UKC

Morning all,

Im just in the process of building a new PC for my daughter for doing homework - Windows 10. She's in year 9 at school and will need such things as word, excel, powerpoint etc. Ive looked at the cost of the official MS applications and they are a little eye watering and I dont want a dodgy copy on her PC.

Ive heard a few good things about AOO but wanted to see if anyone had any personal experience. Also Ive heard of NeoOffice and LibreOffice and wondered if anyone has exposure to those apps too.

I guess the main concern would be whether she could save docs in any of the above and open them in word on her school pcs for further use or even for printing.

Thanks

Richard

In reply to TheDrunkenBakers:


You sort of can but formatting is never 100%. And OpenOffice/LibreOffice is quite bloated and can crash more often than the M$ applications. TBH for the cost of them (Office Home and Student is not excessively expensive in my view) I'd just cough up.

In reply to TheDrunkenBakers:

I prefer OfficeLibre to Open Office, it's more compatible with MS Office, but it's not perfect, Tables and formatting don't always get converted as you'd hope.

Both of these will save in any format, office will also open default OfficeLibra and AOO files too, so you should have no worries. They are both great programs and work well with MS Office as long as you don't use too much formatting or the bells and whistles.

You can get an academic version of office for kids at school and university.

In reply to TheDrunkenBakers:

If you want her to spend her study time pissing about about trying to get it all to work and the formatting right then go for Openoffice/Libreoffice etc. If you want her to get on with her work go for for MS Office, it'll cost you just over a ton.

In reply to TheDrunkenBakers:
Open office is fine, don't bother giving Microsoft any more money. As others have said there can be minor issues with formatting when opening in MS, these are unlikely to be a problem for your daughter and are usually avoided by saving as a .doc rather than .docx.

In reply to TheDrunkenBakers:

I use LibreOffice and have done for yonks. LibreOffice and OpenOffice are both basically the same. Word document compatibility is fine in most cases, but it's not 100% perfect. But for normal essays and spreadsheets it's fine.

In reply to TheDrunkenBakers:

Since AOO is free, why not try it then cough up for MSoffice *if* you have to?

In reply to TheDrunkenBakers:

I have used AOO for several years and communicate with MS Office users fine. Not had any issues and you can save in all common formats.

In reply to TheDrunkenBakers:

If she is at school you should be able to get cheap educational versions of MS software. In addition check with your IT bods if there is a staff program available. Not sure exactly what criteria is used but MS do have a scheme where they offer very cheap copies to employees of some companies (think the install for my mac was about a tenner).

Going for open source. Libre Office is a better choice than Open Office since it is actively developed.

Open Office was first and was supported by Sun who amongst other things owned the name etc. However it was primarily developed by the community.
Oracle then brought Sun and managed to piss off said community in various ways. This resulted in the project being forked and LibreOffice which had the majority of the devs etc joining it.

After staggering along for a bit Oracle gave Open Office to Apache but the damage seems to have been pretty much done.

In reply to TheDrunkenBakers:

I used LibreOffice for years (since it was StarOffice), but have recently had to switch to Microsoft for work.

It's perfectly adequate, but she will need to save in Microsoft formats to get a reliable reproduction at work. You can make this the default.

I though school kids got cheap copies - a colleague's school gives each kid a 5 computer license.

In reply to TheDrunkenBakers:

You get basic versions of Word, Excel and Powerpoint for free if you sign up for a hotmail/outlook account. Have to be online to use it though.

In reply to TheDrunkenBakers:

I got away with this for years (LibreOffice). It's not quite right...

Office365 was the answer (costs a little bit, but multiple devices etc.)

In reply to Removed User:

I

This echoes my thoughts. I have open office on my machine but found it much easier when I got a work laptop with Ms Office on it. Most of the time there's no problem, but then you'll spend hours trying to translate a formula to work due to a difference in syntax, or trying to get a graph or bit of formatting to not be ridiculou or track down something from the menu. Not a problem for me but for a year 9 kid who won't have the same knowledge and more importantly pathological stubborness be ....pay more and get what she'll be used to qnd getting taught with

In reply to TheDrunkenBakers:

Thanks all. Ill see what MS Office deal I can get foir a home and student PC and probably take the plunge. I dont want her faffing when she should be reading or doing more productive stuff and as Office 2016 is out soon. I may wait for a few weeks and then get something which will last for a few years.

In reply to TheDrunkenBakers:

I've only just stopped using office 2003 at home, which was still absolutely fine until they stopped supporting it. Went onto open office for a while, and had very few compatibility issues, but work has coughed for the full fat office365 for all staff, so I'm back to that. Historically, I've had plenty of assignments done on open office, and I've never had any problems with their work deriving from that (plenty of compatibility problems, but they've been with a more fundamental piece of software between their ears )

In reply to toad:
I still install Office 2003 on our work machines because it was the last version before they changed to the horrible ribbon UI (and changed the file extensions to add an x on the end). Don't have any issues with it, and there's a free 37mb compatibility pack from M$ which lets it open/edit 'x' files.

At home LibreOffice all the way, as soon as they forked from OO after the giant clusterf*ck as KevinD explains well above. Both are the same, no issues.

In reply to TheDrunkenBakers:

Office Student Edition is only £60. Personally though I just use Google Docs. You don't have to install anything and you can export to Office standards if that is required. Or just share you work.

In reply to ByEek:

Ah, hadn't thought of that. Is it free or does it need a subscription? Does it work with office?

In reply to TheDrunkenBakers:

You just need to Google account to use Google Docs. It won't import Office documents but you can export. But if it is a case that you are just typing up essays etc to be handed in, it is more than adequate. It is also all on the cloud so if your daughter forgot her homework she could log in at school and print it off there.

Oh - and it is now called Google Drive.