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I'm about to venture into the world of Open/Star Office.

Has anyone here used either or both ? other than support from Sun, and the ability to download everything in one hit, is there a reason I should pay $70 for Star when I can get Open for free ?

I just wish they had a decent outlook replacement as well. Does anyone know of anything that can compete with Outlook on a windows platform ?

Baloo, I have tried neither of the above.

I've checked with a friend and he mentioned http://projects.gnome.org/evolution/ as an alternative. Novell Evolution is not a total Outlook replacement but it's definitely cheap and should be easy since it also runs on Windows.

I did a search and this is what I've found:-

A personal information manager and workgroup information management tool which combines e-mail, calendar, address book, and task list management functions. Evolution has user interface and functionality that are similar to Microsoft Outlook, but support iCalendar, full-text indexing of all incoming mail, powerful email filters writable in Scheme, a “Search Folders” feature (i.e.,saved searches that look like normal mail folders), Ximian Connector to connect to Microsoft Exchange Server using web interface, and synchronize with Palm Pilot devices using gnome-pilot or other mobiles telephones and PDAs using OpenSync. Evolution available for GNOME, Windows (beta) and Mac OS X.

You might want to check it out.

Hi Baloo,

I bought Star Office a few versions ago. I didn't need any support. All recent installations are of Open Office. I have no problems with it. It does pretty much what it says on the box. Some features are better than those available in MS Office, some are worse. Most are comme ci comme ca.

Cheers Burby. I think I'll start with OpenOffice first, seeing it's free.

SAR, Yeah, I'd seen Evolution a while ago but the first Windows port was quite buggy. It looks a bit more stable now I'll have to try it out tonight.

what's the usage of this baloo?

Was thinking Home edition of MS Office is cheap, but realised it's not got outlook so all depends on how bad the other stuff is on whether it's worth the cost.

I do have Open Office on one PC here but never use it (pre-installed by the instrument manufacturer which uses the PC to control a machine). Have used Open Office yonks ago and it was crap, supposedly has improved an awful lot.

Home use. But being the geek I am I find it hard to buy anything that's not the "professional" or "Ultimate" version but $500 big ones for Office just isn't appealing.

I've also got a 3 licence version of MS Home / Student which comes without Outlook. Outlook costs $120 I think.

So, instead of buying Office, I thought I'd at least give the Freebie/Cheapos a shot as more and more people/companies are using them.

If I find in a couple of months time there are just too many incompatibilities, I'll just buy MS Office. No harm done.

Here's my experience in detail.

I think if you want to work on files in both MS and Open you'll have problems. If you want a standalone office package for use at home then Open Office is the perfect choice (since it's free anddoes everything you can do in MS Office). I have Open Office installed at work as well and do most of my work in it. I only use MS Office when someone else sends files in that format.

Text
I write first and format last so Wordpad is as handy for me for the writing process. Formatting can be done just as easily in Word or Open Office writer (or Pagemaker if I need proper formatting).

Presentation
I don't use powerpoint as anything other than a slide show utility, I design all my slides in Illustrator and Flash. I remember, in the old days when I did write slides in Powerpoint or Presentation that they didn't open well in the other program. I think that the OPen Office slide programe handles Flash graphics a bit better.

Outlook
I think Outlook is crap, but I am forced to use it at work. Don't know if Open Office has an equivalent. I didn't think so. I manage my diary in Palm (which can integrate with outlook).

Spreadsheet:
One is as good as the other as far as I can tell, but I don't do a lot more than simple spreadsheets. For complex data sets I use FileMaker

Database
No experience with either option. I use FileMaker.

Math
Open office has a math formula editor. I've never used it. Probably quite handy if you do a lot of maths. Don't think MS Office has an equivalent.

Drawing
Open Office has a basic drawing utility. I think it's better than the one built into each of the MS Office components, but is inferior to Illustrator (which I use for all my drawing tasks).

have been using Open Office for a month now and i like it!

no compatibility issues with either Word, Excel or PowerPoint (just make sure you save in the right format).

no more expensive Office for me!

Cheers Burb.

I'm also testing OpenOffice with some people to see if it's good enough to implement in a small company that until now has been paying MS through the nose.

Installed it last night, couldn't believe how simple it was. So far so good and while some things are trickier to find, on the whole it's a similar experience to MS Office.

Installed Evolution for Windows last night. So far so good. Looks very nice and as long as it's stable I reckon it might be a winner. If only they had a facility to import from an Outlook PST file directly instead of requiring you to export the outlook to CSV first.

I've used Open Office since it's original release as 6.0 when it was given a life of it's own from Star Office after Sun acquired the German company. I still occasionally use it both in the office and at home. It's easy to use and the last couple of versions are getting lots more extension bits that you can add into now for templates (always were lacking in that department - due to it being an ongoing work in progress. If you buy the commercial version (StarOffice) you will get lots of templates but if you look around there are template packs you can download just like you can at MS.

Like Burb, I've been using FileMaker for years so have never tried either access or base (openoffice's version) so cannot pass judgement there. I like the fact that they have a free 3D drawing program there which MS doesn't have (albeit not heavy duty but good for the amatuer occasional dabbler like me).

You might want to try the new revamped Thunderbird email client from Mozilla. It was shelved at some point a year ago but it looks like it's been dusted off and are giving it another go. Haven't tried it yet but have downloaded it and it's sitting there at the moment. Not sure of the capability comparisons with Outlook.

I converted my last company to using Open Office with the earlier version about 4 years ago. Small SME. Were happy about the licensing savings (not much but still 42K made the MD smile). Current company does most of its scheduling in outlook so don't think I'll much success here.

have been using Thunderbird since i deleted Office. works fine, even the part where you can have all your email addresses downloaded in one go, easy to set up and use.

Tried Thunderbird and dismissed it as a bad joke. Will have to see if the new version is better.

If you like Outlook, give Evolution a try. looks good.

If you're talking Outlook just as an email client, then Windows Live Mail is good. It has the oppurtunity of linking up to several hotmail account plus any other type of account you want. The contacts might be a bit fishy, and you have to watch which account you are sending from if you regularly send from different accounts, but you would on any other client to (I would suspect).

Tried Thunderbird recently, had very much a Netscape/Outlook Express feel to it, not overly impressed but keep it for a POP3 account I don't look at regularly but sometimes need better than web access to.