Open Office as Excel alternative

[Richard Schollar]

I have just installed Openoffice onto my PC to check it out - I was pleasantly surprised to see how similar it looked to Excel (I haven't delved at all deeply though - just touched the surface). Would anyone care to share their own experiences of using OO - I would be especially interested to hear from people who write their own macro code, especially JavaScript or Python coding.

Thanks

Richard

 

[RoryA]

Copy and paste = Ctrl+c then Ctrl +v. I was so surprised by what you described I downloaded it onto a laptop at home just to test it- no dialog, it just did what I expected. How are you doing it?
Also copied merged cells without issue. And there's an autosum button on the formula bar.
I am still not sure I would recommend it for business necessarily given its dwindling developer base, though I do understand the appeal!

 

[passinthru]

Weird. I'm just trying to copy and paste. Something in the settings, perhaps? Some "compatibility" setting that is screwing things up?

 

[tekkiegurl]

open office is a good alternative for MS office it almost have the same functions

 

[lefty78312]

I have just installed Openoffice onto my PC to check it out - I was pleasantly surprised to see how similar it looked to Excel (I haven't delved at all deeply though - just touched the surface). Would anyone care to share their own experiences of using OO - I would be especially interested to hear from people who write their own macro code, especially JavaScript or Python coding.

Thanks

Richard

Well, I ain't written any macros with it, but OO is what the peons at work have to use, so I do write a lot of spreadsheets with it. For the most part, formula syntax is almost exactly identical, except with OO you use a semi-colon instead of a comma. Also, both Excel and OO will 'translate' the syntax when you cross-open workbooks written in the other. The latest version of OO is a worthy competitor to Office if you don't need VBA; particularly when one considers the price.

 

[lefty78312]

My understanding is that the basic spreadsheet functions are similar (formulas etc) with some training and conversion required -- but the conversion is handled pretty well by the Open Office suite anyway.

However, if any of your spreadsheets rely on VBA you need to take that into account. OO does not support VBA (and, I assume, will not run VBA macros) so you could be up for a lot of development time and expense.

So, horses for courses. If you don't use VBA extensively, try OO. If you rely on VBA and have a large installed base of VBA workbooks/code, Office 2007 is a better option. Just stay away from Vista if you can.

Denis

I have OpenOffice at work, and in most surface ways, OO Calc works very similar to Excel. Formulas use a semi-colon instead of a comma and there are a few other very minor differences, which each program will 'translate' when you open a workbook created by the other. No VBA, but I think it may be coming at some point in the future. If you don't need VBA, it's a wonderful replacement. The OO Calc application is a poor man's Excel.