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Neil McGowan
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« on: July 10, 2014, 07:55:28 pm » |
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As a confirmed user of OpenOffice, I've been somewhat irked by recent targeted advertising inviting me to "buy" MicroSoft Office.
You can apparently pay whatever you like, depending on whether you tell them you are starving in a garret, or a hedonistic plutocrat.
But here's the thing. You're not actually "buying" it. You are buying the right to USE it, for a 365-day period. So really you are just renting it. For the purchase price.
Am I perhaps being naive here - or is there any reason why anyone would want to lash-out heft sums for something to which you get no title rights whatsoever, and is merely the come-on for another whopping price in a year's time?
In any case, I only ever use wordprocessing or spreadsheets. Office can't handle PDF files in any case (and I often have to use them). The interface of MS-Word seemed so full of unnecessary bloat that I didn't look further.
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guest2
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« Reply #1 on: July 11, 2014, 01:25:48 am » |
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Gauk
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« Reply #2 on: July 11, 2014, 07:35:06 am » |
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As far as I am aware you can actually buy Microsoft Office.
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oldfezzi
Level 2
Times thanked: 1
 Offline
Posts: 38
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« Reply #3 on: July 11, 2014, 02:37:38 pm » |
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Why would ANYONE buy Microsoft Office when you can use Open Office free? It's not pirated. It's not illegal. Just a clone of MS Office offered by Apache.
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Elroel
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« Reply #4 on: July 11, 2014, 02:48:40 pm » |
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Why would ANYONE buy Microsoft Office when you can use Open Office free? It's not pirated. It's not illegal. Just a clone of MS Office offered by Apache.
There is also Libre Office. Very much like Open Office, also free to use. Both the programmes are slightly different from eachother and from MS Office. But both are free. Not everything works the same, but this is no problem after you get used to these other programmes. |
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Neil McGowan
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« Reply #5 on: July 11, 2014, 03:23:47 pm » |
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Just a clone of MS Office offered by Apache.
But with all the bloat removed, with the infantile interface torn away - and actually tested before release :) Thanks to Gerard for the Shakespearian witticism :) |
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Gauk
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« Reply #6 on: July 12, 2014, 08:38:43 am » |
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I tried Libre Office, and it made a complete hash of a complex formatted document - displayed it all wrong.
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Neil McGowan
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« Reply #7 on: July 12, 2014, 07:17:11 pm » |
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The only feature OpenOffice seems to lack when compared to MS-Word, is the ability to track historic editing/redaction/reinstatement operations by date and editor. (It is enabled in OpenOffice to a limited degree, but is not fully compatible with the level of functionality in the latest releases of MS-Word). This is quite a recondite feature - but I sometimes get asked for it in my work.
Frankly it inclines me to thinking that organisations who have up 15 authors/editors all working on the same document at once (and angrily crossing-through each others work, after leaving shirty notes) have 14 staff too many ;)
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calyptorhynchus
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« Reply #8 on: August 11, 2014, 12:04:13 pm » |
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Of course you cam always use a mac and have Office for Mac, a very well behaved and quite cheap program.
(I used NeoOffice on the mac for years (version of Open Office), but got annoyed at various bugs they never fixed. They wouldn't even allow you to notify them about bugs unless you made a donation above a certain value >:( So I switched to Microsoft)
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Jolly Roger
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« Reply #9 on: August 12, 2014, 05:33:46 am » |
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Why would ANYONE buy Microsoft Office when you can use Open Office free? It's not pirated. It's not illegal. Just a clone of MS Office offered by Apache.
I concurr completely, it will even docx files!!! |
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