William Anderson wrote: > Rob Beard wrote: > >> Sean Miller wrote: >> >>> I concur... Openoffice is bloatware of the highest order. >>> >>> If I could be bothered to get an older version of Office working on >>> wine I would - but I don't use office suites enough to do so. >>> >>> It's a shame, really, that Sun decided to go down the bloated route, >>> because the early versions of Openoffice were really quite pleasant to >>> use; I dread to click on a ".doc" attachment in an e-mail because I >>> know the machine will whirr and click for ages before I actually get >>> to see it. >>> >>> Sean >>> >> >> I'd have to disagree on this one. I've just opened a spreadsheet (one >> of my invoices) in OpenOffice. I'm running my notebook in low power >> mode (1GHz) to save battery and it took 5 seconds from a cold start. >> I'd hardly say that is ages. There are tweaks that you can do to >> OpenOffice to speed it up such as altering the memory usage [1]. >> > > You really shouldn't have to tweak a productivity app in such a way to > make it usable, IMHO. Granted it took 12 seconds for Word to open up on > my Mac when I tried it there, but at least I know I'll enjoy using it :) > > Actually I haven't done the tweaks on my laptop. >> Now compare that to Office 2007 on one of my clients notebooks running >> Vista, it takes a good 30 or so seconds to start up. >> >> Not to mention, when did this become an OpenOffice bashing Mac loving >> mailing list? >> > > Did it? My main computer is a MacBook Pro, my media server is a Mac > mini, so I usually speak to my own personal experiences. However, all > my servers[1] run Ubuntu Server LTS, and in the past I've run a gamut of > desktop OSes including all versions of Windows (bar Me) and most recent > versions of Ubuntu. In all cases, I've rarely enjoyed using OOo, and I > shared Sean's dread when opening documents that wanted to use OOo due to > the grindage and carnage that would ensue. > > Note that I'm not saying everyone should use MS Office over OOo, just > that I have a personal preference, and I think that everyone should try > and use the best tool for the job within the bounds of their preferences. > > I just got the general impression that you were saying that Macs were the the be all and end all, guess I read it wrong. You're lucky not to have used Me, I had the annoying task of supporting it once, wasn't fun at all :-( >> I have got a Mac myself (albeit older iMac G3) and I have used Macs for >> many years (going back to the old 68k Macs on System 6) but I find >> sometimes doing things on a Mac can be just as annoying as doing stuff >> on Windows (or in some cases as doing things on Linux). I guess really >> > > Odd, I rarely find using my Macs annoying. I've spent more years > cursing at Windows than I ever have at OS X or [insert Linux distro here]. > > I dare say if I used my Mac more I probably wouldn't find it as annoying. I must admit I did find some features useful, but not enough to stray me away from Ubuntu full time. >> it's what you're used to. For instance I'm used to a lot of keyboard >> shortcuts and generally the shortcuts are the same on Windows and Ubuntu >> (for most applications), now going to a Mac I find that rather than >> using CTRL I have to use the Option key. Not a big thing really but I >> do find it annoying sometimes. I dare say it can be annoying for a Mac >> user to go to a Windows or Linux box and find that some things aren't >> Mac like. >> > > Indeed. > > >> With regards too William's comment about OpenOffice not being a native >> app. As far as I'm aware OpenOffice 3.1 IS a native app for OS X on >> Intel CPUs, and there is also NeoOffice (which IIRC is a native build of >> OpenOffice on both OS X Intel and OS X PPC). >> > > Sorry, my "natively" comment was referring to the UI, which has always > seemed to me to be more interested in appearing the same across all > platforms (which never works) than appearing attractive and highly > usable on each platform so that it plays to each's strengths. Just a > pet hate. > > Fair enough. >> With regards to MS Office 2008 being prettier than OpenOffice, remember >> this, the cheapest version of Office 2008 is the Home & Student version >> > > Yup, that's the version I have. > > >> which is about £70 (doing a quick google check), and how much is >> > > Yeah, I got the 3-user edition from amazon for a shade under 80 quid. > And for me, that was money well spent. YMMV, naturally. > > I do admit, if you're after MS Office then it is an attractive offer. I am hoping that they do the same with Windows 7 as my other half can't get on with Ubuntu (she can use it, just doesn't like it) so I'm looking at upgrading her laptop and PC to Windows 7 (although that might annoy her even more). >> OpenOffice? - FREE! >> > > Free to obtain, certainly, but the cost of someone's time to figure out > the differences or possible shortcomings of OOo against MS Office could > be expensive. > > 90% of the people I've given copies of OpenOffice to have not had any problems, the other 10% needed some specific features of Office which they couldn't live without. >> There is nothing stopping anyone picking up the code for OpenOffice and >> contributing to make it look better and work better and it's not as if >> > > This is another attitude within the FLOSS community that irks me :) Not > everyone is a coder! > > True, but you could also provide feedback (okay if the developers take it on board is another thing). >> you get it shoved down your throat like you do with Office 2007 on a new >> machine (I've lost count of the amount of Windows PCs I've seen with >> Office 2007 trial preinstalled which can only be used about 20 times >> before it disables itself and turns into a bloated Office viewer). >> > > "Shoved down your throat", right. See, this is what I'm talking about. > Not your comment, but the practice of shoving things down people's > throats when they didn't ask for them, such as recommending OOo when the > OP wanted help with MS Office. > > I did actually reply separately offering the OP some suggestions such as how to simulate a reboot in Wine and mentioned CrossOver Office. > Apologies to Mike if his comments were well-intentioned, which I have no > doubt they were, but comments like "why aren't you using $FOO" when the > question was "can someone help me with $BAR" just drive me nuts sometimes. > > Yeah I can see your point. >> Don't get me started on the install sizes [2] (about 1.7GB for a full >> install of Office 2007 and about 400MB for OpenOffice.org) >> > > 2008 is about a gig here. I agree that for something you'd use to > create a spreadsheet or type up a letter, that's insane. For reference, > iWork '09 is 650 meg. > > Makes me wonder exactly what Microsoft have put in there. Maybe I'm just a bit cynical, I remember when Word came on a couple of floppies and did just as good a job. >> Now I'll be the first to admit that OpenOffice isn't perfect but it is >> enough for most people and works pretty well (apart from a couple of >> niggly bugs, but you can report bugs and track them online) and compared >> to the cost of Office 2007, you won't see me switching in a hurry. >> > > Then at least you've saved 70-odd quid :) > > Yep, every little helps. > -n > > [1] 4 here at home, 1 at my parents, and various bits and bobs out in > colo and virtual server land. > > Rob
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