Mick_rw
Registered user
Has anybody upgrade from Office XP to Office 2003, if so your comments please.... Is it worth the expense.....
Cheers
Mick
Cheers
Mick
Office 2003
- Thread starter Mick_rw
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Cheesy Mike
Guest
http://openoffice.org - free or StarOffice for around £50 are both excellent office packages. Both are essentially the same software and the latest versions of either are worth investigating.
So is the upgrade from Office XP to 2003 worth it? No.
Mike
So is the upgrade from Office XP to 2003 worth it? No.
Mike
Mick_rw
Registered user
Cheers Mike...
As it happens have a copy of Office 2003(Legal), at no cost, so expense is not a problem, as to openoffice, have always been uncertain of some one who gives something for nothing, whats the catch?.
Dont want to install Office 2003 if it turns out to be a load of rubbish compared to Office XP
Mick
mikebelch said:
As it happens have a copy of Office 2003(Legal), at no cost, so expense is not a problem, as to openoffice, have always been uncertain of some one who gives something for nothing, whats the catch?.
Dont want to install Office 2003 if it turns out to be a load of rubbish compared to Office XP
Mick
richie
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I have tried openoffice and if what you need is wordprocessing and spreadsheets it is absolutly fine. By the way I teach office programs for a living so I have office XP installed and will keep it. But if I did not teach it for a living openoffice would be my choice.
My tuppence worth...
My tuppence worth...
Banjaxed
Registered user
Worth it?
Depends what you need. Word and Excel haven't changed much - PowerPoint has a few handy improvements, Outlook has changed quite a bit. If you're tempted, try the Student/Teacher version for about £100. Same as the regular ... only cheaper!
Depends what you need. Word and Excel haven't changed much - PowerPoint has a few handy improvements, Outlook has changed quite a bit. If you're tempted, try the Student/Teacher version for about £100. Same as the regular ... only cheaper!
Cheesy Mike
Guest
Re: Cheers Mike...
Openoffice is the freeware version of Sun Microsystems' StarOffice program. Sun bought Star Division, a German company, a few years back to get a program (StarOffice) that would give Microsoft a good slapping. The program was pretty ropey but Sun declared immediately it would give away this ropey version for free. Then it ploughed millions of dollars into producing a new version - StarOffice 6 - that would really hurt Microsoft. When this was ready Sun decided that it would now start to charge for StarOffice - around £50 - but it would also make the source code available to the open source community and so it setup the Open Office foundation.
What's in it for Sun? Kudos from the open source community. A huge community of developers who add features to OpenOffice which then in turn appear in Sun's commercial version (and vice versa where Sun's new features are released into OpenOffice). Sun does sell a lot of StarOffice.
StarOffice/OpenOffice reads and writes all Microsoft Office files. About the only thing it won't do is run Visual Basic macros, but it does have its own macro language if that is your thing.
So why would you buy the commercial StarOffice version if you can also get pretty much the same thing for free? Well with StarOffice you get commercial support whereas with OpenOffice you rely on Internet forums and the OpenOffice website. Having said that OpenOffice support is pretty good and bugs are fixed quite quickly. If it were my hard earned money being spent I'd choose the OpenOffice version. As it happens I run StarOffice on my kids Windows XP PC and on my Linux laptop because I work for Sun and get the software by default.
Mike
Mick_rw said:
Openoffice is the freeware version of Sun Microsystems' StarOffice program. Sun bought Star Division, a German company, a few years back to get a program (StarOffice) that would give Microsoft a good slapping. The program was pretty ropey but Sun declared immediately it would give away this ropey version for free. Then it ploughed millions of dollars into producing a new version - StarOffice 6 - that would really hurt Microsoft. When this was ready Sun decided that it would now start to charge for StarOffice - around £50 - but it would also make the source code available to the open source community and so it setup the Open Office foundation.
What's in it for Sun? Kudos from the open source community. A huge community of developers who add features to OpenOffice which then in turn appear in Sun's commercial version (and vice versa where Sun's new features are released into OpenOffice). Sun does sell a lot of StarOffice.
StarOffice/OpenOffice reads and writes all Microsoft Office files. About the only thing it won't do is run Visual Basic macros, but it does have its own macro language if that is your thing.
So why would you buy the commercial StarOffice version if you can also get pretty much the same thing for free? Well with StarOffice you get commercial support whereas with OpenOffice you rely on Internet forums and the OpenOffice website. Having said that OpenOffice support is pretty good and bugs are fixed quite quickly. If it were my hard earned money being spent I'd choose the OpenOffice version. As it happens I run StarOffice on my kids Windows XP PC and on my Linux laptop because I work for Sun and get the software by default.
Mike
Mick_rw
Registered user
Cheers..
for that Mike, what did you say you did for work, sales.....LOL.
Will give it a go, though I use Access a lot will it be as good.
Mick
for that Mike, what did you say you did for work, sales.....LOL.
Will give it a go, though I use Access a lot will it be as good.
Mick
needlongerlegs
Registered user
Office Pro 2003 Test Pilot not crashed yet.
Been using it since launch got it free from MS for being such a good boy LOL no problems as yet; Outlook is some how nicer and more intuitive give it it a go.
Word a bit to pushy and loves flitting off to the web for things, Excel and Access cool no problems as yet but I'm not a power user of Access.
Regards
Graham..
PS Nothing is "Free" and I've experienced problems with the compatibility of files created in Open Office ~ MS Office in the past but saying that I've had the same between ver's of Office to a lesser extent.
Been using it since launch got it free from MS for being such a good boy LOL no problems as yet; Outlook is some how nicer and more intuitive give it it a go.
Word a bit to pushy and loves flitting off to the web for things, Excel and Access cool no problems as yet but I'm not a power user of Access.
Regards
Graham..
PS Nothing is "Free" and I've experienced problems with the compatibility of files created in Open Office ~ MS Office in the past but saying that I've had the same between ver's of Office to a lesser extent.
Personally, any product that competes with Micro$oft is my choice, and OpenOffice is very good. Compared with MS, it has far less bugs. Yes, there are compatibility problems, but then if more people get OpenOffice, then there will not be any..
Mick_rw
Registered user
Thanks .....
for the replies, have decided to give Office 2003 a go and see what its like.
Mick
for the replies, have decided to give Office 2003 a go and see what its like.
Mick
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