OpenOffice 3.1 ready to lick Microsoft's suite?

It works for me

I've been using OpenOffice for most of my word-processing/spreadsheet needs for a year now, and I'm really pleased with it. I also have MS Office (2003) but I don't intend to buy any further versions. I'm tired of Microsoft's focus on lock-in (poor interoperability with almost everything else, dodgy compatibility between versions, tie-in with their own technologies and no one else's, etc, etc) rather than simply providing great software.

I also found I can organise quite complex documents without worrying that numbering/outlining/styles/etc all suddenly start to do weird things as they frequently do in Word (I can't count the number of times I've had to revert to older versions of Word documents because the current version has gone irretrievably 'insane'). OO hasn't been absolutely perfect either, but far more robust.

The most difficult thing was simply learning to use a new piece of software. Yes, almost all office suites are doing the same things, but they also have their own methodologies. I would encourage anyone to have a go at OpenOffice, but commit yourself to spending a bit of time getting used to it. And definitely check out the PDF import plug-in.

BTW - the reviews of OO on The Register seem really shallow. The previous one seemed obsessed with problems installing on Linux, and this one seems to think speed differences are really important. Can we have something more in-depth?

@anon - typing.

"QWERTY was designed to help prevent manual typewriters from jamming by spreading out certian key combinations. Nothing to do with slowing typing down."

Er, other than the reason for the jamming was that people could type faster than the early machines could handle.

@ Chris

If you"re using a spreadsheet to handle that many rows, you're doing something very, very, very wrong.

The scientific community called, they want the badge back.

(and I seriously hope you did not publish anything out of your >64K rows Excel spreadsheet, as it would probably be completely inaccurate anyway.)

@ Roger Heathcote 18:57 GMT

Different anon here. I thought it was about the letter block/head thingies (whatever they're called) being adjacent to each other rather than speed. Could be wrong though I guess.

It really is faster

I don't have to generate either Word Documents or Excel spreadsheets very often, but I receive a fair number of both in my e-mail. The major problem that I've had with previous versions of OOo was just how long it took to open a word document - 15-20 seconds just to start the application up.

3.1 seems to be significantly faster - attachments are opening in under 5 seconds. I'm sure I'll encounter some issues as I play around with it some more, and I see that go-oo.org still only has 3.0.1, but first impressions are pretty good.

Simple argument: $$

Fact: depressed economy.

Fact: most people use about 20% of features (principally, most people would be OK with an enhanced version of Wordpad for word processing work

Fact: OOo handles the majority of Office work just fine

So, unless you ab-so-lu-te-ly want that ribbon and the incompatible file format (read: if you want to force others to "upgrade" - I use that word advisably), or if you really need Outlook, go ahead, give them your money. In most smaller companies you don't need to: install a networkable printer, Collanos to share files (in p2p mode), add Thunderbird and OOo and off you go.

And if you need a central mailserver you can stick a "tsack installer" version of Zimbra community on a Linux box (easier than manual install, but I have questions about how this is kept up to date).

There isn't actually a reason to run anything from MS at all, but since you have probably received Windows with your PCs you might as well use it - it's more work to remove it..

Oh, and if you like access you MUST experiment with Base because it can also handle grown up databases.. But that's advanced stuff.

@ AC 14:43

Maybe you should read the documentation as it is not an illegal character. My comments must be right since you immediately attacked my comments with lies and unfounded accusations. Thanks for helping in making my point.

Why MS stays on top (it's not the quality)

I once tried to use OO Calc to view an Excel spreadsheet for the budget produced by a school district. Some incompatibility caused it to display incorrect results. Upon investigation, I discovered that the bug could be considered a feature, and the incompatibility was a matter of interpretation. I posted a problem report to the maintainers' site. The response I received was about ideological purity: how OO does it right, and MS does it wrong. No interest in resolving the compatibility problem.

It was then I realized that MS will maintain dominance for a long time. Very discouraging.

Mac Version

Rather annoyed that you go to the trouble of saying that the native Mac version of OO isn't a very good fit, but completely fail to mention the existance of Neo Office, which was created for that very reason.