Does anyone use Open Office?

[Luckybustert]

This sounds interesting. Is it possible to convert files back and forth between the Open Office and the MS Office programs? I normally like to use the same programs at home that I use at work, but the idea of having something at home that's not so expensive appeals to my frugal side.

[mek42]

This sounds interesting. Is it possible to convert files back and forth between the Open Office and the MS Office programs? I normally like to use the same programs at home that I use at work, but the idea of having something at home that's not so expensive appeals to my frugal side.

You don't even need to convert - you can use the proprietary MS format documents natively in OpenOffice. Last I knew, OOO charts weren't as good as Excel, OOO is still developing VBA compatibility (Excel macros) and impress / powerpoint sometimes don't like to talk to each other.

Microsoft office products do not play well with unix systems.
I have Office on the Mac and was trying to generate a csv file that I could import into a mysql database on frugalvillage server.

Needless to say it was a big waste of time. It added extra characters to the space and sometimes it adds extra spaces where it should not. I tried fixing it with Vi to no available. Office really Borked the file!

I remember Open Office being better playing on Microsoft platform. So I went ahead and download it on the MAC.

It works beautifully.

Now I hope Oracle will not mess it up now that they acquired Sun last year.

Are you familiar with dos2unix and unix2dos commands?

[Tnmom]

I was using it, but started having problems opening documents, I ended up going back to Microsoft. I couldn't open some of the documents that I did with Office..so I ended up deleting alot of junk that I really didn;t need

[Gabe]

You don't even need to convert - you can use the proprietary MS format documents natively in OpenOffice. Last I knew, OOO charts weren't as good as Excel, OOO is still developing VBA compatibility (Excel macros) and impress / powerpoint sometimes don't like to talk to each other.



Are you familiar with dos2unix and unix2dos commands?

Yep and use it everyday. Or you can use sed.
sed 's/^M//' DOS_file > UNIX_file
http://www.pement.org/sed/

Excel adds more crap in CSV files that dos2unix will not fix.

Save a document as html in microsoft word. See how much crap MS puts in it.



I'm a VI user.

[Gabe]

I was using it, but started having problems opening documents, I ended up going back to Microsoft. I couldn't open some of the documents that I did with Office..so I ended up deleting alot of junk that I really didn;t need

In order to open your documents in Microsoft you need to save the document in a Microsoft format that is supported by the application you are running to open it in.

A good rule of thumb is to save it in an old word format. So that any word application trying to open it will be ok. File formats are can be opened by newer application but new file formats cannot be open by older application.

Microsoft Word, Excel etc will not open Native Open Office documents and they will not open newer Microsoft Office documents.

Example. Even with Microsoft Word, If you save a document in Word 2007 and try to open it in Word 2000, you will not be able to open it in word 2000 (Unless you explicitly specify the older format of 2000).

Another example, If you save a document in Open Office as Word 2009 and try to open it in Word 2007, it will not work either. That's a Microsoft compatilibity issue. They like to make things complicated and obfuscate.

That's why it didn't work for you. You probably saved it in a newer format under Open Office that was not supported by the version of Microsoft office you had or you saved it in an open office format.

[baronmom]

Works great on my Mac

[mek42]

Yep and use it everyday. Or you can use sed.
sed 's/^M//' DOS_file > UNIX_file
http://www.pement.org/sed/

Excel adds more crap in CSV files that dos2unix will not fix.

Save a document as html in microsoft word. See how much crap MS puts in it.



I'm a VI user.

I've done a little sed for bulk editing over many directories. I use kate as user and vi as root.

[Gabe]

real men use Vi all the time.

Kate looks nice!
Similar to notepad++?

[midlight21]

I love Open Office and honestly don't miss Microsoft Office at all! There are templates and everything plus if you do a google search, there's a way to save other templates as Open Office templates. I have a nice budgeting spreadsheet in Open Office that is perfect for our needs.

[Incognito]

AbiWord 2.4 is also a nice freeware word processing application.
It's light and quick, and has all the basics. I've used it for years, after dropping Microsoft Office.
I like OpenOffice too, but it loads too slowly on my computer.

[Pianolady]

I actually own MS Office 2000 and dumped it for Open Office. Works great for me & I didn't want to update to the new MS Office when the old version became outdated.