By Lou Dolinar
Third in a series
Updated Feb. 14, 2006

Corporations and home users have different needs when acquiring a standard suite of productivity software, e.g. a word processor, spreadsheet, and database, drawing and presentation software.

A company typically buys hundreds or even thousands of copies at one shot, at a steep discount, and has to buy something that works for everyone--the highest, rather than lowest, common denominator. The word processing program will be used by secretaries to type letters, and by technical writers to churn out thousand page footnoted and indexed manuals. The spreadsheet serves traveling sales personal who are toting up expenses, as well as the financial jocks who project the company’s future earnings. Databases may be used for managing mailing lists, or creating accounting applications.

The default purchase in most cases is the latest version of Microsoft Office ($450), largely because it has the most features, works pretty much like previous versions, and can read the same files. Most folks barely use a fraction of its power, and probably are confused by the plethora of options. Indeed, there’s a fairly large underground cult that believes the finest version of Microsoft Word, the centerpiece of the productivity suite, was the more streamlined Word 5.1, released in 1991 for the Macintosh: http://www.wired.com/news/mac/0,2125,63848,00.html

Home users need nowhere near the same features as the Office computer jock, though when they have the program at work, some install the second copy of Office at home that’s supposed to allocated to a laptop. Otherwise, most get by with Microsoft Works ($45), which PC manufacturers give away with their PCs, or Microsoft Works Suite. The latter includes a full copy of Microsoft Word, Money, and some tinsel for $85. Meanwhile I know professional writers who use Wordpad, free with Windows. How much of a word processor do you need, anyway if you’re writing 500 to 3000 word articles, and filing via email? Fancy formatting just gets in the way.

All this by way of introduction to my pitch for OpenOffice.org (www.openoffice.org), an open source software suite that at best is a lot more program than Works and at worst only a little less functional than Microsoft Office.

OpenOffice.org, which entered this world as Star Office from Sun, is more than adequate for perhaps 95 percent of users. Most interestingly, it is the only free Office style program that runs on both Windows and Linux, as well as the Macintosh, and it is mostly (more on that later) file compatible with Microsoft Office. You can buy Sun’s version, which includes product support, for $79(http://www.sun.com/software/star/staroffice/index.jsp)

This raises some interesting scenarios for its use in the home--You can, for free, replace the ubiquitous Works with it (Microsoft make a bulk Works-to-Word/Excel format converter if you have stored files) and gain a good deal more power and features. Plus you’ll be able to read most Office documents from work.

Moving to Open Office makes a lot of sense when you’ve installed a network at home, and as is often the case, find that the network causes computers to proliferate beyond your ability to buy full copies of Windows XP and Office. Instead, you can opt for one OO and Linux via one of the numerous free distribution bundles, including the new one from ease-of-use champ Xandros (http://www.xandros.com) or SUSE (http://www.suse.com/us/).

A particularly useful setup is one I’m using on the Boudoir PC: A pretty standard Windows XP setup plus OpenOffice.org combo on the hard drive. But I also have a CD with the latest version of Knoppix Linux (http://www.knoppix.org/) plus OpenOffice.org, so if Windows ever decides to stop working, I can immediately access the ’net and the same data files with the Linux disk. Knoppix will boot and run from the CD.

This is about as bulletproof as it gets.

Why would you want to switch from Works? Besides the usual letters and faxes, OO also handles multipart documents with bibliographies, indexes, and reference tables. It even includes macros and a programming language.

What’s not to like about Open Office? Online user complaints tend to center around speed (although the current version, 1.1.1, is plenty fast on my laptop) and glitches in file compatibility when reading documents from Microsoft Office. Problems with Word are usually pretty simple to fix, but complex formulas in Excel occasionally generate outright spurious results. Setting up a mail list in OO isn’t as bonehead simple as it is with Works. A fair number of users would like to see an integrated email client and personal information manager a la Outlook.

But the price is right, and the program more than adequate for casual users. If you’re doing anything complicated, evalulate the program yourself.

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Reader David Daniels recently turned me on to another Office alternative worth a look, 603 PC Suite ( http://www.software602.com/products/pcs/,) free for single users, unsupported, or $29.99 for a three-user license with support). It include a word processing, spreadsheet, and a photo-editing and cataloging program rather than a database. Though I haven’t spent a great deal of time with the program myself, it has received excellent reviews, and David says he much prefers it to OpenOffice. Snappy and svelte, it comprises a mere 24 megabyte download, vs. more than 150 Mb for OO. About the only downside I see is that there’s no Linux version.