OpenOffice.org vs. Microsoft Office

[Sycthus]

Many of you may have heard of Open Office, and I bet all of you will have heard of Microsoft Office. But which would you chose? I use OOo, a) because it has a free alternative to publisher, and b) because I can't be bothered to re-install Mic. Office!

Or, would you edge towards Google and it's cloud computing world, and use Google Docs?

 

[Veedaz]

Hi Sycthus I like OO M8 i do have MSO 2007 but my wife now uses it so i use OO, it is possible to speed up OO if you open Writer and go Tools > Options > Memory you will see the default is 20MB now if you have the RAM set it to 30MB or more and you will find OO opens fast !.

 

[Sycthus]

Wow, thank you! I ramped it straight up to 40 meg, start up timed massively improved!

Any other tricks like this you know to speed up programs?

 

[Veedaz]

There are a few tweaks for different apps, i do have some on a flash drive i will look up, i was more in to overclocking until i met the wife ... cant blow £s on replacing burnt out CPUs and GPUs nowadays :lol:.

 

[Sycthus]

Apparently this GPU is pretty safe to overclock if you use the program, I am considering getting it, but I don't know if I'll risk the overclocking!

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/...cs-ATI/ATIHD4890Series/Novatech/NOV-4890.html

edit: forgot to put in the URL!

 

[Veedaz]

Hi Sycthus, there is always some risk in Overclocking and one thing to keep in mind is (don't overclock what you cant afford to replace) also OCing will void the manufactures guarantee, but saying that OCing is great fun and can be quite addictive. If you decide to OC do research all you can as OCing is not just a case of pushing up FSB an OCd system is in a fine balance discovered via Benchmarking and includes CPU, GPU, MOBO and RAM, CPUZ is a handy tool and you will find more Here, i think the best advice i can give is (study and understand exactly what you maybe about to undertake) oh and good luck if you decide to try out Overclocking ... and do look at your cooling, OCing generates heat

 

[Sycthus]

Okay, you've lost me a bit there: MOBO, RAM and CPUZ? How can you overclock RAM, and what's a MOBO and a CPUZ? And what's FSB? Benchmark seems to be a tool to see what your overclocking limit is, right?

Finally, what's the best way to keep you computer cool?

 

[Veedaz]

As we are way of topic for this thread i think maybe a new thread is called for .. but in brief MOBO = Motherboard, CPUZ > Here and to overclock RAM, you just enter the BIOS and attempt to run the RAM at a higher speed than it is rated at, feel free to PM me or use IM happy to answer any questions you may have M8

Oh and a P4 CPU was clocked at over 5.8GHz cooled with Liquid Nitrogen.

 

[Sycthus]

Haha, nice!

 

[draceena]

I moved to OO quite a while ago. I just got so tired of MS Updates every other day to Patch yet another issue with MS Word and find OO faster, has more features I use and the best of all, free.

 

[davehc]

I am a really poor corresponder, unfortunately. Not meaning to go off thread but Wordpad (particularly the windows 7 version), does it for me. I have other programs for the remaining parts of OO/Microsoft office.

I tried 2007 from a Technet download but got dizzy looking at all those options in the bar menus

 

[Sycthus]

I suppose worpad is a croos between notepad and Word. Can it save into .doc format?

 

[Veedaz]

I will admit i prefer OO Writer to MS Word its much nicer to work with !.

 

[davehc]

I suppose wordpad is a cross between notepad and Word. Can it save into .doc format?

Ah. Thereby is the curiosity. The wordpad in windows 7 will save in the newer Office format, docx, but not in doc. format.

 

[Sycthus]

Has Office 09 got a new format? Hmm, that's interesting. Presumably it can open .doc, so it doesn't matter too much. But if wordpad won't save into .doc, I doubt the new Office will either. Seems to me that Microsoft are making a well played move against Google, OOo and other word-y software.

 

[davehc]

Bigger problem is older versions of Word (2003, for example) cannot automatically read docx, which is the default handle for 2007 and later, without installing another patch from Microsoft. Unfortunately MS do not give you this info - you have to track it down!
Yes, to your query. 2007 can open .doc, or save into it by selected preference.

 

[clifford_cooley]

Bigger problem is older versions of Word (2003, for example) cannot automatically read docx

Yes - It is true Office 2003 cannot read "Anything.docx". That is why there is such a thing as Backwards Compatibility. Save your work in Office 2007 in .doc format if you want to read it in Office 2003. Otherwise there would never be any advancements to the software industry.

 

[Sycthus]

Bigger problem is older versions of Word (2003, for example) cannot automatically read docx, which is the default handle for 2007 and later, without installing another patch from Microsoft. Unfortunately MS do not give you this info - you have to track it down!
Yes, to your query. 2007 can open .doc, or save into it by selected preference.

Good, but it's surprising that wordpad won't save into .doc if it can save into.docx.

 

[clifford_cooley]

Wordpad will not open .doc

WordPad does open .docx with this message

WordPad does not support all of the features of this document's format. Some content might be missing or displayed improperly.

If you decide to save after editing the .docx all that was not supported by WordPad will be lost.

 

[davehc]

I mentioned a "patch" in my previous post. Reading the follow ups, I felt maybe users were not aware of it. It works and it is official. I do wish Mirosoft would communicate this kind of info more widely. They appear to think everyone wishes to browse around hunting for solutions.

go here:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/products/HA101686761033.aspx