Upgrading Word/Excel

[Bad Paper]

OpenOffice 3 beta was released yesterday. Try it if you like. They're gearing up for release by September. http://marketing.openoffice.org/3.0/announcementbeta.html

 

[Master of the Game]

Too bad I don't have a student email address anymore. Microsoft is giving away the ultimate edition for $60 to students.

 

[Knightfall]

Instead of paying for the latest Office suite (some versions of which cost up to $700, but cheaper versions are available), have you considered the newest version of OpenOffice.org? The 2.4 version came out recently and is free. That might be more in a budget range.

QFT!

I've switched to Open Office and I'm never going back!

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

Glad to see you're checking out open office. I've been using it since v1.15 and never had a problem. I've published entire novels using Open Office and edited works longer than the Illiad or Odyssey. It has all the functions you're used to in the Microsoft suite without the irritations of an MS product.

 

[reanjr]

I know it's fashionable to hate on MS, and I do wish that the open source versions were as good, or better. However, MS does have a good thing with Excel and Powerpoint. Great? Maybe not, there's definitely room for improvement. It's miles above OO though.

GNOME Office is a much better alternative to MS Office than Open Office for many people. It supports all but the most advanced features (pivot tables would be nice) of Excel (and in fact, it's math is waaay more accurate). It's interface is nice and clean. Good visual compatibility when using MS Office format. Supports reading the latest MS Office formats (docx and xlsx).

It doesn't have a PowerPoint equivalent, though.

I think it surpasses MS Office for the casual user.

 

[Thanee]

Too bad I don't have a student email address anymore. Microsoft is giving away the ultimate edition for $60 to students.

That's a pretty good deal for students for sure; only available in the US, though.

Bye
Thanee

 

[andargor]

I have 2003 at home and 2007 at work. I hate 2007 because I'm always looking for stuff in the Ribbons.

I installed this free add-on that gives me the classic UI in 2007 though a ribbon control:

http://pschmid.net/office2007/ribboncustomizer/starter.php

 

[Graybeard]

I have Office 97 and 2007 at home. At work, I have used Office 97 or 2003. In my experience, Office 2003 is fairly easy to use and I had very little trouble getting used to it after using Office 97 for many years. as for Office 2007, it's okay. The biggest thing you need to remember is to save the file in a backward compatible format. I discovered that after sending files to friends and potential employers and they weren't able to open them. Plus, the 2007 version of Excel gives me all kinds of run time errors from time to time which I don't get with other versions when I run the same spreadsheets.

 

[LightPhoenix]

GNOME Office is a much better alternative to MS Office than Open Office for many people. It supports all but the most advanced features (pivot tables would be nice) of Excel (and in fact, it's math is waaay more accurate). It's interface is nice and clean. Good visual compatibility when using MS Office format. Supports reading the latest MS Office formats (docx and xlsx).

I'll have to check out the Excel part then! Thanks!