Anyone out there using Open Office?

Anyone out there using Open Office?

Didn't find your answer?

Do we have any users of Open Office or Star Office out there? Are they viable and cost effective alternatives to Word and Excel?

I say this because I found out recently that Curry's have all moved over to Open Office. Maybe it's time we took these products seriously on AccountingWeb.
David Carter

Replies (17)

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By David Carter
24th Nov 2005 09:23

time to be serious
Thanks everyone. You've answered my question. We need to give Open Office regular coverage.

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By AnonymousUser
17th Nov 2005 14:10

Future for OpenOffice
Openoffice is a great program with a great future. This is based on its full adoption of the open document format, the implementation of the w3c Xforms, the adoption of python programming language and the leveraged savings - If you break dependence on Microsoft Office and other Microsoft dependent products then you make it possible to enjoy the cash savings, enhanced efficiency and the host of libre software offered by using the linux platform.

I note Phillip Hodgson's comments and they are fair when considering Starbasic as the macro language. Starbasic has a simplified api for manipulating openoffice More powerful automation can be achieved using python or java or a number of other languages that use the UNO component model which is the full api for oo.
Finally oo has come from nowhere in a comparatively short time - Project fellow number crunchers, and predict.

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By AnonymousUser
11th Nov 2005 17:50

OpenOffice spreadsheet
I've limited experience of the word processing package in Openoffice2 but the spreadsheet package is great. I had a 16Mb Excel file with about 40K rows of data, two pivot tables and lots of formuale, including sumproduct, countif and a few other oddities. OpenOffice2 coped extremely well. No problems with any of the functionality and saved in odf format it was only 1.3Mb in size. I've uninstalled MSoffice

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By User deleted
08th Nov 2005 09:41

VT Accounts...
...I have looked at both and really like the software - especially open office.

However, I use VT Accounts to prepare final accounts and this only links into Excel!

Any ideas?

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By David Carter
08th Nov 2005 23:37

.
Sheelagh, Alan Webb tells us it is www.openoffice.org. It's Open Source software and free. There's also a version called Star Office, but this costs $70.

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By taxinfo
08th Nov 2005 14:31

me too...
Like you, David, I have had my eye on Open Office for some time. Its latest upgrade really brings it "up there" with the big boys and, so I understand from folk who use it, it is a good alternative to the popular MS apps.

I, too, would like to learn other views.

As to the linking to Excel, well, there is nothing to be done about this unless the program provider takes action to reprogram the feeder application.

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By tomtrainer
08th Nov 2005 14:52

Exporting to Spreadsheet
Don't most packages have a "Export to CSV file" option?

Having said that, I have just tried it with QuickBooks, and cannot see how to import the CSV file to OpenOffice properly.

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By User deleted
08th Nov 2005 20:12

How?
While this subject is being aired, shat is the best way to obtaion Open Office software?

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By User deleted
10th Nov 2005 08:49

75MB download
The 10 to 23 November 2005 edition of the magazine Computeractive states (at page 79) that the download of Open Office is one of 75 MB size - and this would take over 4 hours to download if you've not got Broadband !

An alternative way of getting the software would be to look for the cover-mount DVDs on monthly computer magazines.

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By taxinfo
10th Nov 2005 10:47

to get openoffice
CDs are indeed available as are other ways of getting Openoffice. Try here.....

http://distribution.openoffice.org/cdrom/

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By vtsoftware
10th Nov 2005 15:02

VT Final Accounts and OpenOffice
We looked at the possiblity of adapting VT Final Accounts to run in OpenOffice. However the macro language is very different. Also it seemed (at first sight) extremely cumbersome compared with Visual Basic for Applications.

We concluded that it was probably not possible to do all we had done in Excel in OpenOffice. Even if it had been possible, it would not be economic for us to do so unless a majority of accountants switched from using Excel to OpenOffice.

Nevertheless, it would be good to hear comments from anyone who has had experience of writing macros in OpenOffice.

Philip Hodgson
VT Software Ltd

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By HarrySharp
10th Nov 2005 12:42

Well worth considering
For general use in the office and for people that use simple functions in XL and Word it is fine.

It lacks some of the MS nicities.

Macros, pictures, calculations, etc are still a bit inconsistent as reported by other contributors.

I am told the powerpoint equivalent is excellent with a built in shockwave creator / editor.

Defintiely worth a look.

Remember it's only a year ago that loads of us (on the back of FD Diary Man's comments) switched to from Internet Explorer to Firefox.

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By brianjleach
10th Nov 2005 13:20

I agree with what has been said already. I like it very much although I only use the Word part of OpenOffice (my version of Word keeps crashing for reasons I have not been able to establish).

I now use version 2 of OpenOffice and have not tried using the Excel equivalent yet, however I had problems with previous versions as it did not cope with linked cells very well. It may have improved of course but with January on the horizon I shall not be experimenting for a while.

I have one other comment. If you are considering deploying it in a company I would suggest getting the secretaries to try it out first.

I certainly got adverse comments from our secretaries who did not like it as much as Word.

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By Martyn.Shiner
10th Nov 2005 13:01

OOo works for me
>>Do we have any users of Open Office or Star Office out there? Are they viable and cost effective alternatives to Word and Excel?<<
Yes & Yes

>>I say this because I found out recently that Curry's have all moved over to Open Office. Maybe it's time we took these products seriously.<<
Why wouldn't you take it seriously? It can read and write MS files, works on Windows, Linux, and Mac OSX, is free (as in speech AND beer), has a scripting language, can do pivot tables, includes a database AND a vector graphics package....

The list goes on and on.

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By AnonymousUser
10th Nov 2005 12:05

openoffice
I have used openoffice for some years, it gets better with time and the only problems I have encountered were when using beta test versions. There used to be some issues around powerpoint stuff (which I very rarely use).

It will save to and read from MS formats. I recommend it all the time, especially given the retail cost of MS.

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By kerpang
10th Nov 2005 11:24

Problem with Macro
I have been using OpenO and is quite happy with it although you will have problem opening Excel documents containing macro. For some organisation, there is a legacy issues that needs to be considered before they are able to fully adopt OO.

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By twickers
30th Aug 2011 14:06

openoffice recommended wholeheartdly

My network collapsed had to buy new/ all programs previously pch'd and in use unavailable/

So I d/loaded openoffice as emergency and from experience of calc and writer (ms word comparative) will not be forking out to update ms suite.

One word of caution...excel marco's do not work in calc, different basic language/ but you can write your own if you have the time.

Beyond above comment calc has saved my [***] and wallet and competes with excel for spreadsheet use. Spend some initial time to familiarize y/self with menus

however that problem is no different from updating to Office 10 and new layout
that I find is more difficult actually. (restricted version of MsOffice came with
laptop)

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