OpenOffice Writer vs MS Word

[linuxdoctor]

Ok, someone on another thread claimed that OpenOffice Writer just doesn't cut it compared to MS Word. My view is just the opposite: MS Word doesn't cut it. It is slow, the menus are illogically laid out, table handling sucks, adding footnotes is a pain, I can never get it to make reverse-hanging indents and, in short, it just doesn't seem to do the things I expect of a document preparation system.

OpenOffice does these things for me. Why can't Word? If they can, then they hide that capability pretty well, a tribute to their horrible GUI design.

Yet, so many people say that compared to Word, OpenOffice just doesn't cut it:. I don't understand it!??! How could that be? It does just about everything I need it to do and in a easy to understand and logical manner. Not so MS Word. Very little of it is logical.

Ok, so if OpenOffice Writer just doesn't cut it, how? In what manner is it inferior? Or is it just different from OO Writer and you're just too lazy to do things in a different and possibly better fashion?

As an aside, has anybody here ever tried Lyx? It's a GUI front-end for Tex (pronounced 'TEK') and it has a WYSIWYW interface -- What You See Is What You Mean. It's used extensively in universities to publish academic papers in almost every field of study. I've used it for years, myself.
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[mcwkm]

First the claim was OpenOffice does not cut it compared to Microsoft Office. That means the entire set of office applications not just the word processor.
OpenOffice.org consists of Writer, Calc, Impress, Base, Draw, and Math which all have Microsoft equivalent so to base this discussion solely on one of six applications that make up the office suite is not right. I have used Excel and Calc a lot and Excel is simply easier to use and has better features.
I love linux and open source software but Microsoft Office is tops for office suites still. OpenOffice is always improving and receives larger changes more often then Microsoft office so this might not always be the case but the current releases this is the case.

[Jacky]

Well from what I see from your tone, you are more of like asking "why is Microsoft better? Microsoft is never better!".

That simply puts you in the category of fanatics, who can never have a change in opinion. And it doesn't make you look any better compared to Mac fanatics.

The Grinch likes Microsoft to the core and you hate it to the core. That doesn't make you any better than him...

I'm not a Windows fanatic although I admit to using Windows in my everyday life. I don't actively promote Windows, nor do I put Linux or *nix or open-source down.

Do you even take time to study the program? If you just briefly looked through then I can also say that OpenOffice is equally useless like what you have said.

And what version of Microsoft Office are you using?

You are just used to OpenOffice's phrasing of functions that you find difficulties finding the same exact phrasing in MS Office.

And yes, the only benefits OpenOffice has over MS Office is it's open source and it's free.
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[linuxdoctor]

[mcwkm]

If you already own liscenses for Microsoft products how are you in fact going to save money by switching to linux. The only way you are saving money is by not upgrading to new microsoft products. You are in fact losing money by having to train people on linux and openoffice.
I am not close to being a microsoft slave and excel is taught and used at a university level. I looked for the features in openoffice multiple times and did not find them. Remind you this is excel 2003 not the newest version. The newer version is even easier to use and lets work get done even faster.
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[Xtreme $niper]

Well I have three real options on the Mac...

Microsoft Office for Mac 2008
Open Office 3
Apple iWork

I've tried all three, I currently have all three installed. Which one do I use? Office for Mac 2008. Why? Because it's better.

iWork is fine as an application, but that's irrelevant for this thread. So Open Office. Why do I dislike it so much? Because every time I've ever used it, it's disappointed me. I read your findings about it and I honestly drop my jaw and wonder just what exactly you are running.

I'm sorry but I can't even write anything more about it because I have never been able to convince myself to use the thing for longer than 10 minutes at a time. The only reason why I have it installed right now is so I can convert odp to ppt because I have an open source hippy as a teacher and I have to suffer because of it.

Such be life.
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[linuxdoctor]

[mcwkm]

I don't remember the specific features because I have found so many problems using Calc that Excel just works easier. I can finish my accounting, physics, and statistics work in Excel in less then half an hour. In order to produce the same output on Calc it would take me over an hour and time simply equals money.

You seem to keep asking us how microsoft office is better but have yet to describe anything that makes OpenOffice a better option then how you are simply use to the location of features. What does openoffice actually offer that Microsoft Office does not? Writer and Word mean nothing to me and spreadsheet software are much more important. I use abiword for all my notetaking and writing papers which concludes all of my word processing needs. The reason why, it simply loads much faster and uses a lot less resources then OpenOffice Writer and I run linux on the majority of my systems.
I keep one system that I can run excel and any other app that runs on windows. I try to avoid running applications designed for one Operating system under another. If I did I would ditch windows completely but I have a ton of XP licenses around and I can get a student license for free for Vista if I want it, I have just chosen not to.
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[LP-SolidRaven]

Personally I like microsoft office more than openoffice. Mainly cause openoffice is so damned slow (thank java for that).
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[Jacky]

[ClickFanatic]

I don't care if MS Office is better, it is just not worth my money. OpenOffice can do everything I need, it is not slow (or I am just more patient, which is certainly a good quality for a person to have) and it supports a great variety of file formats including the standardised OpenDocument format.

It feels very comfortable to know that my files will work on all versions without compatibility quirks. Even if Openoffice ceased to exist, it would be possible to fully retrieve the information contained within the documents.

This is impossible with the MS Office formats.
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[mcwkm]

[ClickFanatic]

I don't see why Linux has to be brought into the discussion. This thread is only about office applications and their document formats. Operating systems and their fanboys are irrelevant.

Also, you're taking my claim out of its context. I was talking about retrieving data from documents if the application ceased to exist.
Why is this impossible with MS Office formats? Well, there is only one party that fully understands their structure and provides the tools to work with the format.
The implementations that exist are hacks and therefore not perfectly reliable. But we can always rely on an open format like OpenDocument, which everyone can open.

Why is this no problem with OpenDocument formats?
Even if all the applications in the world that support the format went to dust, you can always hire a programmer to implement the open standard for the OpenDocument file formats.
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[mcwkm]