Does anyone use Open Office?

[MrsMeow]

One of the tech guys in college has told me about a free program called Open Office after I'd gone to ask where to buy Microsoft Office from. I've downloaded it and had a quick look, but haven't used it yet.

I know I can write a document on there and then save it as a word doc. Can I then put it on my dongle and transfer it to the PC at college ready to print out? Will it open as a word doc so I can change things etc?

I have assignments to do and am hoping to do them at home so if I can do this, I can just tweak them and print them at college on Monday, it would be much less hassle!

Thanks very much.

Yes - you just need to save it as a word document rather than an odt doc which is the default save setting.

I use it. You can do this, but make sure you save it as a word document (.doc) and not an open office file (.odf) as you won't be able to open it in word if you don't.

yeah odt sorry

I have used it and found it a bit clunky compared to Microsoft Office.

As a student you can buy very cheap totally legitimate Microsoft Office now anyway.

I have it. It's absolutely fine. The only problem I have when writing a document is sometimes it just randomly re-formats part of it. I have no idea why. But I just change it back again.

Otherwise, it's free and works just fine.

Thanks for the quick replies everyone :) I'm glad I will be able to open it in Word - I didn't want to waste all day tomorrow doing it if it wouldn't work!

BeenBeta, I'm debating whether to get Microsoft Office this weekend, to be honest as I'm going to need it for at least the next 4 years anyway. Could you recommend somewhere to buy it from? I have my NUS card now and was hoping to get it from PC World, but apparently they don't do student discount anymore!

I've been looking for discounted student deals for Microsoft Office for DS' netbook. Something like [[http://www.software4students.co.uk/Microsoft_Office_2010_Professional_Plus-details.aspx
this]]?

There is also Windows live docs which is MS's streamed office offering and Google Docs as well if you have interweb at home both free.

we use it and it's fine

why pay for something when you can get it free

MrsMeow - I bought another piece of student software from Software4Students.

The link to their Microsoft Office page is here.

Apparently you can get it for £38.95. I recall you do have to supply proof you are a student by scanning your NUS card and sending the image but it is not very hard to do.

Oh dear ,my DS has been using Open Office for school work and saving to a memory stick thing ( I'm old and not clued up enough to know name ! )
If an open office doc has been saved using default setting ,can you do something to "re-save " it as a .doc ?

Yes, you just, er, re-save it as .doc!

There are also online ways to covert between formats - such as by uploading the .ODT to Google Docs, then open in Google Docs and download as MSWord.

If saving to a memory stick, save in a couple of different formats - then less worry about problems opening it on a different computer.

Just asked DS and he says when the school computer tries to open it ,it offers the option to convert it to a Word doc .
So I was worrying without need !

Just copy and pasting a reply I made to someone else on another forum to someone asking how to save to the doc format using Open Office.

The default file type for Open Office Writer (the Word bit) is ODT, which is the Open Document format. This is an open document type that anyone can use without having to pay patent fees ect, but unfortunately Word is not compatible. However when you are first saving your document, when you have the window open asking you for a file name and where to save the file on your computer, under File Name you have a drop down list called 'Save as type'. This is a big list of different document types, one of which is called 'Microsoft Word 97/2000/XP (.doc). If you select this it saves it in the native format for Word, which all current versions of word (well, from Word 97 onwards) can open.

If you want to always save as the above format then you can find that under Options. On the menu bar go to Tools and then Options. You have a list of options down the left hand side of the Options window, one is called Load/Save. Click the + next to Load/Save and it opens subgroups underneath it. Click on General and you will have a drop down list called 'Always save as in the right hand side of the window'. You can then select Microsoft Word 97/2000/XP, and then click OK at the bottom of the window. This will always save in this format by default, so you don't have to change it like in the above steps.

Might be worth mentioning that Open Office will be changing / has changed name to Libre Office.

Open Office was a development supported by Sun Microsystems. Sun was bought by Oracle (big old database firm) and is now under the management of "The Document Foundation" which is a group of individuals who were involved in developing Open Office, and want to ensure this software remains open source, and does not get tied down in Oracle copyright (and given there's a database in the suite, to make sure the whole projects is not scrapped!)

Their Manifesto is online and can be downloaded as a PDF from 'www.documentfoundation.org/pdf/tdf_manifesto.pdf' - it shows how vehement they are in rejecting proprietary document formats and massive corporations restricting (by setting a price) access to useful tools.

It could have been written as an anti-Microsoft 'rant' but really could apply to any big firm which moves into a monopolistic position.

I've read a bit more - their launch was announced at the end of September, and it seems they have asked Oracle to consider giving them the OpenOffice name (and domain, no doubt) but in the meantime, set up LibreOffice (presumably, "just in case" Oracle said "No!").

Just came across this Microsoft vs Open Office item by chance...

www.theregister.co.uk/2010/10/14/microsoft_fears_open_office_org/

NB The Register has a fairly cynical / childish viewpoint and sometimes includes language which might not be suitable for family reading. I only warn as I would not want to suggest this as an 'ideal' website for technology news, because of their 'lads mag' type slant sometimes.

(Such as the time they included an extract from a Birmingham Airport annual report to shareholders, which included an x-ray photo of someone's luggage - one which had a large sex toy clearly visible. See if you want a laugh!)

I use Open Office all the time - it's great! One thing I have found is that the formatting can go a bit weird if you save something as a .doc and then open it in Word. What I do is export finished documents as PDF files, then everything stays where you've put it.

"formatting can go a bit weird if you save something as a .doc"

.doc is a terrible document format and it's notoriously tricky to work with. Microsoft have been very cagey about detailing exactly how it works and that means that when other people try to write software to read and write it, such as Open Office, they often have a great deal of trouble in getting it exactly right.

Microsoft themselves can't guarantee that .doc Office Documents will look the same on one Windows PC running Office and another and they've got access to more knowledge than anyone about how that file format works.

So if you can avoid using .doc it's best to do so.

However sometimes you do need to send the document onto someone else and then when you do that save a version of the document as a PDF, as PlentyOfPockets suggests, or a DOC as a last resort.

PDF is fine if there is no expectation of any corrections or further edits being made - one of my clients sends out PDFs when they finish a report for a client because in the past one client have made alterations and then presented the document as if my client (a transport consultancy) had written it - which was awkward when complete fibs were added to a document and then presented to a public enquiry!

It is a sad day when even Microsoft software on different machines may interpret a document in different ways!

Lots of info - thanks all .
I do find open office less easy to use than Word .But I'm not really used to such things ,so it may be my ignorance ,maybe I'm used to Word or it's more user friendly .
Either way it's fine for my needs - but I am a little anxious about son using it for A2 course work .
And now he says he needs Powerpoint ,so maybe we'll have to cough up .
Don't they do a student deal for Word to make it cheaper ?

Open Office has a powerpoint look a likey program and excel etc. Once you get used to it Open Office is much easier to use then Word.

Gosh - who's more stupid ?
Me or son ?
Is that the " Presentation " one on open office ?
( I've never used powerpoint )