Open Office

[crokett]

How many of y'all are using it? I am testing it out here at work on a Windows 7 machine that has 4GB RAM and a better than 2Ghz processor and it seems laggy and slow. I also have been testing under Linux on the same machine with the same issues. I get this behavior in both Impress and the Word equivalent. For instance, I highlight text, then have to wait to right click or click the edit menu. In Impress I click a slide, then wait till it refreshes so I can start editing it. Is the problem that I am editing Word and Powerpoint files instead of native Office docs?

[dbhost]

I have been using OO.o for years. Never run into slowness issues. (Unlike Office 2007 which is a disaster slowness wise...).

Are you trying to use files that have a lot of embedded macros? OO won't handle Microsoft macros well. Nothing but Office does...

[nadz]

i use open office, but im not a power user, i just use it at home for simple stuff

[crokett]

No macros that I know of. Certainly none in the files I did from scratch. With the exception of saving new files, MS Office 2007 works pretty well. There is a lot less waiting than there is with OO. The big annoyance with 2007 is the silly ribbon bar.

[dbhost]

Hmmm. You have the opposite experience from me...

OO.o has never been a screaming fast app mind you, but never annoyingly slow. Office 2007 has been painful to use since they forced it on us... Which is why I have OpenOffice installed here... Noticeably faster doing simple spreadsheets, presentations etc...

Not sure what the difference would be...

Mind you I am still running Windows XP...

[jziegler]

I use OO.o (or Star Office) exclusively on all machines in my house (both Win XP and Linux) and have not found it to be slow at all. In fact, I find it less bloated than MS office and find it refreshing that it doesn't tell me what I'm doing and try to fix it for me. All of that "intelligence" surely takes up processing cycles galore. I won't say that it is some speed demon, but it has never been a problem either.

addition: I don't use many office files, mostly native ones, so that possibly could make a difference, although I think it converts it to native format when you open by default.

Jim

[bthorne]

I never had any speed issues with OO.o either, and have used it on both Windows XP and Fedora linux. Unfortunately, that experience may not be applicable to Windows 7, or to the newest version of OO.o. I think I'm still running version 2.something. I always thought OO.o handled image placement much more reliably than Word.

Unfortunately, I mostly now use Office 2004 in the lab because of its compatibility with Endnote and with coworkers.

[BobSch]

Not to sound paranoid, but maybe Uncle Bill tossed something into W7 that will force open software authors to do an update. Also, remember that technically W7 is still in beta and not necessarily in final release form.

[jgrobler]

I also use Open Office on XP at home, my PC is old, about 5 years ago, with only an upgrade to 2Gb memory a couple years ago, but no problems with OO. At work we're still using MS Office 2003. I use OO 2.2.1, released in 2007. Maybe a newer version that's slower.

I also use quicken, was very happy with 2003, until they forced me to upgrade to the new 2009 version to keep bank downloads, and that has been a serious downgrade imho, much slower, crashes more often.

[rjwaldren]

I love OO and have been using it with only one complaint for years, that isn't speed.

My problem is that it doesn't fully support VB and custom excel functions must be rewritten into OO's basic. I have one set of custom VB functions that is so daunting to convert that I just keep using excel. Honestly I haven't tried it in some time, has the VB support improved?