MS Office is without doubt the market leader when it comes to office applications. However, this is not an indication that MS Office is the best office suite. MS Office is the market leader, not because it is the best, but because it has Microsoft’s marketing muscle.
Alternatives do exist to MS Office and one such alternative is OpenOffice [www.openoffice.org]. Many users feel that OpenOffice is much better than MS Office in terms of both features and speed. Give OpenOffice a try and find out for yourself. And best of all, it is absolutely free!
The latest version of OpenOffice i.e. version 3.1 has many new features and improvements. When compared to version 3.0, the latest version looks much cleaner and the displays are sharper. The improvements are due to improved rendering through anti-aliasing.
Other improvements include anti-aliased drawings, solid dragging and translucent selection in Writer. In the latest version, users can see the transparent image while dragging and not just the outline using the solid dragging feature.
If features are considered, OpenOffice 3.1 matches perfectly well with Microsoft Office. OpenOffice is compatible with MS Office to a very large extent. It can open both the traditional MS Office doc files and also newer XML files.
When it comes to a direct comparison between OpenOffice vs. MS Office, OpenOffice does have some plus points. These are:
1) It is absolutely free! MS Office costs a premium. Why opt for paid software when there is alternative free version that is equally good?
2) OpenOffice can open all file formats used by MS Office. If your friend is using MS Office and sends you a file in doc format, you will have no problems in opening, viewing and editing the file.
3) More features. OpenOffice comes with more features than MS Office. For example: “Save as PDF”.
However, on the minus side, OpenOffice is not fully compatible with MS Office. MS Office is a closed software and its formats are also closed. For this reason, OpenOffice can only be partially compatible. Complete compatibility can never be achieved as long as Microsoft doesn’t open the formats. So, when everyone uses MS Office you will be forced to stick to it as well.
That said, OpenOffice is definitely worth trying. [Download OpenOffice]