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Introduction
Whenever I read anything about OpenOffice.org, the one thing that is always emphasized is the fact that it is open source. This may mean a great deal to those who enjoy programming, breaking down and recompiling applications for various purposes, but "open source" as a concept offers very little in itself to your common issue home user, receptionist, baseball player or medical doctor. The big thing OpenOffice has going for it is, of course, the fact that it doesn't cost anything. But if the dinner is free, what exactly is on the plate?
I had used OpenOffice many years ago for a short period of time, but discarded it in favor of Microsoft Office. I decided to once again give it a go, having heard many good things about it. At first, I intended to measure up the office suite based on its own merits and features, but soon it became apparent that the only way to successfully write about OpenOffice is by comparing it to the industry standard, Microsoft Office. The latter has set the standard very high, especially with its latest 2007 version.
Overview and Impressions
I evaluated OpenOffice.org version 2.2. The installation of OpenOffice was straight-forward. I opted to install all the applications: Writer, the word processor; Calc, the spreadsheet application; Impress, the presentation tool; Draw, the graphics editor; Base, the database manager. OpenOffice does not include an email client or a scheduling or contact management application.
OpenOffice applications can be quickly accessed by right-clicking on the Quickstarter, a system tray icon, and selecting an application, or opening an existing document. From this menu you can also create a document from a template. Unfortunately OpenOffice only comes with two existing templates, and both of them are for presentations. Microsoft Office's built-in browser for Office Online's downloadable templates was sorely missed while using Open Office. The lack of existing, pre-installed templates is frustrating, especially when you are using an office suite you are not already familiar with.
While the OpenOffice applications load up and react quickly, they suffer from an unpolished interface. The toolbar icons look like they are directly imported from a 16-bit Windows application. While that is a matter of preference, a visual overhaul would make the applications easier on the eyes.
OpenOffice Writer is a decent word processor. In terms of functionality it is more similar to Word 2000 than any later releases. It includes a rather forgiving spellchecker, and is entirely lacking in any grammar checking capabilities; Writer allowed me to put several commas and periods randomly back to back without making any note of it. Typical word processing features, alignments and such work without a glitch. Font preview is faster than it is in Microsoft Word.
While a word processor is not usually anyone's first choice as an HTML editor, most modern processors have limited hypertext editing functionality. This functionality, however, should be fairly simple and intuitive to use. This is definitely not the case with OpenOffice Writer. Editing HTML documents in Writer is awkward and clumsy. Creating a hyperlink requires selecting a word and clicking on the hyperlink icon in the toolbar, and then of course inputting the URL and all that. While this is forgivable, removing a hyperlink requires that you click the toolbar icon once again, erase the URL manually from the properties window and close it. While this is no big deal if the HTML document only has one hyperlink, but removing or changing the URLs of several hyperlinks is going to be irritatingly inconvenient. In Microsoft Word, you can simply right-click on the hyperlink and select "remove hyperlink". I find this oversight in Writer rather appalling.
Furthermore, switching viewing modes between web layout and HTML source code cannot be done without saving the file first. Publishing your web page to a server on the Internet is awkward. Also, HTML documents cannot be previewed in a browser launched from within Writer. The publishing wizard has a set of pre-designed themes, of which you are forced to pick one, which will be applied to your web page whether you like it or not. And lastly, the publishing wizard only appears to allow publishing the HTML document into a local folder or a zip file. An FTP location field existed in the wizard, but was grayed out, and I was unable to locate anything in the Writer options to define an FTP server for this purpose.
Writer, just as the other OpenOffice applications, also has a wizard for preparing a document as a fax. It does not, however, actually send a fax. There is no faxing functionality, via phone line or an Internet fax service; the wizard simply allows adding a cover page and other typical information. The document has to be saved and sent separately from an actual fax application.
You also cannot email a document directly from within OpenOffice. Using the "send as email" option simply launches your default email application. OpenOffice has a configuration setting for an SMTP connection, but it does not use it for this purpose.
In regular word processor mode, Writer's page preview feature needs some work. Zooming into the page from the default 52% view to a 75% did not keep the page centered in focus. I could only see a portion of the page in the upper left corner of my monitor, and had to use the horizontal and vertical scrollbars to bring the page into proper view.
Included is, however, a nice little wizard for downloading and installing fonts from the web. It's an interesting feature which could be quite powerful if it were more utilized. The fonts available at this time were mostly the same as ones that already come with Windows, and there weren't many of them. The wizard itself ended with error messages when I closed a font preview window. But the idea is nice, even if the application of it is still wet behind the ears.
Impress, the presentation tool, is not phenomenal in itself, but it does a decent job, and the built-in ability to export presentations directly to PDF or Flash is a nice touch.
Don't let the name of OpenOffice Draw fool you. This application is not for manipulating common image files. Although it can open a plethora of different image formats, it does not have much functionality in terms of what you can actually do with them. There appears to be no way, for example, to adjust the contrast of an image. Draw is best used for creating simple vector graphics or 3D objects, but for anything more complicated, you'll have to look someplace else.
OpenOffice's spreadsheet application, Calc, is simple but gets the job done. It had no problem whatsoever with opening existing Excel worksheets.
OpenOffice Base is the database application for the suite. It has very basic database functionality, but works well. Databases created with Base run on OpenOffice's Java-based database engine, which has full support for SQL and JDBC. Databases can be registered with OpenOffice and then easily accessed from within the other suite applications. I built a small contact list in the database and imported the database contents into Writer without a glitch.
Conclusion
OpenOffice's API and its software development kit open up a lot of possibilities for coders in terms of creating plug-ins, add-ons, macros, wizards and other customized features. This no doubt is part of OpenOffice's open source charm.
OpenOffice handles well-known Microsoft file types (doc, xls etc) well, but not perfectly. Documents created in Word do not maintain their original formatting entirely when opened in Writer. With small documents this is not an issue, but for someone who receives a lot of Word documents via email, for example, and has to publish them, it is a concern.
While not infested with bugs, many of the OpenOffice applications reported unexpected runtime errors on a few occasions, and the general look and feel of the suite is unpolished and rough around the edges.
Altogether, OpenOffice did not meet my high expectations. In fact, while OpenOffice may be tempting for its lack of a price tag, its lack of basic features I have come to expect from an office suite made Microsoft Office 2007 Professional's going price of $160 seem rather appetizing.
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