[skagen]

Whats you guys view on these two? I've got the option of installing either of these on a new laptop - at no cost either way.

Supposedly OpenOffice works best if its the only office suite installed, so I guess I need to chose one istead of just having both.

MS Office XP I've never used before - but I use Outlook '97 and I need that program - Unless there's a good open-source replacement. Also can one chose to install JUST Outlook in that whole package?

I've used Open office briefly on an old POS laptop (P166 MMX, 80 MB RAM). My impression was that it was good for freeware - and the option to save files as PDF is way cool if you are sending things around.

The only negatives were that it kept on asking me if I wanted to save in that damn Star Office format - and when saving kept on warning me about losing formating if I saved as MS Word. it also seemed to take about 10 years to boot and was a memory hog.

 

[averydonovan]

I use OpenOffice, mainly because I can't justify plunking down $500 for programs I rarely use. OpenOffice does the job well enough for me.

 

[john_jcb]

Office 2003 is out and it is better than Office XP.

 

[jim]

My office suite:

outlook = emacs for news/calendar, pine for mail. I should use emacs for mail to, but I was weened on pine and bad habits are hard to shake.

word/powerpoint = emacs + LaTeX, antiword

excel = emacs, matlab, mathematica, or c

money = gnucash

Scoff if you like, but it works for me.

Even though I dislike ms products in general, if you're stuck in the windows world, and can get MS office for free, you might as well. Then again, OpenOffice does have that bloody paperclip...

btw, your POS laptop has a pretty amazing amount of ram!

 

[CaptBubba]

Quote:

Originally posted by jim Even though I dislike ms products in general, if you're stuck in the windows world, and can get MS office for free, you might as well. Then again, OpenOffice does have that bloody paperclip...

No, openoffice has a non-animated lightbulb. MSoffice has the paperclip.

In general, Openoffice gets everything I need done, but I have MSoffice installed on my desktop just in case I get an incompatible document. I stopped using Outlook because of the number of viri that take advantage of it.

 

[D-EJ915]

I've used both, with that sunoffice or whatever, and all the other imitations, but I feel at home with Office XP (students), it's good and generally is more stable, but that's not the issue, if I could, I'd just download openoffice, it works amazingly well in linux (so good, it makes that sun thing look bad), it's really amazing, I recommend it to someone who can download it.

OpenOffice

 

[jim]

Quote:

Originally posted by CaptBubba No, openoffice has a non-animated lightbulb. MSoffice has the paperclip.

Doh, I meant doesn't. Should probably reread my posts..

The thing I hate most is that our university PC's dynamically install software over the network on a need basis, so all your settings are lost when you logout. Thus, any attempts to disable the paperclip or the stupid "welcome tips" are utterly in vain.

 

[skagen]

Quote:

Originally posted by jim btw, your POS laptop has a pretty amazing amount of ram!

Yeah, little typo there - fixed it!

 

[aeberbach]

Outlook XP's IMAP client was quite a lot worse than Outlook 2000's - be careful how you "upgrade".

 

[skagen]

Quote:

Originally posted by aeberbach Outlook XP's IMAP client was quite a lot worse than Outlook 2000's - be careful how you "upgrade".

Sorry I don't understand this comment. What does that mean exactly for a non-technical person?

 

[D-EJ915]

he means that if you install Office XP over Office 2000, don't select Outlook

 

[skagen]

But what's an "IMAP Client"

 

[wallijonn]

http://www.imap.org/ :

"IMAP stands for Internet Message Access Protocol. It is a method of accessing electronic mail or bulletin board messages that are kept on a (possibly shared) mail server."

I say go with the MS product. You'll have to most compatibility with other users and it will probably be what you are most likely to use in the business community.

Personally, I like KOffice more than OpenOffice (Linux only)