, is more convenient to use, but OpenOffice 1.1 is my office suit of choice on Linux, and I can do whatever I need with it.

Urban Ranger · December 7, 2003, 07:32

Also, OpenOffice reads MS Office perfectly, at least wrt Office 97, which is what most people use here (I tell you, nobody wants to pay for things they don't use). This gives users a nice migration path.

Q Classic · December 7, 2003, 11:25

openoffice fails more often with office xp or above; in most mid-scale deployment situations, most everybody is at least on 2000 or above, and since office 2003 is fully backwards compatible (the big exception being the information rights management) with office 2000, that should not be an issue.

in office 2003, right-to-left handling has been strongly improved.

but i will agree, if i didn't get office for free (legally) or for less than $15, i wouldn't buy it either.

Dis · December 7, 2003, 17:43

what do these programs too, and what reason would I have for having them if I don't work in an office?

Urban Ranger · December 7, 2003, 23:30

Quote:

Originally posted by Q Cubed
openoffice fails more often with office xp or above; in most mid-scale deployment situations, most everybody is at least on 2000 or above

Not here

Quote:

Originally posted by Q Cubed
in office 2003, right-to-left handling has been strongly improved.

Still not as good as OpenOffice. That's why the Thais are flocking to it.

Urban Ranger · December 7, 2003, 23:33

Quote:

Originally posted by Dissident
what do these programs too, and what reason would I have for having them if I don't work in an office?

Did you just come back from Pluto or something?

MS Office I think you definitely know about, it's Word, Excel, and PowerPoint (standard version anyway). OpenOffice.org is a Free Software version of MS Office with functionality similar but better than Office 97. It is based on StarOffice, which is a clone of MS Office, bought by Sun several years ago.

Dis · December 7, 2003, 23:34

just asking. I have never worked in an office. I have never used any of these programs. I know what Word is- more or less. Never heard of the other ones.

Urban Ranger · December 7, 2003, 23:37

You have never heard of Excel and PowerPoint?

This is sorta shocking.

St Leo · December 7, 2003, 23:40

Quote:

Originally posted by Dissident
just asking. I have never worked in an office. I have never used any of these programs. I know what Word is- more or less. Never heard of the other ones.

Word - Word processor; text entry and very light page layout
Excel - Spreasheet; number manipulation with formulas and very light faux-database work
PowerPoint - Slide and presentation creation
Access - N00b database
FrontPage - Crap
Publisher - Desktop publishing app; text entry and heavier page layout
Outlook - Calendar, address book, and lousy email client. Required for organizations stupid enough to use Exchange Server with MAPI protocol.

Q Classic · December 7, 2003, 23:42

word : word processor
excel : spreadsheet
powerpoint : slide presentation maker
outlook : email, calendar
access : database
publisher : desktop publishing
visio : chartmaking
onenote : memo
infopath : dynamic forms

those are all the office progs i can think of.

star/openoffice by default comes with a word processor, spreadsheet, and slide presentation maker; ximian, now bought by novell, was like outlook. publisher is an analogue to adobe pagemaker, and i don't know of any analogues to the last three off the top of my head.

visio is niche, which accounts for it. onenote is new, which accounts for that. infopath is new, and useless (imho), so...

Urban Ranger · December 7, 2003, 23:44

Q^3,

What version of Office has all that?

Q Classic · December 7, 2003, 23:44

right, forgot frontpage.

frontpage : web design, similar to adobe golive or macromedia dreamweaver.

Dis · December 7, 2003, 23:45

I use outlook express for my main e mail account. Is it really that bad?

Urban Ranger · December 7, 2003, 23:46

No, it's BAD, not merely bad.

Q Classic · December 7, 2003, 23:51

they're all part of the office product line.

i'd forgotten another product. microsoft project is also part of the office product line.

project is pretty much something i've never really looked into. it's supposed to help organize and maintain them, but...

project, frontpage, visio, and onenote are currently separate purcahses. all of those programs are in less demand than word.

in office 2000, the basic professional suite contained:
word, excel, powerpoint, outlook, access, and publisher.

in office xp, the basic professional suite contained:
word, excel, powerpoint, outlook, access.

in office 2003, the basic professional suite contains:
word, excel, powerpoint, outlook, access, publisher.

the enterprise professional suite is the same as above, but adds infopath.

in office 2003, which mcirosoft calls a "system", it's heavily integrated into its server products such as:
live communication server 2003
exchange server 2003
sharepoint portal server 2003 (or, conversely, windows sharepoint services for windows server 2003)
project server 2003.