Forum Moderators: open
Regards,
(a MS Word hater - but I think Excel is a v.good product)
Most companies don't have the resources to run high RAM fast processor machines for secretarial and admin staff. Without a modern high-street spec machine the experienced office user will find it unproductive due to the speed issues.
Leo
And no paper-clip critter.
No speed problems I've seen, at least no slower than MS.
The only downside is being an open source proggie, it does require you get your hands dirty at times. I still have difficulties getting database documents to import and open correctly, there's some fiddling you have to do with drivers, etc. But overall, you simply cannot beat the price and it does indeed view and operate on most MS docs.
2.0 is a really nice looking product. By the way, one reason MS office is seen as 'fast' whereas openoffice is seen as 'slow' is that Windows starts up some components of office on boot, like it does with IE.
You are quite right. However, that doesn't change the end result that you can take a minute or even much more to open a file on a system that would have taken seconds with the microsoft edition.
I have the same issue with Opera. I love it but it takes too long to load.
Word took about 1-2 seconds.
If those 5 seconds are going to have a significant impact on the quality of your life, then you definitely will need to use MS Word. For the rest of us, who can spare that 5 second difference, it's fine. By the way, OOo also seems to be installing a preloader, which may account for the difference between the 30 seconds reported and the time it took me to open it, I can't remember if that was an option on install or not.
Oh, just as an aside, I was working with a 5 mB text file, took about 30 seconds to open on windows in my text editor, 1.5 gighz machine, took about 2 seconds, or less, to open on linux with Kate on a 1 gigahertz machine, that linux also starts faster than my windows on the faster box, and every program I had open when I shut down opens on the restart with the files I was working on also open, each program assigned to it's own desktop workspace, which I can move between with my mousewheel, so I guess y'all will be switching to linux sooon since time is that important?
[edited by: 2by4 at 9:16 pm (utc) on Mar. 23, 2005]
lawman
<snip>
[edited by: lawman at 9:46 pm (utc) on Mar. 23, 2005]
[edit reason] See Your Sticky Mail [/edit]
The file I was thinking of specifically is an incomplete thesis with embedded excel files which requires frequent use for editing and updating. The hardware is an AMD 500MHz processor with 128Mb RAM.
First it turned out that the PowerPoint equivalent was not equivalent enough, so we said that we stick with PP for the handful of people who really need it - the others get the free PP projector software.
Next we found out that the Excel equivalent functions were not equivalent enough to allow to share files safely. In order to maintain compatibility with external partners (both for sending them OO-spreadsheets as well as receiving their Excel spreadsheets), we decided to stick with Excel.
At that point, the cost benefit was barely given anymore since the MS-bundles are cheaper than individual products. However the overhead for internal support increased significantly for those still trying to move Excle/OO or PowerPoint/OO documents around, and especially for those trying to convert Word documents to RTF.
So a few weeks ago we cancelled the project. And - no - we are not MS-Lovers as such. More the contrary.
Not enough RAM I'd say, but something that complex I wouldn't try to run on OOo I think. Does it actually work as an import? That's the new OOo 1.9 beta release that is.
pmkpmk, I definitely agree version 1.x wasn't up to what I'd consider acceptable, 2.0 is better. Improved presentation, improved writer, significantly improved. Of course, how many of you have tried importing a native OOo formatted file into Office? Good luck.
If I ran a big network, I'd take a very close look at what users need, then switch over the usergroups that don't need the full Office functionality to OOo, either the 2.x release once out of beta, or maybe I'd wait for 3x, hard to say.
Just a matter of extracting that MS syringe from your bodies at some point, withdrawal is hard. I like how Novell did it, they switched 80% or so of users to OOo/Firefox/Tbird, then switched about 50% of their users to Linux, transition was supposed to be fairly simple, a few hours per person in training, just to show them the file system etc. German national railroad is switching over too.
At some point MS will be forced to be a little bit better of a playmate with the other kids in the schoolyard, but since Bill spent his teens sleeping with his school's old computer, I think he missed out on that lesson.
I switched to OO on Windows in my business for 6 months as an intro to converting to linux. I experienced on very minimal differences, and no real issues. I've used it on linux now for over a year now without difficulty.I regularly exchange documents and spreadsheets with corporate customers without difficulty. And the powerpoint presentations from the guys in marketing run no problem.
On the downside, here's a complete list of what I've found to be issues:
- spreadsheet maxes at 32K lines instead of 64K like excel.
- I had one word document that didn't import the layout perfectly. It was a complex brochure with tables, columns and images.
- not an issue I've had, but the macros are not convertible. 'course most office users don't use macros. And it's only an issue because it's different. I don't know if it's better or worse.
- There's some sort of weird difference in the way the two suites treat a blank line as either blank or null. I noticed in a web program we use that parses spreadsheets.
(*)Note - these are the -only- issues I've had in the years I've used oo exclusively in an regular office environment. And none of them are really issues. I've never had a problem with 'can't do that'.
on the upside:
- out of the box, one button 'convert to pdf'. Niiiiice. Particularly for web folks.
- $0
- I find the OO file menu a bit more intuitive.Not much, just a bit.
If you're a power macro user, oo is not the suite for you. If you're a regular office user, doesn't cost anything to try it. You should find that the interface is pretty obvious - I wouldn't expect any sort of real learning curve in the transition. Other than that nice 'pdf' button :).
- spreadsheet maxes at 32K lines instead of 64K like excel. --
Now supports 64k
- I had one word document that didn't import the layout perfectly. It was a complex brochure with tables, columns and images. --
Nested tables were not supported, they are now. That's the first thing I tested, perfect. I think this is going to be one of the things that makes 2.0 start really taking off.
- not an issue I've had, but the macros are not convertible. 'course most office users don't use macros. And it's only an issue because it's different. I don't know if it's better or worse. --
It's hard to convert from vba to some other language, that will always be a problem, more an argument to just commit fully to either OOo or Office on a per user basis, I've never seen an admin assistant use macros, but there's a lot out there I know.
-- And none of them are really issues. I've never had a problem with 'can't do that'. --
2.0 is pretty nice, if what you've checked out is 1.x, then give 2.0 a try and see if it meets your needs, if it doesn't, no one is forcing anyone to switch, but when you start looking at the costs for a small company to give their basic office staff an office suite, at something like 300 + per Office install, which has features 99% of users will never use, OOo I think is going to start looking more and more attractive.
And of course, if an office starts off with that, no conversion, macro, etc problems.
