I have a very special question about MS Word

**Original Poster** · 03-18-2008 05:17 AM

Is there a freeware program that's better?

**ninja9578** · 03-18-2008 05:31 AM

Better? no, not really.

Free'er? Try OpenOffice.org (yeah, that's the name of it.) I know Google was working on one too, I'm not sure if they released it yet. I'm sure neither one has the functionality of Word, but I'm also sure that both are less annoying and have most of the capabilities of Word.

**Man of Steel** · 03-18-2008 06:54 AM

Originally Posted by ninja9578

Better? no, not really.

Free'er? Try OpenOffice.org (yeah, that's the name of it.) I know Google was working on one too, I'm not sure if they released it yet. I'm sure neither one has the functionality of Word, but I'm also sure that both are less annoying and have most of the capabilities of Word.

As far as I know, OO.o can do everything Word can, and then some. It's what I use personally. There are also a few variants of OpenOffice out there, I think IBM has one that's supposed to have better looks and more features. I read a brief snippet about it in PC World's (or it could have been PC Magazine, not sure) top freeware programs article this month. I'll look it up real quick and see if I can get more info on it.

Edit: Here it is, IBM Lotus Symphony.

**Replicon** · 03-18-2008 05:12 PM

Depends on what "better" means to you. There's definitely free stuff, and a lot of it is just as good, just... different. The biggest problem with Office replacements is that documents written in the latest MS will always be incompatible... then again, with their latest version of office, they seem to have made sure that backwards compatibility with their own product is a tall order.

**Ynot** · 03-18-2008 05:16 PM

MS has been forced by the EU to open up the implementation specs for OOXML (the file format for Office 2007)

licence issues aside (of which there are many issues, but I won't go into this),
you should see OOXML filters in OO.o in the near future

**ninja9578** · 03-18-2008 05:18 PM

I believe that OOo can read docx files.

Technically speaking, LaTeX is the best, but it's got a pretty steep learning curve and the spell checker will pick up all of the formatting stuff as erogenous.

**Ynot** · 03-18-2008 05:28 PM

Originally Posted by ninja9578

I believe that OOo can read docx files.

it's happened already, then
seems I'm a bit behind

Funny thing, the deal Novell signed with MS was for precisely this
Interoperability with ooxml & various server side protocols
which the EU rulings have made redundant

**Identity X** · 03-18-2008 06:20 PM

TexMacs is free and produces high quality output.

But yes, OOo is the free-word processor of choice, although it is horrendously inefficient (that's Sun/Java for you).

**Original Poster** · 03-19-2008 01:28 AM

Why is OOo inefficient?

**Sornaensis** · 03-19-2008 01:31 AM

It isn't...

**ninja9578** · 03-19-2008 02:15 AM

Originally Posted by Omnius Deus

Why is OOo inefficient?

It's got a lot of Java in it and it has it's own spelling and grammar checker, it doesn't use the operating system's.

Unless you are working with very large (full length novels) or very heavily formatted files then you shouldn't really notice it.

**Ynot** · 03-19-2008 02:25 AM

Java is no different (broadly speaking) from any .Net language, performance wise

MS's Java VM is crap, though

**ninja9578** · 03-19-2008 02:40 AM

Something running on a VM will always be slower than something running natively. Most Java VMs do fully compile parts of the code, but even that takes time.

I think the biggest thing that I disliked was the spell checker.