Open Source Windows "Office 3.1"

[thedwork]

i just downloaded this program because i heard that it works well and i don't wanna have to blow money if it's not necessary. all i need from it is basic word document functions: regular characters, copy/paste, hopefully italics/bold/underline, and that's probably about it!

my main concern is how it will translate when sent to other computers - ie: will attachments be able to be read without issue? will "html" formatting translate?

if anyone has experience with this 'open source' windows program, i'd be interested in hearing about how it's worked out; and specifically w/ the issue of documents/attachments translating to other computers. thanks...

[jazzkrow]

I added this program to my new computer so as to avoid having to pay for new MS Word.

Used their Excel program (Calc) to transfer my CD collection.-

Their Word program seems Ok-used only once-it would not do spell check even though it appeared to be in their system

I am far from being computer savvy-but they offer a Forum you can get help from

[rockefeller center]

Microsoft Office interoperability

Microsoft Office 2007 SP2 is the first Microsoft Office version that allows opening and saving OpenDocument text files (*.odt).[37]

OpenOffice.org has published extensive documentation from their analysis of the closed Microsoft Office binary formats.[38]

Sun Microsystems has also developed an ODF plugin for Microsoft Office which enables users of Microsoft Office 2000, 2003, XP and 2007/SP1 (Word, Excel and PowerPoint) to read and write ODF documents

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenOffice.org#Microsoft_Office_interoperability

Through the wonders of reverse engineering OpenOffice also lets you save documents in a couple of MS Office formats.

If you want to share read-only documents OpenOffice can export to PDF.

I've been using OpenOffice for a couple of years now and for the little office stuff I do it's doing the job just fine.

[mikeweil]

Open Office allows you to save files in MS Word formats, too - works fine. 

Since they introduced the .pdf feature long ago, MS starting including it, too - they lost too many users. I support open source software whenever I can.

[Claude]

The thread title Open Source Windows "Office 3.1" is slightly confusing. The name of the software is "Open Office". It's not only available for Windows but also for Mac, Linux and Solaris.

http://www.openoffice.org/

There is also a non-free (but inexpensive), non open source version available by Sun under the name "Star Office"

http://www.sun.com/software/staroffice/index.jsp

It was initially developped by a german company before being sold to Sun in 1999.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenOffice.org

Edited January 11, 2010 by Claude

[rockefeller center]

The name of the software is "Open Office".

Nah, it's OpenOffice.org to be exact.

[Jazzmoose]

It's all I use.

[thedwork]

thank you so much for responding everyone! beyond specifics, i'm just glad to know that this is a legit program that seems to be used somewhat regularly. i still haven't really used it in a situation where i'd have to be too concerned, but i hopefully will and i wanna deal w/ any "issues" before it's crunch time.

Open Office allows you to save files in MS Word formats, too - works fine.

hey mike. this is exactly the kinda thing i was hoping to get at. thanks for posting. when i did some reviewing for a local daily i had to save documents in "text only" format or something like that. when you initially save a document in open office is there an acronym for MS Word format? i'm gonna go check it out right now. and MS Word is somewhat universally translatable, right? or am i showing my wild computer tech ignorance here? just trying to get general stuff here. i assume issues show up on a case to case basis (meaning whoever you happen to be working w/ at the moment and what kind of systems they're using), but at the same time i assume there are some things that remain constant.

thanks again for everyone who chimed in and maybe this'll be an ongoing thing. or like someone mentioned earlier, maybe that open office forum help line thingie will be helpful too. but sometimes those things aren't so user friendly...