Which Office suite???

Hi, i am looking for an office suite to (hopefully) match MS office for my 12 year old son to use.
As i know chuff all about word, excell etc and i cannot afford to buy MS Office i am hoping you more knowledable people on the forum can advise me.

So far i have narrowed it down to StarOffice, OpenOffice and OxygenOffice Professional.

My son says they all look just like MS Office, but as he is not very advanced in its use so i would ideally only like to install the one that will suite best with his school work (school uses MS Office) as he progresses these next few years.

From what i have read OxygenOffice seems the most feature rich and some parts are compatable with even the latest Office 2007.

I have installed StarOffice whilst Returnil protection is on as i dont want to start bogging down a clean install, and it looks ok and very similer to MS Office.

As i have never really had any need to use word etc i dont have a clue as to which product will be most suitable so as to not cause too much confusion between MS Office at school, and one of the free office suites to use at home.

It is to be installed on a Computer with the OS Vista.

Thanks if any of you can point me in the right direction.

 

OxygenOffice Professional I've read can be a bit buggy.
SO8 is merely a polished version of OO, with enhanced dictionary, thesaurus, add'l templates, fonts and the like.
As well as an $80 price tag.
I would let your pocketbook decide between the two.
Been using it since version 6. Highly recommend it.
Note: There will be some very minor file compatability issues with M$ Office (as is the case with any other vendor's office product.

PS: If you opt for SO8, check out latest patches here:
http://sunsolve.sun.com/pub-cgi/show.pl?target=patches/xprod-StarOffice&nav=pub-patches

 

Thanks for taking the time to reply Bob D.
StarOffice is actually free now via the google packs.

 

Interesting.
Any downside to installing the Google Updater and it's residence in your system tray?

 

i know you said you cant afford microsoft office but well....
link
student license is £63
i use open office on this pc but its not as good as office but i cant afford office eiether....
lodore

 

Also have a look at:

- AShampoo Office:

http://www.ashampoo.com/frontend/products/php/product.php?session_langid=2&idstring=0038

Don't take the price too seriously. AShampoo can even ask YOU to name a price and people have got it for 10$.

- If he needs only word processor, check Abi Word. Very light and Free.

http://www.abisource.com/

 

Yes, with .docx and .xlsx files. I have experienced this with OO 6 I believe.

Constant checking for updates and unnecessary drain on resources by running in systray would be a downside to me

Cheers,

 

Think your greatest problem will be down the track,when the teacher refers to some feature or file or name only found in MS Office which will confuse your son,so probably the academic version would be the safest bet.
Otherwise,any of the freebies-or aShampoo is excellent.

 

Ashampoo Office Suite 2006 may still be available and was being given away for free. It is Vista compatible.

http://www.computeractive.co.uk/asoffice/index

product description-

http://www.ashampoo.com/frontend/products/php/product.php?session_langid=2&idstring=0138

The download is a little over 29 MB's for the entire suite and I cannot remember how heavy it runs. Although I seem to remember it running lighter than OpenOffice. I just used the "Textmaker" and thought it was really good.

Although it claims to be Office compatible I am not sure it is Office 2007 compatible. You may want to check around for that.

 

I got Ashampoo Office for $10 about six months ago & it is great for my needs on my XPHome computer. I'm not sure about any compatiblity with MS Office versions, other than there is no problem using it with some of my Office 2000 docs.
Rob

 

Thanks for everyones input.

After reading about the programs at the moment i am leaning towards StarOffice as it would appear to be the most similar to MS Office as far as i can tell and from various blogs i have been reading up on.

Unless anyone can advise differently then i think this may be the one i will install and see how my son thinks about the program.

 

Corel WordPerfect Office X3 Enough Said

http://www.corel.com/servlet/Satellite/au/en/Product/1152105038419

Or if you prefer this one which is Free

http://www.corel.com/servlet/Satellite/au/en/Product/1171405162003

 

Corel WordPerfect Lightning looks very good. It's light weight and can open .pdf, .wpd and .doc files. Still there is one option which I don't like. Every time that Lightning "Panel" opens when I just like to open .pdf (or something else). If I can disable/block that then I'm gonna replace my PDF Viewer with this.

EDIT: Remember that with Corel WordPerfect Lightning you can't save files.

 

Have let my son and his older sister (who is at college) have a play with some suites and after taking her advice and speaking to his school i have decided to bite the bullet and bought office 2007 professional plus from software4students for £49 all in.

His school already has some computers with office 2007 installed and he did seem quite at ease using it without having to question anyone for advice.

So there goes my plans for my few days off work

Thanks for everyones input

 

Hello Tony,

I think your son can ask his school for MSDNAA account, and he can use some MS's products for free.
For me, I'm using MS Office 2003 and Visual Studio .Net 2005 for free.

you can check whether or not his school has been registered from here: http://www.msdnaa.net/search/schoolsearch.aspx

 

Hey thanks for that
Unfortunately his school is not registered