Open Office - need some info please.

[BrokenFlipFlop]

Can someone please explain what Open Office is and whether or not it is worth downloading?

I have a new laptop but I don't have MS Office on it. I was wondering if Open Office is an alternative to MS Office and if not, what/who is Open Ofice for?

Currently have an issue as Vista doesn't open Word files so will Open Office help with this? Sorry if this all sounds very basic but I have so little knowledge

Thanks

Open office should solve your problem and let you open Word docs yes.

I've been using open office for the last year, mostly to open MS documents....no problems so far.

If you don't like it you can uninstall it in a couple of minutes.

Open Office is a free version of MS Office, more or less. Its not made by Microsoft, but does everything MS Office does.

Vista will not open Word docs if you do not have Word on your computer. Otherwise there is no reason why Vista won't open Word docs.

It is definitely worth it if you do not want to pay the huge fees Microsoft charges for MS Office!!

Thanks ever so much for all your help - I will install it and see what happens!

Cheers

Okay so have successfully downloaded it and its great.

Its suggesting that I save my documents as ODT files (odf format) - will I be able to open these files on my work pc which simply uses MS Office?

I'm presuming I may need anpther appl' to open them however as its a work pc, I cannot download appl' on to it. How do I get round this?

Thank you

Bump

Just save them as Word 97 docs if you need to interchange with work.

Somewhere in the settings there is an option to make this the default.

ooh so glad i found this as i have the same problem. I too was told to use openoffice, but can you tell me exactly step by step what i have to do when for instance i receive an email with a word document attached.

I download it, then what happens? Do i have to move it into open office in order to open it? Sorry for sounding really thick but still cannot work it out.

we use open office and it's great.
never had any prob opening word docs with it

when i download stuff I just click on "open" and it opens in open office automatically.

but i am not the techy one in our house sadly, so can't give any "real" advice,

oh that is weird, as mine doesnt automatically do this. (well I don't think it does, maybe i ought to have another try)

Instructions for getting OpenOffice to automatically open MS office files here.

thanks cruel, will investigate further

Thanks cruel and everyone else for your help