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  3. Which Office Suite?

Which Office Suite?

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  • B Offline
    B Offline
    Ben Breeg
    wrote on last edited by
    #1

    I'd like to solicit some opinions on software 'office suites'. Which one(s) do you use and which do you think is best? I'm not bothered about whether one is free or paid for, I'm more interested in usability. The three main ones being: MS Office, Open Office and the new kid on the block Libra Office.

    You do trust me, don't you? IF EVERY nation gets the leaders it deserves, what in God's name have we done to deserve Francis Urquhart?

    I T R S C 9 Replies Last reply
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    • B Ben Breeg

      I'd like to solicit some opinions on software 'office suites'. Which one(s) do you use and which do you think is best? I'm not bothered about whether one is free or paid for, I'm more interested in usability. The three main ones being: MS Office, Open Office and the new kid on the block Libra Office.

      You do trust me, don't you? IF EVERY nation gets the leaders it deserves, what in God's name have we done to deserve Francis Urquhart?

      I Offline
      I Offline
      Ian Shlasko
      wrote on last edited by
      #2

      Open Office and Libre Office are basically the same thing... * OpenOffice.org/StarOffice was the big open source one... * Sun bought StarOffice and let it continue. * Oracle bought sun and destroyed the project. * The OpenOffice.org team, for the most part, ditched Oracle and forked the project to create Libre Office (Oracle still held the trademark) * Libre Office received a bunch of updates that were originally intended for Open Office, but weren't implemented for various reasons. So basically, LibreOffice = OpenOffice + a few patches So you're really just weighing Microsoft against Libre.

      Proud to have finally moved to the A-Ark. Which one are you in?
      Author of the Guardians Saga (Sci-Fi/Fantasy novels)

      1 Reply Last reply
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      • B Ben Breeg

        I'd like to solicit some opinions on software 'office suites'. Which one(s) do you use and which do you think is best? I'm not bothered about whether one is free or paid for, I'm more interested in usability. The three main ones being: MS Office, Open Office and the new kid on the block Libra Office.

        You do trust me, don't you? IF EVERY nation gets the leaders it deserves, what in God's name have we done to deserve Francis Urquhart?

        T Offline
        T Offline
        TheGreatAndPowerfulOz
        wrote on last edited by
        #3

        Libra Office is a fork of Open Office due to some controversy I forgot about. But as far as capabilities go, I believe they're about equal. I think the answer kind of depends. For most basic things, Open Office / Libra is probably sufficient. However, for my money, I'd go with MS Office. I've used both suites and MS Office is more stable and easier to use.

        If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader." - John Quincy Adams
        You must accept one of two basic premises: Either we are alone in the universe, or we are not alone in the universe. And either way, the implications are staggering” - Wernher von Braun

        D 1 Reply Last reply
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        • B Ben Breeg

          I'd like to solicit some opinions on software 'office suites'. Which one(s) do you use and which do you think is best? I'm not bothered about whether one is free or paid for, I'm more interested in usability. The three main ones being: MS Office, Open Office and the new kid on the block Libra Office.

          You do trust me, don't you? IF EVERY nation gets the leaders it deserves, what in God's name have we done to deserve Francis Urquhart?

          C Offline
          C Offline
          Corporal Agarn
          wrote on last edited by
          #4

          First let me say I am not a power user and I do not make large reports. The places I have worked all use MS Office. I use OpenOffice at home because it is free. I find the biggest differences are with the learning curve. There are also problems going from one to another, specifically going from OpenOffice Writer to MS Word.

          1 Reply Last reply
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          • B Ben Breeg

            I'd like to solicit some opinions on software 'office suites'. Which one(s) do you use and which do you think is best? I'm not bothered about whether one is free or paid for, I'm more interested in usability. The three main ones being: MS Office, Open Office and the new kid on the block Libra Office.

            You do trust me, don't you? IF EVERY nation gets the leaders it deserves, what in God's name have we done to deserve Francis Urquhart?

            S Offline
            S Offline
            S Houghtelin
            wrote on last edited by
            #5

            Ben Breeg wrote:

            'office suits'

            Avoid pin striped suits, they make you look like a gangster. Seriously though, I've used Open Office and if you use it without the macros they work fine for a lot of at home type stuff like writing letters a little book keeping and such. And it's free. The compatibility is pretty good with MS Office.

            It was broke, so I fixed it.

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            • B Ben Breeg

              I'd like to solicit some opinions on software 'office suites'. Which one(s) do you use and which do you think is best? I'm not bothered about whether one is free or paid for, I'm more interested in usability. The three main ones being: MS Office, Open Office and the new kid on the block Libra Office.

              You do trust me, don't you? IF EVERY nation gets the leaders it deserves, what in God's name have we done to deserve Francis Urquhart?

              R Offline
              R Offline
              Rutvik Dave
              wrote on last edited by
              #6

              Ben Breeg wrote:

              I'm not bothered about whether one is free or paid for, I'm more interested in usability.

              Then you have eliminated all the options, just go for MS Office.

              1 Reply Last reply
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              • B Ben Breeg

                I'd like to solicit some opinions on software 'office suites'. Which one(s) do you use and which do you think is best? I'm not bothered about whether one is free or paid for, I'm more interested in usability. The three main ones being: MS Office, Open Office and the new kid on the block Libra Office.

                You do trust me, don't you? IF EVERY nation gets the leaders it deserves, what in God's name have we done to deserve Francis Urquhart?

                H Offline
                H Offline
                Henry Minute
                wrote on last edited by
                #7

                If you have no experience of any Office Suite then 'the learning curve' is, to all intents and purposes, the same for MS Office 20xx and LibreOffice (please note there are no 'a's in there Libre = Free). Pretty much anything that you can do in MS Office, you can do in LibreOffice. If there is even the remotest possibility that you will have to exchange files electronically with others, then there is only really one option. I haven't used MS Office in earnest since Office '95 so I don't know what has happened to VBA but if you tend to use it, or whatever it is now, to automate your documents then again there is really only one choice. You can do that in LibreOffice but the equivalent of VBA is arcane and more than a little unintuitive to say the least.

                Henry Minute Do not read medical books! You could die of a misprint. - Mark Twain Girl: (staring) "Why do you need an icy cucumber?" “I want to report a fraud. The government is lying to us all.” I wouldn't let CG touch my Abacus! When you're wrestling a gorilla, you don't stop when you're tired, you stop when the gorilla is.

                B 1 Reply Last reply
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                • B Ben Breeg

                  I'd like to solicit some opinions on software 'office suites'. Which one(s) do you use and which do you think is best? I'm not bothered about whether one is free or paid for, I'm more interested in usability. The three main ones being: MS Office, Open Office and the new kid on the block Libra Office.

                  You do trust me, don't you? IF EVERY nation gets the leaders it deserves, what in God's name have we done to deserve Francis Urquhart?

                  G Offline
                  G Offline
                  GuyThiebaut
                  wrote on last edited by
                  #8

                  It depends on whether you want Excel. Excel is by far the leader in its field and Microsoft have no real competition here - in terms of price and functionality. Otherwise I would go for OpenOffice(MySQL can be used to replace Access - although you will be doing without the GUI and VBA).

                  Continuous effort - not strength or intelligence - is the key to unlocking our potential.(Winston Churchill)
                  1 Reply Last reply
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                  • H Henry Minute

                    If you have no experience of any Office Suite then 'the learning curve' is, to all intents and purposes, the same for MS Office 20xx and LibreOffice (please note there are no 'a's in there Libre = Free). Pretty much anything that you can do in MS Office, you can do in LibreOffice. If there is even the remotest possibility that you will have to exchange files electronically with others, then there is only really one option. I haven't used MS Office in earnest since Office '95 so I don't know what has happened to VBA but if you tend to use it, or whatever it is now, to automate your documents then again there is really only one choice. You can do that in LibreOffice but the equivalent of VBA is arcane and more than a little unintuitive to say the least.

                    Henry Minute Do not read medical books! You could die of a misprint. - Mark Twain Girl: (staring) "Why do you need an icy cucumber?" “I want to report a fraud. The government is lying to us all.” I wouldn't let CG touch my Abacus! When you're wrestling a gorilla, you don't stop when you're tired, you stop when the gorilla is.

                    B Offline
                    B Offline
                    Ben Breeg
                    wrote on last edited by
                    #9

                    I've used MS Office since Office 2000 was released and currently have office 2010 installed. While I find Office 2010 reasonably intuitive to use it does pain me that the install size is well over 2.5Gb for the 64bit version. I'm considering moving to either Open or Libre office as I also like the idea of supporting a community effort rather than a faceless corporation. I guess you're using Libre Office, do you have any problems/gripes with it?

                    You do trust me, don't you? IF EVERY nation gets the leaders it deserves, what in God's name have we done to deserve Francis Urquhart?

                    H 1 Reply Last reply
                    0
                    • B Ben Breeg

                      I've used MS Office since Office 2000 was released and currently have office 2010 installed. While I find Office 2010 reasonably intuitive to use it does pain me that the install size is well over 2.5Gb for the 64bit version. I'm considering moving to either Open or Libre office as I also like the idea of supporting a community effort rather than a faceless corporation. I guess you're using Libre Office, do you have any problems/gripes with it?

                      You do trust me, don't you? IF EVERY nation gets the leaders it deserves, what in God's name have we done to deserve Francis Urquhart?

                      H Offline
                      H Offline
                      Henry Minute
                      wrote on last edited by
                      #10

                      Ben Breeg wrote:

                      I guess you're using Libre Office, do you have any problems/gripes with it?

                      Sussed! :) On my 32bit system a full install of LibreOffice is 1MB 1GB. No real problems with it but as someone else said I don't exactly stretch it. I have a few templates for various types of letter and a reasonably complex shopping list app based on the Calc module. Using extensive macros it produces a default list based on your most common recent purchases, prints a formatted list to take to the shops etc. It took ages to work out how to do the macros for it though, although I didn't have t'internet at the time, at least four times as long as the Excel equiv.

                      Henry Minute Do not read medical books! You could die of a misprint. - Mark Twain Girl: (staring) "Why do you need an icy cucumber?" “I want to report a fraud. The government is lying to us all.” I wouldn't let CG touch my Abacus! When you're wrestling a gorilla, you don't stop when you're tired, you stop when the gorilla is.

                      modified on Friday, July 29, 2011 5:22 PM

                      A 1 Reply Last reply
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                      • H Henry Minute

                        Ben Breeg wrote:

                        I guess you're using Libre Office, do you have any problems/gripes with it?

                        Sussed! :) On my 32bit system a full install of LibreOffice is 1MB 1GB. No real problems with it but as someone else said I don't exactly stretch it. I have a few templates for various types of letter and a reasonably complex shopping list app based on the Calc module. Using extensive macros it produces a default list based on your most common recent purchases, prints a formatted list to take to the shops etc. It took ages to work out how to do the macros for it though, although I didn't have t'internet at the time, at least four times as long as the Excel equiv.

                        Henry Minute Do not read medical books! You could die of a misprint. - Mark Twain Girl: (staring) "Why do you need an icy cucumber?" “I want to report a fraud. The government is lying to us all.” I wouldn't let CG touch my Abacus! When you're wrestling a gorilla, you don't stop when you're tired, you stop when the gorilla is.

                        modified on Friday, July 29, 2011 5:22 PM

                        A Offline
                        A Offline
                        AspDotNetDev
                        wrote on last edited by
                        #11

                        Henry Minute wrote:

                        On my 32bit system a full install of LibreOffice is 1MB.

                        Do you mean 1GB?

                        Martin Fowler wrote:

                        Any fool can write code that a computer can understand. Good programmers write code that humans can understand.

                        H 1 Reply Last reply
                        0
                        • A AspDotNetDev

                          Henry Minute wrote:

                          On my 32bit system a full install of LibreOffice is 1MB.

                          Do you mean 1GB?

                          Martin Fowler wrote:

                          Any fool can write code that a computer can understand. Good programmers write code that humans can understand.

                          H Offline
                          H Offline
                          Henry Minute
                          wrote on last edited by
                          #12

                          Yes, yes I did. Its actually less than that WindirStat data[^].

                          Henry Minute Do not read medical books! You could die of a misprint. - Mark Twain Girl: (staring) "Why do you need an icy cucumber?" “I want to report a fraud. The government is lying to us all.” I wouldn't let CG touch my Abacus! When you're wrestling a gorilla, you don't stop when you're tired, you stop when the gorilla is.

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                          • T TheGreatAndPowerfulOz

                            Libra Office is a fork of Open Office due to some controversy I forgot about. But as far as capabilities go, I believe they're about equal. I think the answer kind of depends. For most basic things, Open Office / Libra is probably sufficient. However, for my money, I'd go with MS Office. I've used both suites and MS Office is more stable and easier to use.

                            If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader." - John Quincy Adams
                            You must accept one of two basic premises: Either we are alone in the universe, or we are not alone in the universe. And either way, the implications are staggering” - Wernher von Braun

                            D Offline
                            D Offline
                            Dario Solera
                            wrote on last edited by
                            #13

                            Oracle decided to stop supporting OpenOffice, so I guess that a sensible solution would be to use LibreOffice right away.

                            If you truly believe you need to pick a mobile phone that "says something" about your personality, don't bother. You don't have a personality. A mental illness, maybe, but not a personality. [Charlie Brooker] ScrewTurn Wiki, Software Localization Tools & Services and My Blog

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                            • B Ben Breeg

                              I'd like to solicit some opinions on software 'office suites'. Which one(s) do you use and which do you think is best? I'm not bothered about whether one is free or paid for, I'm more interested in usability. The three main ones being: MS Office, Open Office and the new kid on the block Libra Office.

                              You do trust me, don't you? IF EVERY nation gets the leaders it deserves, what in God's name have we done to deserve Francis Urquhart?

                              S Offline
                              S Offline
                              smcnulty2000
                              wrote on last edited by
                              #14

                              Love the sig. "You might well think that; I couldn't possibly comment", I think it depends on what you are doing. I worked with Access a lot so I'd go MS-Office. Likewise I think Excel is the best thing MS ever produced. If cost is no object, then your only reason for going with libre would be to get libre.

                              _____________________________ Give a man a mug, he drinks for a day. Teach a man to mug...

                              B 1 Reply Last reply
                              0
                              • S smcnulty2000

                                Love the sig. "You might well think that; I couldn't possibly comment", I think it depends on what you are doing. I worked with Access a lot so I'd go MS-Office. Likewise I think Excel is the best thing MS ever produced. If cost is no object, then your only reason for going with libre would be to get libre.

                                _____________________________ Give a man a mug, he drinks for a day. Teach a man to mug...

                                B Offline
                                B Offline
                                Ben Breeg
                                wrote on last edited by
                                #15

                                smcnulty2000 wrote:

                                Love the sig.

                                My favourite politician; utterly ruthless. My reason for asking the original question was to see if the alternatives to MS Office had got to such a development stage that they were becoming better products. Like I said, I use Office 2010, but I have no loyalty to MS. I'll use whatever is the best in terms of usability.

                                You do trust me, don't you? IF EVERY nation gets the leaders it deserves, what in God's name have we done to deserve Francis Urquhart?

                                1 Reply Last reply
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                                • B Ben Breeg

                                  I'd like to solicit some opinions on software 'office suites'. Which one(s) do you use and which do you think is best? I'm not bothered about whether one is free or paid for, I'm more interested in usability. The three main ones being: MS Office, Open Office and the new kid on the block Libra Office.

                                  You do trust me, don't you? IF EVERY nation gets the leaders it deserves, what in God's name have we done to deserve Francis Urquhart?

                                  P Offline
                                  P Offline
                                  PIEBALDconsult
                                  wrote on last edited by
                                  #16

                                  MS Office 2003.

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