Vista crashed on me last week so I had to reinstall it. I had all my documents, music, pictures, etc backed up, but not my programs and I lost Microsoft Office (word, powerpoint, excel). I dont want to have to pay for it again, and someone told me about OpenOffice which is just like Microsoft Office but its free. Just wondering if anyone uses it? What do you think of it?

 

I use it all the time. It comes as a default on Ubuntu. It reads MSOffice formats and writes MSOffice formats if you want it to.



Look at upgrading to Linux. It prevents about 95% of the failures you will get on windows. You simply take your documents, put them in your new documents folder. Then do the same with music videos and what not. Open office is just one of the pieces of software that comes with Ubuntu Linux.



It's a good piece of software, created by the same people who made Java and VirtualBox; Sun Microsystems. I belive it is now controlled by Oracle who has ceased development of Open Office. However, since it is an open source software, a new open source project has sprung called Libre Office which is the same software under a different name. Not much is known about Libre Office at this time. It is a new project http://www.documentfoundation.org/

 

Does OpenOffice support Office 2007 or 2010?

 

I believe the answer to that is mostly, majik. It should open most of the files, but there may be some differences. They claim to be highly compatible. If you haven't done any highly specialized formatting you documents should be OK.



Since it is free, it won't cost you anything to download it and test it with your files.

 

Majik, That's a broad question. I will attempt to answer this as best as I can.









These programs are pretty much equal, but you won't see all the pretty fluff in Open Office

MS Power Point= OpenOffice.org Presentation

MS Excel = OpenOffice.org Spreadsheet

MS Outlook = OpenOffice.org Evolution

MS Word = OpenOffice.org Word Processor



Open office has no equivalant to "Microsoft Access". However, it has OpenOffice.org Database. OpenOffice database can create applications and view Access Databases, but since VisualBasic is proprietary to Microsoft, you will not get the forms to show up. You can create forms in open office which do the same things as Microsoft Office. Their database supports more formats then Microsoft Access though.



As for supporting "Microsoft Office", no. It supports the office formats. It also supports other formats which MS Office does not. It is interoperable with office at the level of saving a document and transferring it to, or receiving from another computer.



OpenOffice.org also comes with OpenOffice.org Drawing. This allows you to create flowcharts and technical drawings with ease. I feel it is better then Microsoft Publisher, which seems like a drawing version of Power Point. Here are some examples of Drawing files which I created:

 

I have been using OpenOffice for years and am very satisfied with it.

 

damn... all I wanted to know was if it would open 2007/2010 docs. I didn't realize how misunderstood my post could be.

 

It will open MOST Office 2010 docs. There are some specific issues with some features of Word 2010 displaying properly. Compatibility will improve, as it's open source and in constant development.



I've never had any issues with Office 2007 documents.

 

Open office is dead. Libre office is in development.