OpenOffice.org Version 2.0 Reviewed

I have written several times about OpenOffice.org, the free replacement for the $400+ Microsoft Office suite of programs (Word, Excel, PowerPoint and more). I am very impressed with OpenOffice.org and am now using it more often than I use the Microsoft products. This article is being written in OpenOffice.org's word processor program. You can read my review of OpenOffice.org version 1.1, written two years ago here.

Now the prestigious PC Magazine has reviewed the beta version of OpenOffice.org 2.0. They like it so much that they awarded it four stars (out of a maximum of five) in their rating system. That's high praise indeed.

According to PC Magazine, the new version OpenOffice.org 2.0 is much faster than the earlier version and even more compatible with Word than ever before. In addition, the word processor in OpenOffice.org has several features not available at any price in Microsoft Word:

• PDF-export
• a find-and-replace feature that uses wildcards and regular expressions
• an impressive macro and scripting feature that organizes your macros in a tree-structured display
• advanced find-and-replace operations are easier to manage in OpenOffice.org Writer than in Word's confusing Find dialog

According to PC Magazine, the bottom line is, "It does most everything that typical users need it to do, and does some things better than Microsoft Office." Not bad for a free program!

You can read the full review by PC Magazine at http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1850984,00.asp

You can download OpenOffice.org at no charge at http://www.openoffice.org.

Please note that the download is a 75-megabyte file. That is easy to do on a broadband connection. However, anyone using a dial-up connection may prefer to purchase a CD-ROM of the program for $5.00 or so. Details on CD-ROM sales in a number of countries can be found at http://distribution.openoffice.org/cdrom/index.html#cdrom

Comments

[Dino (All Dino, All the Time)]

Dick,

I'm a little confused about the reference to "Word's confusing Find dialog." Have you used this feature? When you get into the Find dialogue, there is a place to enter the text you want found and a button to press that says "Find Next". What's confusing about this? Also, Word does have a wildcard find capability. When in Find, just click on the More... button.

I'm glad to see that OpenOffice is making strides to compete with MS Office, especially since it's free. Also, I'm glad to see that OpenOffice can seamlessly open an save files in the Microsoft "proprietary" file format.

To be fair to your readers you should have also included the sentence or two about OpenOffice shortcomings: "But the program can't do everything that the MS Office suite can do. There's no online collaboration or Smart Tags, for example, no grammar checking, and no highly flexible outlining, smart table formatting, or research task pane."

I hate Smart Tags and don't use the collaboration tools, but extensively use the outlining and grammer checker so those would be drawbacks for me. Maybe by the time I'm ready for my next PC, OO will be up to 3.0 and be able to go head-to-head with MS Office!

[Dick Eastman]

"Word's confusing Find dialog" is a quote from the article that I referenced. In my mind, Word's Find dialog is overly simplistic. OpenOffice.org is better at finding text, especially when you use wildcards or other search expressions (which Word cannot handle). OpenOffice.org has an long list of possible search expressions.

- Dick

[kaliro 7]

Dear Dr Eastman:

I remember your messages at International School of Ministry. I would like to obtain more messages from you as they have greatly encouraged my heart. If there is anything such as books, magazines, and other materials for ministry, prayer books, please send it to me through Box 42 Kamuli, Uganda, East Africa. Thank you very much for your attention to this matter.

[Dick Eastman]

I think you have me confused with Dr. Dick Eastman, a minister in Colorado. That is not me, although we share the same name.

[Russell]

The most interesting thing to me about 2.0 is that it includes "Base", a database program. Access is nice, but it's only available on the more expensive versions of MS Office. Perhaps with Base being free we'll see more database projects start up.