Windows 7 and Office Suite Software

[mechanic]

And opening doc files, editing, saving as doc, and
reopening may not get you what you thought you had!

Too right! OpenOffice is ok for shopping lists, but anything more
complex requiring inter-operability with MSFT Office needs the real
MS product on your machine.

 

[Agent_C]

I wonder if others have been approached with this recommendation and
what the general feeling out there is about the whole thing. TIA.

Only Communists and anarchists use open source software.

It's Un-American!

A_C

 

[Steve Hayes]

I have nothing against installing OO on my machine, God knows I have
more space than I could ever use. I was simply trying to find out - in
a not too understandable way, it seems - what a 2012 software could
possibly give me that a 2003 software cannot vis-à-vis word-processing,
databasing, and spreadsheeting.

If you have enough disk space, by all means load it, and try it.

I have MS Office 97 and OO 3.3 on my desktop computer, and MS Office 2010 and
OO 3.3 on my laptop.

My preference is to use Word 97, because I'm familiar with it, and if I have
to do some urgent work, it's much quicker that trying to find out how to do
something on one of the others. Word 2010 edits the .doc files from Office 97
just fine. The other thing I use 2010 for is One Note, but the documentation
is poor and I don't really know how to use it properly, so I prefer to use
askSam for note taking (www.asksam.com).

One of the problems I have found in tranferring documents between word
processors is styles. You can end up with half a dozen versions of heading 2,
and that makes a horrible mess of a table of contents.

 

[Steve Hayes]

Only Communists and anarchists use open source software.

It's Un-American!

That sounds like an excellent reason for using it.

 

[Zaphod Beeblebrox]

I have exactly zero compatibility problems moving back and forth from
MS Office 2003, 2007, and 2010. You can't get much better than zero.

Likewise, but you gloss over that you have to do some work to make that
possible. Either you set Office 2007/2010 to always save in 2003
format, or you have to download and install the 2003 compatibility pack
to allow 2003 to read 2007/2010 file format. It doesn't just work "out
of the box".

 

[Andy Burns]

I have exactly zero compatibility problems moving back and forth from
MS Office 2003, 2007, and 2010. You can't get much better than zero.

I've had occasions where Word has refused to re-open a document saved
with the same version of Word, yet OpenOffice has been able to rescue
the document.

 

[choro]

No need to change if you're able to do everything you wanna do without
effort. So long as MS Office 2003 is getting security updates there
shouldn't be an issue. If MS stops the security updating service for
this version, then you should consider moving to something that's
supported, to avoid security exploits that keep getting invented out on
the howling ether. If you need to open Docx diles, MS has an Office
Compatibility Pack for free download that might work for you. This
allows you to open Office 2007 and 2010 documents in office 2003 and
read them. You can edit them too but can only save in office 2003 or
earlier format from your suite, which is for the most part fine if you
don't need the new features, and the saved versions are perfectly
compatible with the newer software.

By all means if you have the space the time and the willingness to
learn, play with the other free open source office suites (Like IBM's
Lotus Symphony, or OpenOffice.org or its other knock-offs), they don't
require you to remove anything, you'll still have all the MS stuff
working too so you can use either. However in my experience, except for
the simplest documents, I've always had very poor document fidelity with
reproducing MS Office documents in Org suite. The only other reason
you might want Org's suite is if some kind sole sends you an odt
document or such that Office 2003 can't read. But in my experience most
ppl don't do that.

I can vouch for what you are saying. Though not about the Lotus software
as I haven't used it in years. And when I did it was on a different
computer probably over 10 years ago.

But yes, Open Office and its offshoot LibreOffice (which I prefer to use
on grounds of principle) are both compatible with MS Office documents.
They can open office documents and save them as either Office OR OO
documents though I must add here that it is NOT 100 % compatible. For
example I had amended the normal Word Template to insert the FileName
automatically into the footer which Open Office could not read. But
other than such intricate stuff, OO and its variant LibreOffice can
indeed open MS documents.

And the MS Compatibility Pack for MS Office 2003 can indeed open docx
files created in later editions of MS Office.

Don't know about MS Office 2010 but the advice I had heard from others
was to skip MS Office 2007.
-- choro

 

[choro]

Only Communists and anarchists use open source software.

It's Un-American!

A_C

F_U A_C

BTW, did the settlers pay for the land they grabbed from the Red Indians?

No?!!!

Cor! They must be arch communists, then!

-- choro

 

[choro]

One time I wrote about a bad experience with a specific product - I gave
the name - that not only screwed up some of my files but which would not
even let me uninstall it. Well, I was contacted and warned not to
publish any more stuff along the same lines. The shillings were not as
plentiful as would be desired at the time so my wife and I decided it
was easier to just shut up. I have been rather careful since then; I'm
an old geezer and I don't particularly need problems.

That's why it is inadvisable to you your real name and real email
address when fooling around in newsgroups on Usenet. They can't
blackmail you then! So create another Usenet user name and provide a
fictitious email address. If you do that they can only try and blackmail
you on these groups and they will definitely *not* want to be seen doing
that.
-- choro

 

[choro]

OpenOffice.org is a very good, free, open source replacement for MS
Office. It's generally more compatible with other versions of MS Office
than MS Office is. Currently, many Linux distributions are switching from
OpenOffice to a fork called Libre Office. Both are available for MS,
Linux and MAC for free.

LibreOffice is the only really *free* one, in both senses of the word,
as OpenOffice, though still available as freeware, has been bought by
some other outfit who might not even keep it free for much longer. Hence
the split and creation of LibreOffice. And I am not surprised at all
that the best programmers have moved on from OpenOffice to LibreOffice.

I must look into LibreOffice for Mac though to use on my Mac Laptop.
Thanks for the tip.
-- choro

 

[choro]

Too right! OpenOffice is ok for shopping lists, but anything more
complex requiring inter-operability with MSFT Office needs the real
MS product on your machine.

Bullshit!

You obviously do not know what you are talking about.
-- choro

 

[ray]

I echo your experience, not just the word processor but the spread sheet
as well. As others have said, if you want to exchange documents with MS
Office users the results are decidedly mixed. If you just want it for
your own use, they work fine and you save $$$.

On the other hand, if you send OpenOffice files, virtually everyone with
a computer can read it for the cost of a free download (assuming they
don't have OO installed already).

 

[Zaphod Beeblebrox]

On the other hand, if you send OpenOffice files, virtually everyone with
a computer can read it for the cost of a free download (assuming they
don't have OO installed already).

And virtually nobody will have any idea what to do with an .ODT, .ODS,
..ODP or other Open Document Format file unless you educate them and
then help with the download and install and become their tech support.

Sorry, not happening. Unless you know the person on the other end has
OO, it isn't worth the time and effort to send an ODF. Send an Office
file, or better yet, if they just need to view the file but not edit
it, convert to PDF and send that instead.

--
Zaphod

Adventurer, ex-hippie, good-timer (crook? quite possibly),
manic self-publicist, terrible bad at personal relationships,
often thought to be completely out to lunch.

 

[Zaphod Beeblebrox]

<expletive deleted>

You obviously do not know what you are talking about.

The sentiment about the usefulness notwithstanding, mechanic is spot-on
about interoperability with MS Office. OO just isn't good enough at
either reading or writing MS Office files reliably (and by reliably, I
mean in such a way that it looks and works the same as in MS Office.
Each and every time, no matter what formatting is used, etc.)

 

[Char Jackson]

Likewise, but you gloss over that you have to do some work to make that
possible. Either you set Office 2007/2010 to always save in 2003
format, or you have to download and install the 2003 compatibility pack
to allow 2003 to read 2007/2010 file format. It doesn't just work "out
of the box".

I glossed over it because Windows Update automatically offered the
compatibility packs, which were then downloaded and installed along
with other updates. I expect that would be the case for the vast
majority since I think there's only a few fringe cases where people
don't use WU.

At any rate, you're right, there is a step there, automatic and
painless as it may be.

 

[Char Jackson]

Bullshit!

You obviously do not know what you are talking about.
-- choro

In that case, I gladly join the ranks of the folks who you say don't
know what they're talking about, because my experience echoes theirs.
Compatibility between MS Office and OO/LO has always been hit or miss.

 

[Tim Slattery]

LibreOffice is the only really *free* one, in both senses of the word,
as OpenOffice, though still available as freeware, has been bought by
some other outfit who might not even keep it free for much longer.

OO was owned by Sun, and Sun was recently bought by Oracle. Oracle has
never been known for philanthropic tendencies.

 

[Ken Blake]

Don't know about MS Office 2010 but the advice I had heard from others
was to skip MS Office 2007.

I have Microsoft Office 2010 installed now, but I used to have Office
2007.

In either version I use Word very seldom, since I greatly prefer
WordPerfect, so I'm not commenting about that component of Office. But
regarding Outlook (which I use the most), Excel, and PowerPoint, I
found Office 2007 to be just fine.

 

[ray]

And virtually nobody will have any idea what to do with an .ODT, .ODS,
.ODP or other Open Document Format file unless you educate them and then
help with the download and install and become their tech support.

Sorry, not happening. Unless you know the person on the other end has
OO, it isn't worth the time and effort to send an ODF. Send an Office
file, or better yet, if they just need to view the file but not edit it,
convert to PDF and send that instead.

Exactly - it's always better to use an open format rather than a
proprietary one. PDF's for viewing and rtf for 90% of the rest.

 

[H-Man]

But yes, Open Office and its offshoot LibreOffice (which I prefer to use
on grounds of principle) are both compatible with MS Office documents.
They can open office documents and save them as either Office OR OO
documents though I must add here that it is NOT 100 % compatible. For
example I had amended the normal Word Template to insert the FileName
automatically into the footer which Open Office could not read. But
other than such intricate stuff, OO and its variant LibreOffice can
indeed open MS documents.

choro,
FYI LibreOffice also includes the GoOffice features which OpenOffice does
not. These include the following;

Go-oo has built in OpenXML import filters and it will import your Microsoft
Works files. Compared with up-stream O, it has better Microsoft binary
file support (with eg. fields support), and it will import WordPerfect
graphics beautifully. If you are reliant on Excel VBA macros - then Go-oo
offers the best macro fidelity too. If you expect your spreadsheets to
calculate compatibly, or you get embedded Visio diagrams in your documents,
you'll want Go-oo.

The OpenOffice project managers would not incorporate Go-oo because of
licensing and such. This has changes with a freer LO dev team. I can also
attest to the fact that the LO Excel VBA compatibility is quite useable. I
have some of the same issues with different versions of Excel and VBA
compatibility so I'd say it's pretty darn good. I have found LO better with
MSO document compatibility than OOo, but it's still not 100% unfortunately.
Some issues remain.