'Writer' excellent for basic wordprocessing, but prone to crashes and corruptions when you integrate images.
Reviewed on 2021-02-12T11:54:02
In many respects, Open Office is a boon and, of course, it's genuinely free. For straight word-processing it works exceptionally well BUT,once you start integrating images into documents, then it can be prone to all manner of corruptions and crashes. You only have to look at the OO forum to see how many problems people can encounter. I recently put together a set of complex documents with many, many images in the text - some locked inside frames, others 'floating'. All was well for a long time and then the corruptions started. Luckily, I ALWAYS kept a backup of every document at the end of every day so I could usually CTRL C and CTRL V to copy images back into place. Gradually, I found the OO crashed within minutes of loading, irrespective of what I was working on. Clearly, something gets reset in the profile or innermost parts of the program. Finding these can be a nightmare unless you're a real 'techy'. On the forum I've seen the advice "the problem is in your computer" which is no help at all unless some sort of pathway or debugging tool is built into the software to help non-technical users solve issues. I also found that updated versions could make matters worse, so I uninstalled the most recent version and went back a couple of versions. Quite often, the only solution to serious issues is to uninstall and reinstall and that is NOT a good way to promote any program. So - Open Office Writer is fine for basics, but I avoid it for anything complex which involved images.read more
Enough functionality for most people
Reviewed on 2020-09-04T10:17:08
Enough functionality for most people, and free. Makes up for it being a slightly lesser product.
Reviewed on 2020-02-18T23:05:08
I know it's free, but at least make it good. there so many bugs with this software that you don't get when using Microsoft office.For example, there is a bug where you can't paste images, and where your images suddenly disappear. These are only some of the very annoying bugs that cause a nuisance when using this softwareread more
Not great but it is free...
Reviewed on 2019-05-01T12:45:42
I won't be using Open Office again, but it's not terrible.
It seems to have a problem formatting manyof my documents and it's crashed/frozen several times and I have only used it about 10 times.
I did manage to create a few documents, but I think I will stick with Apples own iWork apps.
I don't want to be too harsh, because it's a free service. It's just not good enough to rely on for work.read more
Reviewed on 2017-08-03T14:55:48
I use this for all my story writing and I love it! Although not as advanced at Microsoft Word,it still has it's virtues! :)read more
Reviewed on 2017-02-06T03:38:28
Its a free product you can download with only one condition - you need an internet connection.Perfectly replaces many other office software when in need, and you dont have to pay for anythingread more
OpenOffice: Opens Possibilities
Reviewed on 2012-04-29T15:11:48
One thing I found really fantastic about the OpenOffice applications is that it is readily availableand downloadable from the internet and to think it offers the same features that one has to pay for in other products. You can have the word, presentation, spreadsheet, database, drawing and reviews. I can readily make charts, tables and graphs. I can easily come up with reports, memos and newsletters. I can make presentations almost instantly.
The icons and buttons you need are present in the interface. As in it's like right before your eyes. You do not need complicated keyboard character sequences. There are also built-in templates for letters and other documents. OpenOffice has a very lightweight design, requiring very low system resources for it to power up.
This is definitely a necessity for all computer users. If your office has it, then you're office document needs are all covered.read more