Why pay when you don't have to? (OpenOffice)

Member Name: iamasadlittleboy

Product:	OpenOffice
Date:	06/10/09 (38 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Free, High level of software

Disadvantages: Some may not be able to go from Microsoft to Open office as easily as others

I'm a miserable sod, so when I found out my laptop didn't come with any of the Microsoft Office or Microsoft Works (yeah what an oxymoron) suites I decided to do a quick ask around for free alternatives. Open Office got more than it's share of votes, so it seemed like the most popular, if not the out out best choice. So googled "Open Office" and finally found the link to download it from OpenOffice.Suite-org.com and had a very brisk play about on the things I wouldn't use much of. The spreadsheets, databases and presentation software seemed easy enough to work when remembering how it worked on powerpoint, though these 3 programs appeal to me as much as a night in with Susan Boyle (that poor woman's gonna be the butt of so many cheap shots like that one). It was really the word processing software I needed (originally to do a CV).

So with that being said you could consider this more of a review of the Open Office Word Processor (and as that's what most normal folk will be using anyway...). The layout (as actually with all the programs in the package) looks similar to the Windows equivalent, the same same range of things at the top for alignment, bold etc, and the same drop downs from file, edit, view and the rest. It was almost like it was Microsoft Word, it was the same but different, it's hard to put your finger on how it's different but it is different.

Whilst writing you're work (as you would do on a word processor) you have no problems at all messing about and manipulating words on the whole, though there has been a few weird moments. Such as when trying to type "NWO" and pressing space it turned it into "now". The NWO was a wrestling thing from a game I was writing about so this was slightly annoying especially as it won't auto-correct things like "wrestlign" which would actually be helpful. I think it can be set to turn them into the real words but it's too much hassle to find out when it's so easy to correct. The other annoying feature (and one in word too) is it wants to reformat things with numbers in a list (such as ingredients) and indent them. Why do they even bother?

However other than them 2 things the program worked brilliantly, it as swift to react, easy to use and had seemingly all the usual functions needed of a word processor. Though some folk will look deeper and perhaps say it's missing this or that at some advanced level and in fact that's probably true through the whole open office experience, though the thing is, it's hard to really care about functions I personally don't use being absent from a free alternative.

So for you students needing some thing to do work one, or for you budding writers to use because notepads not that good, or for some one with a business who's cutting costs, Open Office is ideal, in fact for anyone using any of the "office" applications, this will just as good, and save you a bundle. This in fact makes it difficult to see why, other than the name, people keep going back to Microsoft with enough money to spend on a day out to upgrade every few years.

Summary: Try it, it's free, love it, thank me.

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