Webbers Corner

Yes I have use OpenOffice. It surprises me that it is FREE and still many don't have any idea about this great piece of software. Other than few advanced users who work in VBA Macro levels, OpenOffice is simply great.

I myself personally have tried openoffice.and I like the stuff you have to pay for better.I don't think it's because the stuff you have to pay for is better, it's just a psychological thing I guess.

The problem is you often have to have the same software as your clients.

If he sends you a Word document you have to be able to open it, edit it and send it back in a form he can process.

I know Open Office reads Word files but does it edit them so that when sent back to someone with Word, he can read and edit it again?

You will be supprised as to how many people don't have a pdf reader.

I think most people should have a pdf reader.

no, but i am sure it will be out considering Microsoft is right now refusing to give adobe the codes to make the Vista program because they want to create their own flash and reader program (they did have those before, but they sucked so reinvent them).

those microsoft bastards

Why can't they just accept the fact that Adobe does some things better than they do

The best pdf reader is Foxit PDF Reader, which is very light and loads very very fast, much better than Adobe's Reader. if you have a very fast pc i might nog mattter, but try it to run on a slow pc. foxit reader takes a few seconds to load, adobe acrobat reader a few hours :p. (i know there are also tools which can make adobe reader run faster) but foxit still runs faster.

to be a bit on topic.
i would suggest OpenOffice Writer, i have also Word (2000) installed and i think OO Writer is better (comparing to Word 2000), office xp might be better i dunno. but OO programs do loads slower than MS Office software though, cus it's run on a platform.

before OpenOffice there was abiword which was a popular alternative, i've never used it but i heard a lot of it before openoffice became popular.

i think you will find it is Preview on Mac's which i am sure is lighter and alot faster

Yes, you can create and edit Microsoft Word files for all versions of Word, as well as a ton of other formats. It's also cross platform (Windows, Mac, and Linux) which is a huge plus if you bounce around a lot.

I have no problem with MS Office, I just hate buying new versions of software every 3 years -- for anything. OO is continually updated so you only have to get it once. The perpetual beta = web 2.0

M.I.T. uses openoffice exclusively now. Not that that really means anything, but I thought it was interesting.