Comments on: Tips to help users migrate to OpenOffice

By: Roebie

Roebie — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 14:56:54 +0000

The commercial world doesn’t work that way. A customer expects to receive his stuff in a format he already knows. Too bad, I agree, but that’s the way things work.

By: Justin

Justin — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 21:30:55 +0000

Office 2007 supports ODF since SP3. So, do ahead and send ODF files with liberality. There is no reason to continue proliferating proprietary file formats. If the recipient doesn’t know how to open an ODF file it is a great opportunity to inform them about OpenOffice.org and about SP3 support for ODF.

By: OpenOffice tutorials - Open Source & Linux

OpenOffice tutorials - Open Source & Linux — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 14:04:42 +0000

[...] What about you? Have you found a tip or two to help ease the migration? If so, share." Tips to help users migrate to OpenOffice __________________ "All hear my warning Never turn your back Or I'll [...]

By: Paul

Paul — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 08:10:34 +0000

Thanks Jack,
Learned many new tricks today.

I am a big fan of Auto-complete, one of the many reasons I like OpenOffice so much, apart from the fact that it is free.

Another useful feature in OpenOffice is”Export Directly as PDF”, I don’t think MSO has this useful feature.

By: edwin

edwin — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 08:09:30 +0000

I have been using OpenOffice 3.1.1 for the past 6 months. For the beginning, I wasn’t get use to the interface, esp on the spreadsheet. I have been using MS Excel for about 5 years, with advance knowledge formulating tools, macro features and even used to shortcut keys. I would say I encounter difficulty after migrating to OO spreadsheet.
But being supporting to open source, I still prefer to utilize more OO application to MSO. Especially now, Im using OO writer to do my draft for my blogs.
I hope to see more content on this application. Thanks for your tips!

By: Larry Warsinski

Larry Warsinski — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 22:52:39 +0000

I started using Word 20 years ago. I had customized it to work quickly and efficiently for me. When I went to Office 2007 and the “ribbon”, I found that Word no longer worked with me. Tasks that used to take a few mouse clicks now required me to click on the ribbon, click on a specific task, click on what I wanted to do, go back to the ribbon, click on the next task, and keep on going back and forth until I got it the way I wanted. Basically, the Word ribbon hinders my work.

So now I have moved over to OpenOffice (I was already starting to use Linux). It takes a learning curve, but it works remarkably well. It’s far easier than the ribbon.

I just wish there were easy ways I could import my document templates and apply them to documents. Weekly, I need to created a document in one template, and then convert it to another template with the same style names (but different font and paragraph formatting). There may be a good and easy way to do this in OpenOffice, but I haven’t found it yet.

Better documentation for people moving over from Word — and many of these common tasks — would really help.

By: Seth

Seth — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 22:46:17 +0000

You can create one or more custom menus in OpenOffice. I do this to gain quick access to features I use often without changing the standard menus. Go to “Tools > Customize” and select the “Menus” tab. Of course you can also change the standard menus and tool bars can be customized as desired.

By: Alan

Alan — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 20:31:01 +0000

Hi roebie,
Although I’m not a spreadsheet expert, I understand that the “data pilot” feature in calc is OpenOffice’s answer to pivot tables. Also, I’m not sure where VBA support is in the “official” version of OpenOffice.org, but there is a community-modified version sponsored by Novell available from go-oo.org which boasts some level of Excel VBA compatibility. It might be worth a look.

By: lefty.crupps

lefty.crupps — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 17:41:38 +0000

> Everything is right there ready to be used, not hidden under an obscure menu.
Until you want something that *isn’t* right there, and there is no way to find it via a regular menu entry, which is how every other app functions.

By: Pejeno

Pejeno — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 13:20:28 +0000

I wasn’t a fan of the ribbon interface either, but once you get used to it, you can see why they designed it the way it is and its advantages over the menu based interface. Everything is right there ready to be used, not hidden under an obscure menu.

By: roebie

roebie — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 12:53:24 +0000

Our company “depends” very much on PivotTables (Excel) and VBA (Excel, MSAccess and Word). I’ve always heard that nothing similar exists in OO.
Is that still true and if not are they in anyway compatible?