Open Office???

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DMcFadden

Puritanboard Commissioner
Does anyone have any experience using Open Office? I love the idea that it is free and I hate the hegemony of Gates and Jobs. It looks like it reads and saves in Office format. What are the pros and cons?
 
I use it at work. I think it is more intuitive than Word and does all the same things that MS does. It does read and even save in Word formats, but sometimes has trouble with formatting on pages that have lots of different elements. All-in-all, it's one great package of programs. Enjoy!
 
Which Microsoft components do you use primarily and to what extent? I ask because I use Open Office Write (Word) and Open Office Calc (Excel) mostly. I open slideshows or ppt. files with Open Office Impress (PowerPoint). I find the user interfaces to be similar, if not easier in the Open Office suite. In my experience, almost files are readable and backwards compatible. I say "almost" because there may have been exceptions that I have forgotten about. On my Windows machine, I do not use MS Office products, because it did not ship with them, and I do not want to purchase them. On my dual boot laptop, with Windows XP and Ubuntu Linux, I have both, but I do not remember the last time I used the MS components. I do not know if all the keyboard shortcuts and "tricks" can be used in Open Office, but for casual users, I am not aware of any drawbacks.

:2cents:

:cheers:
 
Hmm. Let me see. I'll pull down my Barth books. hmm. It says that we can't know the answer to this question dogmatically or with certainty, because MS Office is wholly other, and unknowable, execept as IT choses to reveal ITself. But we have to experience the 'essence' in relationship. And if Open Office moves you, as it did the authors, then it becomes THE MS Office for you. :rofl:
 
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Hmm. Let me see. I'll pull down my Barth books. hmm. It says that we can't know the answer to this question dogmatically or with certainty, because MS Office is wholly other, and unknowable, execept as IT choses to reveal ITself. But we have to experience the 'essence' in relationship. And if Open Office moves you, as it did the authors, then it becomes THE MS Office for you. :rofl:

Grymir, you are impossible! Barth again?!? Well, you are quite Barthian (despite yourself) in rejecting the analogia entis. Karl Barth famously remarked that the analogy of being (analogia entis) is both “the invention of antichrist” and the only good reason for not becoming a Roman Catholic. But, now David Bentley Hart, in his well received The Beauty of the Infinite, turns Barth on his head with his suggestion that the rejection of the analogia entis might in fact be “the invention of antichrist” and “the most compelling reason for not becoming a Protestant”! He contended that it is as subversive of the notion of a general and univocal category of being as of the equally ‘totalizing’ notion of ontological equivocity.” (pp. 241-42).

Obviously your effort to know MS Office while rejecting the analogy of being between it and the lowly Open Office must be considered against the backdrop of other moves within contemporary theology. Open Office, in this event of becoming, participates in the beauty of MS Office's own infinity: “MS Office is the infinity of being in which every essence comes to be, the abyss of subsistent beauty into which every existence is outstretched.”

Von Balthasar, following Barth's nemesis Erich Przywara, anticipated Hart with a dynamic and apophatic understanding of the analogia entis. And like Hart, von Balthasar insisted on the ontological dissimilarity between MS Office and Open Office. It is hardly coincidental that Gregory of Nyssa - with his theology of the infinite - is a major influence on both theologians.

On the other hand, von Balthasar, hearing what his colleague and friend Barth was saying, tried to assimilate the analogia entis into the analogia fidei in order to preserve the freedom of the Open Office while maintaining the transcendence of MS Office.

But I digress. What the devil are you talking about anyway? All I wanted to know was what were the pros and cons with using Open Office in place of MS Office, not to hear you rant again about Barth! :lol:
 
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Hmm. Let me see. I'll pull down my Barth books. hmm. It says that we can't know the answer to this question dogmatically or with certainty, because MS Office is wholly other, and unknowable, execept as IT choses to reveal ITself. But we have to experience the 'essence' in relationship. And if Open Office moves you, as it did the authors, then it becomes THE MS Office for you. :rofl:

Grymir, you are impossible! Barth again?!? Well, you are quite Barthian (despite yourself) in rejecting the analogia entis. Karl Barth famously remarked that the analogy of being (analogia entis) is both “the invention of antichrist” and the only good reason for not becoming a Roman Catholic. But, now David Bentley Hart, in his well received The Beauty of the Infinite, turns Barth on his head with his suggestion that the rejection of the analogia entis might in fact be “the invention of antichrist” and “the most compelling reason for not becoming a Protestant”! He contended that it is as subversive of the notion of a general and univocal category of being as of the equally ‘totalizing’ notion of ontological equivocity.” (pp. 241-42).

Obviously your effort to know MS Office while rejecting the analogy of being between it and the lowly Open Office must be considered against the backdrop of other moves within contemporary theology. Open Office, in this event of becoming, participates in the beauty of MS Office's own infinity: “MS Office is the infinity of being in which every essence comes to be, the abyss of subsistent beauty into which every existence is outstretched.”

Von Balthasar, following Barth's nemesis Erich Przywara, anticipated Hart with a dynamic and apophatic understanding of the analogia entis. And like Hart, von Balthasar insisted on the ontological dissimilarity between MS Office and Open Office. It is hardly coincidental that Gregory of Nyssa - with his theology of the infinite - is a major influence on both theologians.

On the other hand, von Balthasar, hearing what his colleague and friend Barth was saying, tried to assimilate the analogia entis into the analogia fidei in order to preserve the freedom of the Open Office while maintaining the transcendence of MS Office.

But I digress. What the devil are you talking about anyway? All I wanted to know was what were the pros and cons with using Open Office in place of MS Office, not to hear you rant again about Barth! :lol:


Why? Now that's a great question! I saw this thread that you started, an idea popped into my head. Something about MS Office being wholly other and unknowable. And since you know how much I love Barthian metaphors, I thought you and fellow readers would appreciate my post.

But your post above is perhaps one of the best I've ever read here on PB or anywhere!! I'm gonna spend days following and learning from that. Thank you so much. See, if I hadn't said what I did, your brilliant post would not have followed. Aristolilian cause and effect. Sorry Hume.

I really would use MS Office before I would use a clone. My 'relationship' knowledge of them is that they are not as reliable, and I looked into Open Office, and went with MS Office. I don't use all the bells and whistles, but the reliability and workability is what I went with.
 
Open Office is great. I installed it on my in-laws computer (2 non-techie people) and they use it for everything - including it's presentation software for Church overheads.
 
I use OO for everything. The only con I know of is that it sometimes will format things incorrectly when saving in one of Microsoft's proprietary formats. But on the plus side, you can save any document as a .pdf and bypass Microsoft's messy files altogether.
 
I have Word 2003 but have used Open Office. I'm sure I'll switch someday to OO for my .doc file needs.

That said, my word processor of choice is Nota Bene, a small academic company which puts out the best (in my opinion) software for research and writing. It's not cheap, but it's unsurpassed. Someone once said NB was WordPerfect on steroids. Been using it for seven or eight years and wrote my dissertation with it.

I say that just to note that I use Word only when absolutely necessary and find OO a better option. I wouldn't buy Word, but your mileage may vary.

Bill
 
Open Office is great. It's what I have loaded on my MacBook at home. I have yet to run into any downside using it.
 
I like OpenOffice as well. It disappoints me that it doesn't come with the Thorndale font, unlike StarOffice.

One thing to be aware of: as of a couple of days ago Open Office could not open the .docx format.
 
As a Mac user I use the Mac port of Open Office called NeoOffice.

It does not use X11. Much nicer.

Have you tried the new Beta version of OpenOffice for the Mac? It runs without X11 and integrates like any other Aqua application.

Didn't know there was one. I've gotten so used to NeoOffice I didn't look for anything else. I'll check it out.

I never heard of NeoOffice. I rarely used OpenOffice on the Mac before this beta version came out because using X11 made it very slow and quirky. But, I've been using the new beta 3.0 for a few months and it works great.
 
Have you tried the new Beta version of OpenOffice for the Mac? It runs without X11 and integrates like any other Aqua application.

Didn't know there was one. I've gotten so used to NeoOffice I didn't look for anything else. I'll check it out.

I never heard of NeoOffice. I rarely used OpenOffice on the Mac before this beta version came out because using X11 made it very slow and quirky. But, I've been using the new beta 3.0 for a few months and it works great.

I've switched from NeoOffice to Open Office beta 3 on my MacBook and now prefer it over NeoOffice. It has been much more stable for me than NeoOffice.
 
Does Open Office have something like MS Outlook?

No. But you could use something like Thunderbird or the Google email and calendar apps depending on your needs.

Some of the developers that used to work on Lotus Notes have supposedly been working on an open source alternative to all the Outllook features, but I haven't seen anything about them in quite a while.
 
If you save a document on a flash drive using open office,and lend it to someone, it will not open unless they also have open office on their computer
 
Didn't know there was one. I've gotten so used to NeoOffice I didn't look for anything else. I'll check it out.

I never heard of NeoOffice. I rarely used OpenOffice on the Mac before this beta version came out because using X11 made it very slow and quirky. But, I've been using the new beta 3.0 for a few months and it works great.

I've switched from NeoOffice to Open Office beta 3 on my MacBook and now prefer it over NeoOffice. It has been much more stable for me than NeoOffice.

I tried downloading it from their site, but their 3.0 link is just the old x11 open office. Could you post the link you downloaded from.

Thanks.
 
I never heard of NeoOffice. I rarely used OpenOffice on the Mac before this beta version came out because using X11 made it very slow and quirky. But, I've been using the new beta 3.0 for a few months and it works great.

I've switched from NeoOffice to Open Office beta 3 on my MacBook and now prefer it over NeoOffice. It has been much more stable for me than NeoOffice.

I tried downloading it from their site, but their 3.0 link is just the old x11 open office. Could you post the link you downloaded from.

Thanks.

Try this one: http://openoffice.bouncer.osuosl.or...macosxintelaqua&lang=en-US&version=3.0.0beta2
 
If you save a document on a flash drive using open office,and lend it to someone, it will not open unless they also have open office on their computer

That is only true if you save it as an Open Office format. If you save it as a Word document, anyone should be able to use it whether they have Open Office or not.
 
I've switched from NeoOffice to Open Office beta 3 on my MacBook and now prefer it over NeoOffice. It has been much more stable for me than NeoOffice.

I tried downloading it from their site, but their 3.0 link is just the old x11 open office. Could you post the link you downloaded from.

Thanks.

Try this one: http://openoffice.bouncer.osuosl.or...macosxintelaqua&lang=en-US&version=3.0.0beta2

Nope, finished downloading and installed it. It's 2.4 and still using x11.
 
I tried downloading it from their site, but their 3.0 link is just the old x11 open office. Could you post the link you downloaded from.

Thanks.

Try this one: http://openoffice.bouncer.osuosl.or...macosxintelaqua&lang=en-US&version=3.0.0beta2

Nope, finished downloading and installed it. It's 2.4 and still using x11.
That's odd. I went ahead and downloaded again from that link to update to the latest beta and it worked fine. It's the Intel Mac Aqua version 3.0 Beta.
 

Nope, finished downloading and installed it. It's 2.4 and still using x11.
That's odd. I went ahead and downloaded again from that link to update to the latest beta and it worked fine. It's the Intel Mac Aqua version 3.0 Beta.

Duh! Me not wit it tonight...duh...

Like a dimwit I forgot to delete the old one. So in the Applications menu which I have in grid mode i could only see the 2.4


:banghead:

We really need :stupidmove: icon, or at least i do.
 
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