SOLVED More MS Office

[powrus]

Several years ago, MS continued to remind me over and over that my version of MS Office Suite 2002 was sorely out of date and should be updated. So, I installed MS Office7 and have been using it since.

Now, each day I'm reminded by Win10 that my Office7 software is not the latest and could be updated. When I follow Win10s prompts I'm directed to download something such as MS Home and Student Office, With this download, some substantial dollars are needed for an upgrade. Plus, that ensuing download will only apply to one of my home PCs. Another device requires another download.

Today, out of curiosity, I downloaded Open Office software for free ... and I've yet to see any major difference between this program and my Office7 program. I may use this new suite for awhile and then if everything works as planned I'll discontinue using my MS product and hopefully negate constant reminders.

Your thoughts on my plan of action (positive or negative) will be appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Tim Locke]

Unless you do complex documents ( like whole books) or with complex embedded spreadsheets you won't find much difference between MS Office and Open Office or Libre Office ( which tends to be a bit more uptodate as it is still being developed). MS Office can read and convert OO/LO documents and OO/LO can certainly read AND write MS Office documents. If you have to alter other peoples MS Office documents you might have some minor formatting problems

OO/LO has the advantage that it is free and runs on Linux as well as Windows. I used it for a few years after I retired.

 

[powrus]

Tim - Sounds good. Thanks for your feedback.

 

[BigFeet]

Open Office and Libre Office are very good alternatives. I prefer Libre Office (it was born out of Open Office after OO went corporate). I use Libre on my old gaming PC even though I still have a couple Office 07 keys. The only reason I use Office on my main PC is for Outlook.

 

[davehc]

I am also an Office "experimenter"

Ableword is worth a try, but, latterly, I have been trying WPS (a rebadged Kingsoft Office) It is a very easy to use suite, and totally compatible with most MS Office functions.

 

[powrus]

I've been playing with OO for a day or so, and cannot find any negative bumps in the road when compared to my MS Office7. My main focus with losing the ability to use MS Office7 without a costly upgrade is in regard to MS Excel spreadsheets, since that is where i have most of my financial and personal info contained - both present and past. Currently, it's no problem to open a 15 year old spreadsheet in order to recover lost information or to see what something cost back then or to see which tooth had the chip repaired, etc.

With my home 'budget' spreadsheet, I use Excel formulas for each month of the year so that I only need to insert my monthly incomes into their respective [income] cells, and then have that money distributed throughout my budget to fund my various budget categories. My most used formula is the "IF" formula [=IF(CE5=0,"0","17")].

I copied/pasted one of Excel's formulas into an OO cell with no problem. It seems to work just fine in its new program, although I don't fully understand why there is no proprietary issue there with MS.

LibreOffice provided this comparison https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Feature_Comparison:_LibreOffice_-_Microsoft_Office but most of this data is over my head. That said, however, at this point Libre might be my first choice.

Thanks for all the thoughtful replies.

 

[Trouble]

Big LIbre Office fan here.
It's like a swiss army knife. I was pleasantly surprised when helping a friend with some very old files created with Microsoft Works. Libre Office opened them without a problem and if there was any formatting problems they were not at all obvious..
So one thumbs up for Libre Office.

 

[powrus]

Trouble, that is encouraging. I forgot about MS Works. That also brings to mind WordPerfect Office, which I notice is still around.

 

[powrus]

I assume this link is factual http://www.zdnet.com/article/when-will-microsoft-pull-the-plug-on-your-version-of-windows-or-office/

 

[davehc]

In that context, it is valid enough. But "support" , in a nutshell, means they will no longer offer help in any form. Not a big problem, as online forums do most of the help work for them, anyway.
However, it remains to be seen, what else they have in mind. In the case, for example, of Windows Live Mail, they withdrew support a couple of years ago but, with the release of Windows 10, partially crippled one or two features.

 

[davehc]

I realise the thread is closed. I came back to point out that the office suite to which I previously referred, WPS, can open and edit PDFs and save them back to DOCs.

https://www.wps.com/

 

[powrus]

WPS is obviously another great alternative. Thanks for the information and the link.