Open Office

[Chris Knight]

I have just been playing about a bit with the latest offering from Open Office.org

http://www.openoffice.org/about_us/introduction.html It is looking very good indeed. Only 75MB for the equivalent of MS Office Pro and all for the princely sum of nothing.

Open Office Writer looks as close as it can get to MS Word without having its pants sued off and it works beautifully. For the 99% of us who don't use 100% of MS Word's capabilities it will do more than we are ever likely to want.

If you have followed the tie up between Sun and Google, I reckon we have some great things to look forward to.

 

[Gill]

Thanks very much for this link, Chris . I've been using MS Office 97 for years and it's served my purposes admirably. However, this package is far superior, especially the math module. I think my MS Office days may be over.

Gill

 

[dedee]

Thanks Chris looks interesting and it is available for the Mac too

Andy

 

[Alf]

available for the Mac too

Nobody's perfect... :wink:

 

[dedee]

available for the Mac too

Nobody's perfect... :wink:

hah, hah, hah

Andy - happy to stand out in the pea sea dominated crowd

 

[Alf]

Andy - happy to stand out in the pea sea dominated crowd

Not so sure that shouldn't be pee sea... :roll: :lol:

 

[dedee]

Alf, you are probably write - but then I am having problems with the spell chequer wot does not do gramma any whey

Andy

 

[wizer]

ive used open office on my linux machines since they started. I'm all for open source but must admit am a big MS fan.

 

[Steve Maskery]

I'm sure it's marvellous but there doesn't seem to be an Outlook equivalent. Or am I just missing it?

I'm looking for a good email client. Until recently I used Incredimail, good Rules, auto-addressing. But after a while the icons get a bit tiresome, and some people hate receiving them. Plus I needed another program for calendar, and Post-it notes for reminders and To-Do lists.

So I've moved over to Outlook 2000. Love the integration with the Calendar and To-Do list, but it doesn't auto-complete addresses and it's tedious to add an address from an email - basically you have to do it entirely manually (instead of Add Sender to Address Book).

Can anyone recommend the best of both worlds? I want good cantact management and integration with my calendar etc. Not much to ask, is it?

Cheers
Steve

 

[Johnboy]

Steve, if you right click on the from address in an email you get the option to add address to contacts.


HTH

John

 

[Knot Competent]

A question for those in the know (which doesn't include me!) -

Can I download this prog to try out, and then delete it, without it affecting my MS Office 2000 or associated documents?

John the Unknowing

 

[wizer]

yes you can, but do not delete it... use add/remove programes to uninstall it.

 

[Knot Competent]

Thanks for that, WiZeR, but I got stumped at the first hurdle, a choice between UK WISC and UK Mirror Service. Don't understand either, is it safe for a numptie to proceed?

 

[DaveL]

John,

There are a number of copies of the software on different servers around the world. All you are doing is picking which one to download it from. The copies should all be the same, it just spreads the load to make things a bit faster.

 

[Knot Competent]

OK, that makes sense. Thanks Dave.

 

[Steve Maskery]

Johnboy
My first reaction was Oh No It Doesn't, because that is what I would expect and it doesn't.
But you are right, if I actually open it in a new pane. Usually I just read my emails in a preview pane, it's just the way I have it configured. Bit of a faff when the option should be if you right-click on the email anywhere IMO.
One problem solved though, great, thanks!
S

 

[Johnboy]

Steve, allowing the preview pane to open automatically is a bit risky as some viruses can run as soon as the preview pane opens. Safer to delete any that look dodgy, contain unknown attachments, etc from the list before opening anything.

John

 

[Steve Maskery]

Hi John
Yes, that is good advice. But I use Mailwasher, so I don't actually download anything I don't specifically want. All the junk gets deleted off the ISP's server before I download.

Incidentally, all the just stuff started one day. I went from one or two emails a day to 87 overnight. That was a few years ago. So I installed Mailwasher, does the job great. But then something strange happened. One day earlier this year, they all stopped. Again overnight, just like that. No idea why, but I'm not complaining!

Cheers
Steve

 

[CHJ]

..snip.. But then something strange happened. One day earlier this year, they all stopped. Again overnight, just like that. No idea why, but I'm not complaining!

Cheers
Steve

Perhaps your ISP started running a spam filter.

 

[Johnboy]

Hi Steve, I use mailwasher too, great isn't it? Sorry if i was trying to teach Granny to suck eggs.

John