Is OpenOffice inferrior in any way to MS Office?

Answer 1

Sorry for my English :)Short answer - the interface, *IF* you are not used to it.

Long answer, considering you as a intelligent being: (I won't comment the price, of course)That's a very, very delicate question. I myself answered it a loooot of times to a looot of people. They both are programs with similar purpose. I use both of them in a daily base and I think the answer is "NO", it's not "inferior". But it's not "superior", too. They're just different. They both are better or worse based on the characteristics the job you need done.

http:/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_office_suites

Yes, both of them have strong and weak points. MS Office has a lot of bells and twinkles and is easier to use, but is a way too cumbersome or too difficult or too architecturally bad to do some things done. MS Office has the better interface (I think so) and lots of marketing :) - I like MS Office to do little jobs and files that I wouldn't care to lose. I use OpenOffice to professional work (note: I'm not a designer) and files that I know I want to keep for a long time. The times I need a LOT of resources to do text editing I use a borrowed WordPerfect (a legal copy, ou course). Yet more professional and styled jobs? Call a designer and use InDesign :)

I use Excel since 1992 and Word since 1989 and in that 20 years I've seen A LOT of people lose their documents, or the files became corrupted... The internal organization of MS Office formats are a real mess, so I don't and I won't trust my important works to that suite ;)

I'm not trying to create any flamewars or trolling, that's just my reality. I have more than 10 000 documents in my computer, some are 18 years old and I can open and edit and index all of them. Be careful with the important things. I prefer a long term relationship.If I need real security or a more professional way to organize my documents across a enterprise, I usually choose OpenOffice. MS Office is locked to Windows and the Mac version is always late, so if I need to generate documents to be read on different operating systems I again choose OpenOffice. At the college (more than 10 years ago) I've used TeX (don't remember the editor) and WordPerfect and I can still today see and print the files exactly as they was at that time. Sorry MS Office, I tried for years to learn and like you as other people do, but your fancy interface with that ugly inners just got me away - but that's my thuth and not everyone's.

I know people who have only used OpenOffice and think MS Office way to work is "different", for a number of reasons, and wouldn't like to change.

I too know people who have only used MS Office and think OpenOffice way to work is "different", for another number of reasons, and wouldn't like to change, too.

And I know some people who use none of them - users of WordPerfect Office, KOffice/GnomeOffice, iWork, LyX (yes they exist and believe me, in this respect they are the happiest people I know), Google Docs, EasyOffice, Scribus...

People who uses some system (in daily base) usually hate to change their way to do the things, or the way they get their job done -- "Hey, the program can't do this and that!" "No granny, it does, look here and here." "Hummmpf, why can't be equal?". That's inertia, and the number one reason to criticism of other programs.

Be careful of "advocates" (i.e. "fanatics") of the systems, they "owns all the truth and know everything", usually have a twisted look of all the other programs. They do a very very big disservice to other people, by imposing their ideas.

So, the answer is... "DEPENDS". Use both systems. Try other ones. Think about them. Study their strong and weak points and not only the look and feel. If you've tried and tried and aren't happy with something, change. And be happy with your choices :)

Answer 2

They are broadly similar in that they both have programs for most of the same tasks, and OpenOffice programs have an interface similar to that of older versions of Office programs.