Re: [tlug] Stand Up for OpenOffice!!

[Dave M G <martin@example.com>]

Although I can't really be bothered to use a stopwatch to time the time 
it takes to open, I can say that it's fast enough that I don't really care.

I use OpenOffice exclusively now for all my writing and spreadsheet 
needs. Have done for about three years or more now. My girlfriend is now 
using it on her laptop without complaints. As mentioned before, a while 
back I was on a collaborative writing project where the four other 
writers in my team were all using Office, and we shared written 
documents (heavily formatted) and spreadsheets without them ever knowing 
I was in OpenOffice.

Before switching to OpenOffice, I had used MS Office for... a decade? 
Pretty much since it ever existed. And I'm perfectly happy with the 
switch because I can say with absolute assurance that while OpenOffice 
may not be perfect, MS Office is no standard to judge by. I've had my 
share of hair-pulling experiences trying to get Word to format a table, 
or trying to navigate the help files in Excel, and other annoyances.

Last translation company I worked at also was starting to use 
OpenOffice. Mainly because the boss was a cheapskate who liked the 
free-ness of it (although he was most likely using cracked copies of MS 
Office anyway). No problems there, either.

The one, and right now the only, deficiency that I wish could be solved 
in OpenOffice is that it can't utilize my printer's ability to print on 
both sides of a sheet of paper. But that may be a CUPS problem, I don't 
know.

Anyway, I just wanted to say that, as an end user who cares not for 
bench marks or obscure capabilities, there's ain't nothing wrong with 
OpenOffice. I dig it. See no reason why it can't be used for 99% of 
anything MS Office does, and in time, 100%.

ï--
Dave M G
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