View Full Version : Alternatives to Microsoft Office
Evenin' all.
I've been doing some research into alternatives to various microsoft products, in view of making a complete change over to linux in the (relatively distant) future, and I want to get used to various products that also run on linux and which aren't microsoft.
Atm, I'm using Opera for internet browsing, but am still using Office for word processing and stuff. Just wondering if anyone here used alternatives, and which their favourites are.
Any help is appreciated. :)
There's a program called either open office or star office, something like that, meant moslty for linux.
One of the most popular open-source rivals to Microsoft Office is OpenOffice (http://www.openoffice.org). It doesn't have the bells & whistles of Office 2004, but it does the job relatively well, opens all popular document types (including all of Microsoft Office's file types), can make PDFs (hence no need for Adobe Acrobat to make them :D), amongst other features.
I'll admit that it'll both feel familiar and different from Office - Main thing is to try it and see what you think :)
EDIT: Forgot to say - OpenOffice runs on both Windows, Linux, and Macs along with other OSs :D
In the real world, there is no better office product than MS Office, OpenOffice (http://www.openoffice.org) is at the stage compareable with Office 97.
True... but I don't really care about all the bells and whistles. I mainly want it for simple word processing and shit like that. I just want to stop having to rely on M$.
EDIT: Oh, and I can't afford the full MS office. :p
Oh, if your going Linux, you can probably just use KDE's word processor without the bells n whisltes
it's been said, openoffice.org is good.
openoffice.org is crap! Anyone who says its good, is using the MS Works 1 :p
I've used both Office XP and Open Office and I'm happy with both.
I think SUN released their won version of OpenOffice called StarOffice. I know that its out there though. Doesn't help with Linux though.
How familiar are you with Linux itself? Try This (http://www.linuxiso.org/distro.php?distro=44). It's called Knoppix Linux, and you don't need to install it. You just burn it to one CD, boot from it, and run it like that. You CAN install it, but it is designed to run entirely from your CD and RAM. So it's a pretty cool way to try out Linux without installing and all that. I think it comes with stuff like some kind of photoshop application, music player, some type of office application, and some other things. So you don't even need to go find which programs are compatible with both OSes. Whenever you've got some decent free time, just toss in the Knoppix Linux CD, fire it up, and try shit out.
You can read a little article here (http://www.tomshardware.com/howto/20040303/index.html).
I tried it a couple times, but I was rather busy those weeks and forgot what it was like mostly, but I do remember it being pretty cool.
EDIT: Oh, and I can't afford the full MS office. :p
[ edited ]
OO is more them enough for every private use. i'm using office97 and office2k at work and I'm always amazed how easy WORD is ruin you 3 hours work just by adding one picture into the text.
a different thing is Excel.you get all the fancy tool and scripts for Excel and it dint work in OO because it use a different script language.
in the end i use OO because its free. if i would have to pay for it i would use KOffice because i sometimes need a spreadsheet at home (ie for NC).
i think i would pay like 40€ for OO if i have to. its better them the 250€ for M$O.
It really depends what parts of office you use -
Word - OO is a reasonable replacement unless you use really obscure parts of Word. It does some things better and some worse.
Excel - Nothing is as good. There are some OK spreadsheet apps but none are in the same league.
Access - Almost everything is better than access. I haven't really looked at many Open options (other than MySQL which I despise) but there must be many functional DBs out there for free now.
Outlook - If you use it intensively nothing can replace it. If you just use basic email almost anything will do the job.
I personally love OpenOffice. It does everything I want it to.
I think that you've got to remember that M$ Office is at, what, version 11 now, while OpenOffice is still at Version 1. OpenOffice does a good job of opening most M$ documents - when it mucks it up it tends to muck it up real bad tho. =(
Athon Solo
Not sure if its worth mentioning, but theres also ElOffice (http://www.evermoresw.com/weben/product/productOverview.jsp).
It's completely written in java so both in windows and in linux usable,but it aint free like openOffice which was mentioned allready.
Openoffice is based on StarOffice which is several years older than MS Office. It certainly hasn't had the development might of MS behind it though.
If I have to read an MS word document and maintain its structure I use the free MS word viewer from MS. Otherwise Open Office is the best.
How familiar are you with Linux itself? Try This (http://www.linuxiso.org/distro.php?distro=44). It's called Knoppix Linux, and you don't need to install it. You just burn it to one CD, boot from it, and run it like that. You CAN install it, but it is designed to run entirely from your CD and RAM. So it's a pretty cool way to try out Linux without installing and all that. I think it comes with stuff like some kind of photoshop application, music player, some type of office application, and some other things. So you don't even need to go find which programs are compatible with both OSes. Whenever you've got some decent free time, just toss in the Knoppix Linux CD, fire it up, and try shit out.
You can read a little article here (http://www.tomshardware.com/howto/20040303/index.html).
I tried it a couple times, but I was rather busy those weeks and forgot what it was like mostly, but I do remember it being pretty cool.
Thanks very much... That'll probably be quite helpful. As for my famililarity with Linux.... Abso-fucking-lutely nothing, but everyone has to start somewhere. :p
I think that openoffice.org sounds good, as I don't tend to use spreadsheets or DBs or whatever... though I might need to next year for Maths A level, not really sure. Anyway, I can deal with that as it comes.
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