Microsoft Office Vs Open Office

[zipzap]

Following on from FC's thread, I was wondering if anyone has widespread experience with Open Office as opposed to Microsoft Office?

I've always used MS Office as I get it free from my workplace. But I just upgraded to MS Office 2007 and it has slowed down my computer something shocking without adding much. Outlook and Word are particularly painful. The new version of Word is visually attractive but this gloss makes it a bloated beast - I have a Gig of Ram and it takes at least a minute to open.

Anyway, is Open Office a real alternative? I know if I didn't have access to MS Office I would explore OO more but before I uninstall MS Office I want to know if it's actually as good or better. Has anyone switched from MS to OO and if so, what are your thoughts?

[Westsider]

Just install it and have a crack. I've used it on Linux systems and it is quite good.

[zipzap]

Just install it and have a crack. I've used it on Linux systems and it is quite good.

I'm sure it is quite good...but is it better than MS Office?

[Psyber]

I have not bought MS Office since 1997. The early versions of OO were a bit primitive, but since version 2 [2.3 now] it is a cracker. I have set it to routinely save documents in MS .doc format just to make it easier to send documents to friends, but it will save in a variety of formats including .pdf!

[zipzap]

I have not bought MS Office since 1997. The early versions of OO were a bit primitive, but since version 2 [2.3 now] it is a cracker. I have set it to routinely save documents in MS .doc format just to make it easier to send documents to friends, but it will save in a variety of formats including .pdf!

Cheers for that Psyber, I might give it a go. It doesn't seem to have anything like Publisher though?

[Psyber]

I have not bought MS Office since 1997. The early versions of OO were a bit primitive, but since version 2 [2.3 now] it is a cracker. I have set it to routinely save documents in MS .doc format just to make it easier to send documents to friends, but it will save in a variety of formats including .pdf!

Cheers for that Psyber, I might give it a go. It doesn't seem to have anything like Publisher though?

These are what it offers from the Quickstarter in the task bar. There are other add ons you can get from the site free - it works like the add ons for the Firefox browser:

Text Writer
Spreadsheet
Presentation
Drawing
Database
Templates

[Footy Chick]

I have not bought MS Office since 1997. The early versions of OO were a bit primitive, but since version 2 [2.3 now] it is a cracker. I have set it to routinely save documents in MS .doc format just to make it easier to send documents to friends, but it will save in a variety of formats including .pdf!

They gave me 2.2 (so not even the latest version!) and it seems to have the equivalent to access, publisher, word, excel and something else which escapes me...