cfurtick

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As the title suggests, I was wondering if anyone has tried openoffice. If so have you had any compatibility issues with Microsoft programs etc.

elfoozo

Well yeah... It's not as "drop in" replacement as many claim. I suspect many people making these claims that OO will import MSO files have not done anything too advanced in MSO.

For example...

Anything beyond basic word processing done in MS Word that's imported to OO will not import 1 for 1. Forget about using macros.

Expect many of your formulas done in Excel to not carry over smoothly, if at all.

Imported Power point presentations will be.... weird.

Fonts will not appear the same which will cause your formatting to be all over the place.

And you won't find an MS Access replacement.

I'm sure it will get better as they continue to devlop it. And if you're not trying to bring forward MS Office files, it should do many of the basic office tasks just fine.

cfurtick

I need a program that will create Powerpoint slides so I can email them for a company I am working with. If I build a slide in OpenOffice will it appear identical when opened by power point?

elfoozo

The short answer: No.

The little longer answer: It depends.
How the presentation is formatted will have a lot to do with how it "presents" when they open it on MS Powerpoint. My experience has been that things like fonts, anchors, etc. don't translate exactly proper from OO to MS Office. There's much that is close, but they're still only at version 1.x with OO and it shows in a lot of areas.

Bottom line:
If you need a program that will give you Microsoft Powerpoint compatibility, then use Microsoft Powerpoint. Anything else and you're just setting yourself up for failure.

But don't take my word for it. OO is a free download. Go pull it down, install it on your PC and test for yourself. It might work for what you're creating..... It might not.... Your mileage may vary.

JT55

nah