Re: Duhh..( Ping Frozzy, Kai, Rev and that other d00tchie...)

On Tue, 26 Jun 2007 03:02:26 +0000, Rev Turd Fredericks rebooted the
Etch-A-Sketch and scribbled:

ByteCoder wrote:
Onideus Mad Hatter wrote:

[...]
OpenOffice isn't even remotely comparable to MS Office either,
How so? I have been using it for years and never had any
compatibility problems with MS Office users. I am aware it has some
kind of spread*** limitation but that really doesn't enter into it
because I don't use spreadsheets that big. I much prefer Open Office
to MS office and I use it on a daily basis.

<SNIP>
Well it sounds to me like maybe you should be using something like
Wordpad instead. Obviously you're not even remotely familiar with all
the functionality that MS Office is capable of. I mean on a VERY
BASIC level, word processing only, you could ~kind of~ compare the
two...but beyond that...sorry.

Let me know when that dribbling joke of an OCR, Tesseract, can match
the level of quality and functionality of Microsoft's, then maybe I'll
humor you with the next FAILURE of a rip off in the great big long
list of halfass alternatives that dribble along with OpenOffice. Sad
fact is I could easily name off more than a dozen high end features
that OpenOffice either doesn't have, doesn't have directly (ie they're
third party deals), or if they do have them they're not even remotely
comprable.

Sure, halfass might be okay for some people, especially if you never
even make use of what your software is capable of doing...the sad
thing though is that if you choose Linux you choose to drive blind...I
mean, you don't even KNOW what you're missing because you can't ever
see it to begin with. But hey, ignorance is bliss they say.
[...]

It's simple really:

What does it do? Sure, MS Office can do a hell of a lot more than
OpenOffice.

Does it really?

Yes. MS Office has many wizards and functions that OOo does lack. This
doesn't even take into consideration the Outlook client. Trying to embed
multimedia in Impress is also - well - less than impressive.


*HOWEVER* - most of these "features" are not needed by 98% of the
community. If you're doing basic word processing - letters, faxes,
reports, charts... - then OOo will do just fine.

Also keep in mind that many people have years of built-in macros with
Excel. Those macros don't translate over to OOo Calc. Of course, OOo Calc
is also limited by the stupid 655000 row limit.

Still, my momo has been using OOo exclusively for over a year now and
hasn't had an issue. The only problem she ran into was when a friend
started sending her Microsoft Works docuemtns. Those don't translate into
anything.

So far, the only thing I have found that it lacks is a
database like MS access which comes with Office professional. What it
does do that MS office can't do is to work with pdf's, a feature I find
very useful considering that many journals require submission via pdf.
The adobe pdf maker you have to buy for MS office is a royal pain in the
ass.

Concur! Actually you can load ghostscript on Wintendo machines and use
that as a printer. Works well.


What do I want to do with it? Create and read documents. Occasionally
use a spread*** to do some calculations.

Does it satisfy my requirements? Yes, both do.

Me too. I mostly work with spreadsheets and powerpoint presentations
Open Office does both very well. Also, importing spreadsheets into SPSS
is seamless. I find the spread*** statistics easier to use and the
graphing is better.


Suppose I want to use a legal version and don't want to mess around
with cracks: What does it cost? MS Office: Expensive, OpenOffice: Free.

Choice: OpenOffice.


Unless you need some function that OO doesn't have that MS Office does,
(although I have yet to come across one) why pay the price for MS office
and Adobe pdf (if you need that) when OO is free?

Excellent point.

.

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