To not understand why Open Office is not more popular

[reallytired]

Why is it that Microsoft Office is so popular when it is quite expensive. Open Office is free and very easy to use. Try it for free if you don't believe me.

download.openoffice.org

I think it would save the country a fortune if the public sector switched to open office and used more freeware software in general. If schools and hospitals switched to Linux instead of Windows then it would save the governant millions. Millions that could be spent on keeping hospitals open or staffing libraries.

Linux and open office have really progressed in the last ten years. They aren't any more difficult for the end user. I also disagree with the arguement that schools should use the most popular business packages. I am sure that the word processor that my son uses in ten or twenty years time will be different from what is available now.

The amount of money Microsoft makes is obscene. I feel there are more pressing uses for tax payers money.

Office 2010 is bloody awful IMO

Errrm can I just say it's really not a good idea to click random download links on the internet....just incase?

That is all

Open Office is great and usually it's kept so up-to-date that it's completely compatible with MS Office stuff anyway.

I used it for a couple of years when I couldn't afford MS Office on my old desktop. However I had to upgrade when I had a work project that involved complicated tables in Word (it should've been in Excel really) - they wouldn't open in OO properly.

Now of course, one of the competitors to OO is Starter MS Office - my new laptop came with this, as do most new PCs now. It's a very useable version of Office, for free, just with some advanced tools taken off. It works very smoothly for me, so I haven't even had to consider OO.

I do think OO would be a great option for schools.

I'm about to start using Scrivener for novel writing - it's a word processor originally for Mac that's just come out on PC.

YANBU. I use Open Office. I'd never pay ££ for Microsoft Office, because Open Office does everything I need it to and it is free.

Google open office and find out more about it.

It is a well known freeware package. Open office has been developed by Oracle which is a very large and well known database software company. It is about the same level of risk as downloading adobe flash or java and probably less risk than a microsoft update

Or you can get a copy off a computer magezine.

AVG is a good freeware virsus checker. I agree that you need to be cautious about downloads. The link I gave you will just take you to a set of mirrors (ie. down load sites all over the world). You need to pick the download site nearest to you.

Neither are available to me on android, or else I would use open office.

I use both anyway - Microsoft office mostly because that is what my university uses and there is no choice in that. I got it installed for free on my laptop anyway so the price doesn't really bother me. Open office is very good as well though, just less familiar for a lot of people.

www.openoffice.org/ There's the basic link to explain what it is rather than download it!

The only thing I miss on OO is the equivalent of MS Publisher.

I hate all the advertising in Starter MS Office. I find it slow starting up.

I used to do IT support in a school and the school paid £30 a year per PC to Microsoft as part of the microsoft schools agreement. That is an incredible amount of money when you consider that the school had 140 PCs. Just think how much that is over the entire country in hospitals, libraries, council offices, quangos, unis and schools. The schools also had to pay an annual subscription for horrible anti virus programme calle Macafee. [hated emoticon]

Schools could save further money by using cloud services more and doing away with having so many servers. For example google has software that users use across the internet. Work is saved remotely and google look after back ups. This is a service you pay for, but is still cheaper than having a server. The nice thing for staff is that work can be accessed anywhere in the world. Staff don't have to cart about USB sticks. The only draw back is that complex passwords are essential for security.

It would reduce the amount that schools have to spend on IT contractors.

YANBU. I'm a big OpenOffice fan.

YANBU. I use both microsoft and open office depending on which computer i'm using. Open office has been great, most of its limitations are due to my lack of knowledge about it. Would recommend it to anyone.

I have tried, but found it hard to use. I have just asked my school to put Microsoft on my laptop, as open office was doing my head in. I couldn't do anything fancy- trying to put tables in was a nightmare it kept randomly formatting it.

Sorry. I love the idea.

I hada Linux netbook, was crap too hard to use all that bloody code to do things. Sorry windows is the way forward or use a mac

oo is brilliant. I love being able to create pdf docs with no fuss at all.

I don't understand why everyone isn't using it.

Perhaps people think there's something wrong with something if it's free?

I hated staff using usb sticks because they tended to use their personal usb sticks and not encript them. Or if they did encript them they forgot the password they set.

USB sticks are a security headache for a network because staff invariably lose them. Remember a few years ago when a junior civil servent failed to take care of all the names and addresses of child benefit claiments.

Imagine this senario in a school. It has never happened in any school I work in, but its could happen. A teacher is editing IEPs and takes them home on a USB stick. The teacher is tired and drops the USB stick in the car park, losing serveral hours work. A couple of year 5s find the USB and decide to read the contents. They find out that their class mate Jonny has an IEP to prevent him from soiling himself. The children make poor Jonny's life hell.

A good cloud network gets round this problem as there is no need to take data out the building. There is no advertising as the costs are paid for by a fee. It is also reasonably fast as it has enough servers.

I have found lost teacher usb sticks dropped in the corridor or left in the back of a pc. As far as I know the teachers in question got away with it.

I have used open office in the past, unfortunately schools all use Microsoft and the DDs use ever arty incompatible twiddle bit they can find. As DD1 does bits at school and bits at home we ended up giving in and getting word.

The fonts are naff on open office, it converts thing from word in a rubbish format. The PowerPoint one is so basic, like someone else said like word 10yrs ago.

Used to use it but moved to Libreoffice instead - why are you using OO not LO?