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Best MS-Office open-source alternative?

Posted on 09/23/2013 2:29:33 AM PDT by djf

I am running a very, very, very old version of MS-Office, as in like the first version!

I am curious about people who have tried some of the open-source newer versions of Office compatible software. My OS is still XP SP3 with all the fixes.

Recommendations? Horror stories?

I have a second laptop I can try suggestions on without losing anything.

Thanks in advance!


TOPICS: Computers/Internet; Hobbies
KEYWORDS: msoffice
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1 posted on 09/23/2013 2:29:33 AM PDT by djf
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To: djf

LibreOffice is the top choice I think. It is free and easy.


2 posted on 09/23/2013 2:31:05 AM PDT by GeronL
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To: djf

mark for later


3 posted on 09/23/2013 2:31:05 AM PDT by Cvengr (Adversity in life and death is inevitable. Thru faith in Christ, stress is optional.)
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To: djf

Libreoffice works pretty good in my experience. http://www.libreoffice.org/


4 posted on 09/23/2013 2:31:44 AM PDT by markomalley (Nothing emboldens the wicked so greatly as the lack of courage on the part of the good -- Leo XIII)
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To: djf

OpenOffice 3.


5 posted on 09/23/2013 2:33:11 AM PDT by Darksheare (Try my coffee, first one's free..... Even robots will kill for it!)
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To: markomalley; GeronL

Thanks. I’ll listen to all suggestions!

But I should add I hope I can stay as far away as possible from Javacrypt and all the Flash junk!

Thanks again! Big download?


6 posted on 09/23/2013 2:34:27 AM PDT by djf (Global warming is turning out to be a bunch of hot air!!)
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To: Darksheare

Open Office/Libre Office are basically the same thing, I don’t even know what the reason was for the split.


7 posted on 09/23/2013 2:34:44 AM PDT by GeronL
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To: djf

Not so big really. Not as bloated as the new MS Office (although it doesn’t do the forms you fill out on the spot like the newer MS Office does, which means college students might require MS Office these days)


8 posted on 09/23/2013 2:36:34 AM PDT by GeronL
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To: GeronL

Last thing I want is bloat. Wasn’t till earlier today I found out about the little Firefox PDF glitch, because last night I was trying to open a ten meg PDF.

Firefox has built into the later versions a (non-functioning) PDF previewer.

Turn that sucker off and FF runs faster. All the time, not just when you are trying to view a PDF.


9 posted on 09/23/2013 2:39:50 AM PDT by djf (Global warming is turning out to be a bunch of hot air!!)
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To: djf
But I should add I hope I can stay as far away as possible from Javacrypt and all the Flash junk!

Thanks again! Big download?

For Debian Linux, it's 183MB (with about 1.5GB of disk space required). I'm not sure for Windows, but it shouldn't be that much different.

Note: you will need to have JRE installed for some of the functionality.

10 posted on 09/23/2013 2:40:06 AM PDT by markomalley (Nothing emboldens the wicked so greatly as the lack of courage on the part of the good -- Leo XIII)
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To: djf

Ubuntu 12.04 is very stable. If you have an older computer and just want to surf the web and write in Open/Libre Office it is easy and friendly.

Linux doesn’t have the games that Windows has, but it has a few that drive me nuts. lol.


11 posted on 09/23/2013 2:43:43 AM PDT by GeronL
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To: GeronL

Butthurt in the program team.
Someone wanted something called “x” and it got called “d” instead.
Nerdraaaaage in the program room!
At least, that is a fairly likely scenario.


12 posted on 09/23/2013 2:45:59 AM PDT by Darksheare (Try my coffee, first one's free..... Even robots will kill for it!)
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To: GeronL
I don’t even know what the reason was for the split.

O-O was originally "Star Office" -- supported by Sun. When Sun was bought by Oracle, they forked Libre Office off, because the developers didn't want to deal with a proprietary system (like Oracle has done in the past with other things).

Also, O-O had gotten massively bloated by 2011. The Document Foundation folks went back and re-engineered the code to get rid of the bloat (when they came out with v3.5).

As it stands, Oracle dropped Open Office and it was picked up by Apache. I haven't messed with Open Office for a couple of years, but I read that the Apache team went and fixed O-O quite a bit since taking it over (but don't know that first hand).

13 posted on 09/23/2013 2:46:06 AM PDT by markomalley (Nothing emboldens the wicked so greatly as the lack of courage on the part of the good -- Leo XIII)
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To: markomalley

Didn’t Star Office the proprietary version allow the user to create java (or something) animation very easily?

Which they obviously did not allow to go open source.


14 posted on 09/23/2013 2:50:17 AM PDT by GeronL
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To: markomalley

Which do you recommend? 4.0 is available, but I started downloading 3.41

I been doing software for near 40 years, and never cared for being on the bleeding edge...

;-)


15 posted on 09/23/2013 2:50:54 AM PDT by djf (Global warming is turning out to be a bunch of hot air!!)
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To: Darksheare

civil war in the Office. lol


16 posted on 09/23/2013 2:51:15 AM PDT by GeronL
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To: djf

I don’t have a computer or a smart phone so I really can’t help. I do all my posting from a touch tone phone on a land line.


17 posted on 09/23/2013 2:51:22 AM PDT by Conspiracy Guy (What's the frequency, Kenneth?)
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To: djf

I have Libre Office 3, I have no issue at all with it


18 posted on 09/23/2013 2:52:07 AM PDT by GeronL
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To: djf

I would definitely do >3.5 (they made some major changes in 3.5 that cleaned it up a lot).

I agree that I would hold off on downloading 4.1 for the time being.


19 posted on 09/23/2013 2:56:38 AM PDT by markomalley (Nothing emboldens the wicked so greatly as the lack of courage on the part of the good -- Leo XIII)
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To: djf

If you don’t have it, here’s a link to the legacy versions: http://sourceforge.net/projects/libreoffice.mirror/files/?source=navbar


20 posted on 09/23/2013 2:59:03 AM PDT by markomalley (Nothing emboldens the wicked so greatly as the lack of courage on the part of the good -- Leo XIII)
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