OpenOffice 2.0.4

[Guest]

I am a stand alone/home PC user and really only need a word processing
program to compose documents. Microsoft Office is so expensive and I don't
know if I need all if has to offer.
Questions:
1) Have you had experience with OpenOffice 2.0.4 and, if so, what are its
pros and cons?
2) Does Microsoft offer something simular to OpenOffice at a price a home user
can afford?
3) Are there other word processing programs for use by home owners that you
would recommend; if so, would you please provide a list/rating/
Thank you for your time
Steve

 

[philo]

I am a stand alone/home PC user and really only need a word processing
program to compose documents. Microsoft Office is so expensive and I don't
know if I need all if has to offer.
Questions:
1) Have you had experience with OpenOffice 2.0.4 and, if so, what are its
pros and cons?

Open Office works well
but the formatting is not identical to Microsoft...
but I'm sure it will work Ok for you

 

[Lisa]

free but online...

http://tinyurl.com/puk3h

 

[Gordon]

I am a stand alone/home PC user and really only need a word processing
program to compose documents. Microsoft Office is so expensive and I don't
know if I need all if has to offer.
Questions:
1) Have you had experience with OpenOffice 2.0.4 and, if so, what are its
pros and cons?

Only con I know about is that you need to tweak the memory usage in
Options to get it to load quickly

2) Does Microsoft offer something simular to OpenOffice at a price a home user
can afford?
No


3) Are there other word processing programs for use by home owners that you
would recommend;

Abiword is very good.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

I am a stand alone/home PC user and really only need a word processing
program to compose documents. Microsoft Office is so expensive and I
don't know if I need all if has to offer.
Questions:
1) Have you had experience with OpenOffice 2.0.4 and, if so, what are
its pros and cons?
2) Does Microsoft offer something simular to OpenOffice at a price a
home user can afford?
3) Are there other word processing programs for use by home owners
that you would recommend; if so, would you please provide a
list/rating/

I have several less expensive recomendations for you to consider:

1. The cheapest way to get Microsoft Word is to buy a copy of Microsoft
Works *Suite* (not the regular Microsoft Works, which doesn't come with
Word).

2. The about-to-be-current version of Microsoft Office is 2007 (it will be
on the retail market on January 30). You can buy a used copy of an older
version at a place like eBay for mush less money. Office 2003, Office XP,
Office 2000, Office 97, and Office 95 all work with Windows XP. The older
ones in particular will be very inexpensive

3. OpenOffice is free. Download it and try it for your yourself, rather than
asking others for opinions.

4. StarOffice is very inexpensive ($20 or so, the last I looked).

5. My personal favorite word processor is WordPerfect, which I like much
better than Microsoft Word. It's more expensive than Star Office, but much
cheaper than Microsoft Office.

6. The current version of WordPerfect Office is X3, but you can also buy
used copies of older versions at greatly reduced prices. WordPerfect Office
10, 11, or 12 are all good.

 

[Guest]

Thank you for your time
--
Thanks

I have several less expensive recomendations for you to consider:

1. The cheapest way to get Microsoft Word is to buy a copy of Microsoft
Works *Suite* (not the regular Microsoft Works, which doesn't come with
Word).

2. The about-to-be-current version of Microsoft Office is 2007 (it will be
on the retail market on January 30). You can buy a used copy of an older
version at a place like eBay for mush less money. Office 2003, Office XP,
Office 2000, Office 97, and Office 95 all work with Windows XP. The older
ones in particular will be very inexpensive

3. OpenOffice is free. Download it and try it for your yourself, rather than
asking others for opinions.

4. StarOffice is very inexpensive ($20 or so, the last I looked).

5. My personal favorite word processor is WordPerfect, which I like much
better than Microsoft Word. It's more expensive than Star Office, but much
cheaper than Microsoft Office.

6. The current version of WordPerfect Office is X3, but you can also buy
used copies of older versions at greatly reduced prices. WordPerfect Office
10, 11, or 12 are all good.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Thank you for your time

You're welcome. Glad to help.

--
Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User
Please reply to the newsgroup

 

[Enkidu]

3. OpenOffice is free. Download it and try it for your yourself,
rather than asking others for opinions.

Agreed, but it is quite big to download just for a trial! He may be able
to find it on a CD on a magazine.

5. My personal favorite word processor is WordPerfect, which I like
much better than Microsoft Word. It's more expensive than Star
Office, but much cheaper than Microsoft Office.

I used to like WP when it was a DOS program (WP5?). Hated the first
Windows version, though, so I switched to Word and never had reason
enough to go back.

Cheers,

Cliff

 

[Roger Blake]

I used to like WP when it was a DOS program (WP5?). Hated the first
Windows version, though, so I switched to Word and never had reason
enough to go back.

That's what gave Microsoft it's big jump in popularity in the word
processor market. Word Perfect for DOS was extremely popular, but the
initial release of Word Perfect for Windows was *horrible*. It was
buggy as all hell, the user interface design was godawful and it had no
usable integration with Windows fonts and print drivers. (As I recall
Word 2 was current at the time and was far superior.) By the time Word
Perfect came out with a decent Windows release it was pretty much all
over, Word had come out on top.

I've used Word Perfect since DOS days and still prefer it, even though I
don't run Windows on my own systems. (I run Word Perfect 9 in a VMWare
Win98SE virtual machine on top of Linux. There were some native Linux
releases for Word Perfect years ago, but it is difficult to get them
to run on modern Linux distributions.)

BTW, I've used Open Office and while it works OK, it's just too
bloated and complex for my taste. For a native Linux word processor
that supports interchange with Word, I prefer AbiWord. There is
also a Windows version available at:

http://www.abisource.com/download/

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Agreed, but it is quite big to download just for a trial! He may be
able to find it on a CD on a magazine.

If he can find it on a magazine's CD that's fine. And if he has a broadband
connection (as many if not not most) of us do these days, even such a big
download is not really a problem. I've never found a downalod that I
couldn't do overnight.

I used to like WP when it was a DOS program (WP5?). Hated the first
Windows version, though, so I switched to Word and never had reason
enough to go back.

That's your choice, and that's fine. My intent is not to argue about the
merits of various word processors, but to point out available choices to the
OP.