by Roppelcaver » Apr 15, 2006 10:51 pm
Wayne,
Of course I work for Microsoft, but I try to be objective. Open Office does many of the things that Office will do, but there are limitations. But, for the standard stuff that many people use, it probably works fine.
I have noticed glitches in compatibility of documents, when going back and forth between Office and Open Office. A lot of that depends on what level or version you are running. If you are depending on compatibility with others, that is a big consideration that would probably keep you on MS Office.
It is not as feature rich as MS Office, but you may not need all those features.
I have tried it, and found I preferred MS office, and not because I work for them. It just does more of what I need to do, versus OpenOffice. But, I know people who do fine with Open Office.
(I think I see a lot more people using Firefox than OpenOffice in the open source camp. It might have something to do with compatibility, which is not a much of a variable with Firefox.)
I would not discourage you to try for yourself.
Roppel Caver guy