Office programs comparison?

I'm currently using Office 2003,but I want to try something new like Openoffice or Abi word etc.

My biggest concern is the compatibility. Most people are using MS office for sure. Imagine I send a doc that crashes my teachers computer.

I really doubt that each other's files can be opened without problem if it is with various charactors,images,forms etc. I do hope people are using the same office program only not MS's the most expensive one.

Please share your experience with other office programs.

 

You won't have a problem with OpenOffice.

If you use the following portable version, you'll find you can work on the one document at all times, with the same print/page settings:
http://portableapps.com/apps/office/openoffice_portable

To send documents to teachers etc, send your document as a PDF through the OpenOffice PDF feature. That way, no page settings can be altered, bullet points don't flow over the page, spacing is all the same etc. Page is always the same.

AbiWord, compared to OpenOffice, it doesn't really 'shine'.

This might help make up your mind:
http://www.donationcoder.com/Reviews/Archive/WordProcs/

 

This one looks ok, haven't tried it though.

Costs about US$60.
http://www.binarynow.com/products/kingsoft-office/

 

I commonly send .doc from my OO to others and they never complain, in fact OO is standard at my institution and many a times we need to send in .doc format and it never causes any issues. You can also use Abiword to create MS compatible .docs without any issues.

 

Depends on what you do with the documents. My experience with saving as .doc using OpenOffice have mostly been hassle-free, but if you insert mathematical equations using OpenOffice Math, export the thing to PDF just to be safe.

 

Hi Saraceno,

Thanks for your reply and the article. Very helpful!

Good to see a chinese product. I heard it is very good,especially compared to their AV product. But I currently only consider freebies.

OK,back to read the article before going to bed.

 

It's about 3 or 4 years ago. A friend of mine wanted to persuade me to use OO. But he himself gave up after about 1 week because of compatibility problems. So it seems the issue has almost been gone.

 

SunMicro OpenOffice Suite works very well. But then again the rest of the corporate world is on MS Office 2003 or 2007 and then Mac users on MS Office. Still SM Office is free but the market is tight for MS, IBM LotusSmart Suite look what happen to that one gone with some great programs like Lotus 123, Lotus AmiWord, kept was Lotus Notes, Lotus Sametime Connect.