Why do we "hate" Microsoft Office so much?

[~Shard~]

Is it just me, or has noone mentioned OpenOffice.org? An open source software with a secondary version, NeoOffice, and it's FREE. Many times people come into our campus's computer store and groan at the price of Office. I say 'OpenOffice' and they rejoice.

It's not for everyone, but for those who HATE Microsoft, and don't want to be stuck with iWork, which at this point is woefully underprepared to even come near Office.. it's a solution

www.openoffice.org

Is this just a commonly known thing, or what? I would think Mac users, like Linuxers, would adore this. Check it out

I for one, have never used OpenOffice, and know little about it quite hoenstly. The only contact I've ever had with it is when someone sent me an .xsd file (or something to that effect), told me it was from OpenOffice, told me it was totally compatible with MS Office, I would have no trouble openning it, etc., and then I spent the next 10 minutes trying to open it up in Office (and everything else) with zero luck. Now I guess I have a jaded view of the compatibility, but am still open to learning more about it if it is inded a viable alternative.

 

[efoto]

Yep, that works just as fine too. At some point though you have to copy and paste the second passage of text you want to quote. This is a handy way to do it for recent posts though.

Oh, and it's "alleviates", since you asked.



Yes, very true. The same can be said if you're quoting a really long post, especially if you have a short reply which makes things disappropriate. In this case, just show that you've edited the post due to its length, such as:



Kay, we should stop this before we get into trouble. But it was fun while it lasted, and hopefully helped the original poster out!

You can also layer your quotes if you prefer, which I do depending on content and situation. If you {quote=efoto}{quote=efoto2}in describing one quote you can show the previous quote like this{/quote}which would lead into the current quote from before, which works well for two seperate quotes that tie into the same idea{/quote}
It yields a result like this:

in describing one quote you can show the previous quote like this

which would lead into the current quote from before.....blah blah

You get the picture.

Agreed on quitting, although it was quite fun. NO ONE should do this, but I could easily see slues of that running in a thread titled something like "Tell me why you think I'm cool"

 

[efoto]

Is it just me, or has noone mentioned OpenOffice.org? An open source software with a secondary version, NeoOffice, and it's FREE. Many times people come into our campus's computer store and groan at the price of Office. I say 'OpenOffice' and they rejoice.

It's not for everyone, but for those who HATE Microsoft, and don't want to be stuck with iWork, which at this point is woefully underprepared to even come near Office.. it's a solution

www.openoffice.org

Is this just a commonly known thing, or what? I would think Mac users, like Linuxers, would adore this. Check it out

A buddy of mine uses this at school because he decided to go completely legit (decided = government told him too, he works at the CIA) and so he deleted all pirated software and songs (including office). It works for him with little incident, but every once and a while he would come over and ask me to do certain things to his documents because he either didn't know how to do it in OpenOffice or because it wasn't available in OpenOffice. Also, a few of his teachers noted that it looked like different formatting even the settings were exactly the same as in Word....so try it if you like, its not exactly the same but perhaps close enough for some of you.

 

[~Shard~]

A buddy of mine uses this at school because he decided to go completely legit (decided = government told him too, he works at the CIA) and so he deleted all pirated software and songs (including office). It works for him with little incident, but every once and a while he would come over and ask me to do certain things to his documents because he either didn't know how to do it in OpenOffice or because it wasn't available in OpenOffice. Also, a few of his teachers noted that it looked like different formatting even the settings were exactly the same as in Word....so try it if you like, its not exactly the same but perhaps close enough for some of you.

This was my undersatanding as well, that it isn't completely compatible as Office and there are quite a few differences. Again, maybe I'll look into it more, but for now I have the real Office running on my Mac and have no complaints. For people who are looking for a cheaper alternative though, this definitely could be an option, however I would recommend that they do their own due dilligence and make sure they know what they're getting and if it will do what they need it to do. Even little things like file compatibility with Office seesmto be an issue, so these are important things to consider.

 

[mac-er]

Office is a great piece of software...especially the Mac version (because it was produced by Macheads).

Most critics agree that the Mac version of Office is far superior to its Windows counterpart.

 

[efoto]

Office is a great piece of software...especially the Mac version (because it was produced by Macheads).

Most critics agree that the Mac version of Office is far superior to its Windows counterpart.

My only complaint is that sometimes the Office apps seem slower to respond and have the 'my computer is slow' feeling to them. Example, typing in Word and suddenly cursor just freezes and stops its normal 'move as you type' performance. I continue to type just to express my anger and seconds later everything I was typing blankly magically appears in a rapid left-right sweep of letters. Why this happens, I don't know, but I have heard others with these issues as well. Minor gripe to an otherwise great and useful program.

 

[efoto]

This was my undersatanding as well, that it isn't completely compatible as Office and there are quite a few differences. Again, maybe I'll look into it more, but for now I have the real Office running on my Mac and have no complaints. For people who are looking for a cheaper alternative though, this definitely could be an option, however I would recommend that they do their own due dilligence and make sure they know what they're getting and if it will do what they need it to do. Even little things like file compatibility with Office seesmto be an issue, so these are important things to consider.

Good advice when considering any new piece of software, too bad so few people pay attention to this and just purchase on heresay instead of what they need. OpenOffice has potential but lacks development (common for unsupported, low-budget apps). If they could get some development help and some resources, I would think they have the potential to be an alternative to Word (not sure of their other products) but for the time being, there are too many differences for my liking.

 

[dylanemcgregor]

I don't like MS Office because of these reasons:

• Microsoft breaks several Mac UI rules with Office - they refuse to fully follow the Mac application style

• They refuse to use true Mac OS controls in Office - Just like they did in IE and WMP for Mac, their dumbass developers refuse to use standard system widgets and instead write their own

Kind of like how iTunes for Windows doesn't allow you to maximize the window, and right-clicking gets you bupkis in most places.

MS does have some good software, sure most of it is overpriced, but they do a much better job at addressing the business crowd then Apple does. Project and Visio are great apps. So is Digital Imaging Suite surprisingly, maybe not as elegant as iPhoto, but it has some nice features and it is much easier to use then Photoshop.

-Dylan

 

[~Shard~]

Good advice when considering any new piece of software, too bad so few people pay attention to this and just purchase on heresay instead of what they need. OpenOffice has potential but lacks development (common for unsupported, low-budget apps). If they could get some development help and some resources, I would think they have the potential to be an alternative to Word (not sure of their other products) but for the time being, there are too many differences for my liking.

Agreed. You always have to do your research, just as with any purchase in life.

 

[stromie952]

Office 2004 is just generally not good. I have to say that Word, Excel and PowerPoint have been essential pieces of software for me and will be for the forseeable future. But I have lots of issues with our version of the software.

1) SPEED

The speed in all three programs (Word, Excel and PowerPoint....I don't use Entourage) is abysmal. I don't own a new computer (1 Ghz G4) but I shouldn't need to have a brand new computer to have decent performance for a word processor, a spreadsheet or a presentation. If an Office program is used on a comparable PC the speed is astronomically faster. When using images or Excel charts of any kind in Word, my computer slows to a crawl. Excel lags on larger spreadsheets and charts compared to the Windows version that has no trouble whatsoever with 10,000 row sheets and plots. And PowerPoint has to convert any graphics made on the Windows version to another version just to display them, not to mention the countless rendering errors that occur when reading a Windows version created presentation. The speed is bad enough that whenever I had to do a project for classes, I had to either use a friend's PC or go to the computer lab to do it.

2) STABILITY

The Office suite (again without concerning Entourage since I have no experience with it) has some of the worst stability I have ever seen in a group of programs for OS X. I have lost countless hours of work because of crashes involving Word, Excel and PowerPoint. This even occured when I was saving consistently. The most egregious crash came when I was making a final presentation for a class and even after saving every 15 minutes or so, when PowerPoint crashed I lost well over 3 hours of saves. Even after getting a temp file loaded......it wouldn't let me save it!!! Also, PowerPoint's support for animations in the Mac version is poor at best and is very buggy witrh frequent crashes. Just completely unacceptable.

3) COMPATIBILITY

In general compatibility is fine, but a lot of things are lost in the translation sometimes. As mentioned above, converted Windows PPT files are almost unusable because of rendering errors and problems with graphics. Many times characters used in Word and Excel as well as graphics come out garbled when converting from or to Windows Office. This shouldn't be a problem anymore....these people have complete access to Office for Windows. They work for Microsoft!

We shouldn't have to deal with these kind of problems, but we have basically no choice at this point. Not to mention the annoyance of working in a group when Word or Excel crashes and people denounce your computer immediately when it's Microsft's fault for having a poorly made program. For people who don't use Macs, this suite casts a bad shadow on the Mac in general.

I do like the functionality of the programs, but the implementation is terrible and needs to be remedied before we can say we have a good Office type suite to compare with Windows.

-Stromie

 

[dylanemcgregor]

1) SPEED

The speed in all three programs (Word, Excel and PowerPoint....I don't use Entourage) is abysmal. I don't own a new computer (1 Ghz G4) but I shouldn't need to have a brand new computer to have decent performance for a word processor, a spreadsheet or a presentation. If an Office program is used on a comparable PC the speed is astronomically faster. When using images or Excel charts of any kind in Word, my computer slows to a crawl. Excel lags on larger spreadsheets and charts compared to the Windows version that has no trouble whatsoever with 10,000 row sheets and plots. And PowerPoint has to convert any graphics made on the Windows version to another version just to display them, not to mention the countless rendering errors that occur when reading a Windows version created presentation. The speed is bad enough that whenever I had to do a project for classes, I had to either use a friend's PC or go to the computer lab to do it.

Strange, my girlfriend has a G4 500 Mhz dual that is running Office 2004 and it seems plenty quick. She doesn't do work with large spreadsheets and no VPC of course, but everything else runs without issue.

-Dylan

 

[NeoMayhem]

I hate MS Office, because:

1. Its carbon (which means you cant customize the icons or anything easily)
2. I dont like the interface
3. I dont like the useless features in word that I will never use
4. Word Sucks with graphics/layouts
5. Everybody uses it, its not 'cool' or different like the rest of my computer
6. I like iWork more, especially keynote. I dislike word, but powerpoint is complete crap.
7. Its expensive, I got iWork for $49

Excel seems like a decent app, but I have never used it much.

 

[Pittsax]

I hate MS Office, because:

1. Its carbon (which means you cant customize the icons or anything easily)

So are a lot of apps out there. I'm not sure what you would change the icons to either...they're pretty intuitive.

2. I dont like the interface

In what way? It does the job, and the Formatting Palette saves a good bit of mucking around inside various windows.

3. I dont like the useless features in word that I will never use

Then don't use them!

4. Word Sucks with graphics/layouts

That's why it's a word processor and not a desktop publishing program.

5. Everybody uses it, its not 'cool' or different like the rest of my computer

Cry me a river. This is a lame excuse. Everyone uses it because it does its job and it does it as well as any of the alternatives out there.

6. I like iWork more, especially keynote. I dislike word, but powerpoint is complete crap.

Keynote is nice, but it can't do a lot of things Powerpoint does. I'm as frustrated as the next guy with Powerpoint, but until Keynote does everything I need it to do, I can't really switch (unfortunately)

7. Its expensive, I got iWork for $49

You get what you pay for.

 

[CmdrLaForge]

Lots of Mac lovers love Office. Especially 2004. We just love the fact that the Mac version is better than the PC version. I don't hate Microsoft. I hate Windows. Microsoft makes excellent software, but Windows isn't an example. Office is.

I was about to post the same. I like Office. I think it is by far the best Office Suite.

And I like the Mac version much better then the windows version even so it is not that advanced in regards of database integration like ODBC or pulling data from websites.

The Mac Version is more a home user version in comparision to the Windows version. Not only data but also more Office apps like Project and Visio.

2 cents

 

[Fabio_gsilva]

I don't really want Apple to waste time, money and energy in developing an Office Killer, I'd rather that they spent those resources on improving OS X, iLife, and their other great programs. (Plus I'm sure it's more challenging and enjoyable for the Apple developer to create stuff like iTunes, iMovie, QuickTime etc)

I guess I also feel that if Apple did create an Office Killer, it would have so many innovative ideas and functions that our speadsheets and text documents, while being amazingly functional and visually stunning, would then not be compatible with the "rest of the world". This would naturally mean that "iOffice" would never actualluy be able to kill MS Office.

Well, nothing is so perfect that can't be done even better. Imagine on an iOffice fully integrated with Mac OS X and iLife, much more simple and fasta and solid as a rock... I would be wonderful!

Besides that, it's a great opportunity for people who don't use Mac's start considering having one. When they look to that wonderful work, that beautiful presentation and think "why in the heck i can´t do that???" they'll try to move on...

Long live Apple!
So, let Apple fly free and develop new things... we all win!

 

[stromie952]

Strange, my girlfriend has a G4 500 Mhz dual that is running Office 2004 and it seems plenty quick. She doesn't do work with large spreadsheets and no VPC of course, but everything else runs without issue.

-Dylan

My issues with the speed tend to arise from using graphics as well as charts with a lot of data or larger spreadsheets. In all of those aspects, Office for the Mac is strongly lacking. And since it is THE professional Office productivitiy suite, those kind of things shouldn't be an issue.

 

[Crikey]

The original Excel was made before MS-DOS existed, Word did as well.

Whoa. MS-DOS came out in August 1981. The Macintosh, which as far as I know was the platform Excel was developed on, came out in 1984. I don't know when Excel actually came out.

Wasn't the very first spreadsheet called VisiCalc? And didn't it come out on the Apple II? That could have predated MS-DOS, but Excel didn't.

I am not sure but I suspect Word was developed on MS-DOS.


Crikey

 

[Crikey]

I don't "hate" Microsoft Office. In some ways it is the best office suite going on the Mac and on Windows. In some other ways, it has astounding bugs for a product that ubiquitous and profitable.

On the Macs I've played with that had Office 2004 installed, I was disappointed at what a pig Word is. The demo Macs in stores never have enough RAM, but Word always seems to bring them to their knees -- you can type faster than the display gets updated.

Nonetheless, Excel is really useful. I'd love to see OpenOffice working as smoothly on the Mac as it does on Windows and Linux, and if I were Apple and/or Sun I'd make sure that happened, but for whatever reason they haven't and it doesn't (last I checked). So I'm half-tempted to buy Microsoft Office for my Mac. I haven't because guess I'm cheap, and OpenOffice works, just not fast and smooth as I'd like.

I don't get why Apple hasn't put a spreadsheet in iWork; it's the big gap in the iWork toolset. I guess Pages and Keynote both have a different focus, look, and function than Word and PowerPoint and are thus differentiated; an iCalc/iSheet 1.0 would face withering comparisons to Excel.


Crikey

 

[efoto]

I hate MS Office, because:

1. Its carbon (which means you cant customize the icons or anything easily)
2. I dont like the interface
3. I dont like the useless features in word that I will never use
4. Word Sucks with graphics/layouts
5. Everybody uses it, its not 'cool' or different like the rest of my computer
6. I like iWork more, especially keynote. I dislike word, but powerpoint is complete crap.
7. Its expensive, I got iWork for $49

Excel seems like a decent app, but I have never used it much.

A few added comments to what Pittsax stated:

2. Its personal preference here. Your not liking it does not make it a poor program.
3. Useless features kind of implies you'll never use them , but aside from that, its not like you can purchase a dumbed-down version and the Pro version (unless there is actually some differences out there I am unaware of), but yes it is a little bloated for basic paper-writing, if thats all you do.
4. Word isn't supposed to be great with graphics. If you want something that can publish text alongside graphics, look to a publisher or other program, not a word-processor.
5. No offense, but that is the most worthless point you have made yet. Its not the cool-anti-cool, its not supposed to be. It is the industry standard in writing documents. Last I checked, black-print text on paper was never all that 'cool'.
6. Agreed, but elaborate on why you hate Powerpoint or what makes Keynote better. Without a reason, your arguements are null since we don't see your view.
7. The Office suite is expensive, and for students iWork is a great buy if for no other reason than to replace Powerpoint IMO. Not only can Keynote create more visually stunning presentations, it can do it faster and with a much easier and more streamlined user interface.

(8). Excel, like Word, is industry standard for spreadsheets and common-calc calculation sheets. Although not the cool-anti-cool app you are probably looking for, but if you need a spreadsheet app for organizing or quickly drafting timelines (I find it easiest in Excel for the 5-min layout type work) then Excel is your beast.

? - Can you purchase the programs included in the M$ Office suite as seperate independant apps or do they only come bundled as Office? (for Mac or PC, just curious how M$ is packaging it).

 

[jsalzer]

Of course hating is a personal pref

Its personal preference here....skipalot...Can you purchase the programs included in the M$ Office suite as seperate independant apps or do they only come bundled as Office?

Of course his arguments are about personal preference. After all, he prefaced them with "*I* hate Microsoft Office because:" He could have said that he hates Office because the letter "O" scares him, and it would be perfectly valid. Now, had he been saying "Everyone should hate Microsoft Office because:", then his points would need to be substantiated. But, as it stands, they're 100% acceptable.

You can buy the individual pieces of Office, but they do the pricing so that, for like 10 or 20 percent more than the price of one piece, you can buy the whole thing, so it's pointless just to buy one part. At least that's how it was way back when I bought Office X.

I hate Office because...(thinks of something odd to add)...what's the point of the "regular" view mode? That view hasn't been regular since before the Macintosh and Windows platforms!

 

[efoto]

Of course his arguments are about personal preference. After all, he prefaced them with "*I* hate Microsoft Office because:" He could have said that he hates Office because the letter "O" scares him, and it would be perfectly valid. Now, had he been saying "Everyone should hate Microsoft Office because:", then his points would need to be substantiated. But, as it stands, they're 100% acceptable.

You can buy the individual pieces of Office, but they do the pricing so that, for like 10 or 20 percent more than the price of one piece, you can buy the whole thing, so it's pointless just to buy one part. At least that's how it was way back when I bought Office X.

I hate Office because...(thinks of something odd to add)...what's the point of the "regular" view mode? That view hasn't been regular since before the Macintosh and Windows platforms!

Completely right, I corrected his 'mistake' with my own equally non-mistake, so I apologize.
I figured if they did sell them seperately they would be priced accordingly, so its better to just buy the suite.

 

[~Shard~]

I figured if they did sell them seperately they would be priced accordingly, so its better to just buy the suite.

My thoughts are the same - it's like the Adobe Creative Suite - buy them all together for $1200, or each separately for between $400 and $700, ultimately totaling over double the "package price".

 

[efoto]

My thoughts are the same - it's like the Adobe Creative Suite - buy them all together for $1200, or each separately for between $400 and $700, ultimately totaling over double the "package price".

, glad I'm still eligible for student pricing on that piece, I'd hate to have to shell out $1200 for it, although I will eventually someday. Thankfully I was given my current suite as a gift so averted the cost there

It is an interesting plow on the companie's part thought. Chrage say $500 for a given app, or bundle it with 4 more apps (all seperately $500) and only charge $1000 for it. The bulk of people, money permitting of course, will give in to the 'deal' thinking they can somehow use the programs....and then months later they realize they only use the one they initially wanted, not the suite. Oh well, live, learn, and hopefully don't dunce yourself with a repeat.

 

[~Shard~]

It is an interesting plow on the companie's part thought. Chrage say $500 for a given app, or bundle it with 4 more apps (all seperately $500) and only charge $1000 for it. The bulk of people, money permitting of course, will give in to the 'deal' thinking they can somehow use the programs....and then months later they realize they only use the one they initially wanted, not the suite. Oh well, live, learn, and hopefully don't dunce yourself with a repeat.

Yep, it's all Marketing and the like. And this takes us right back to Office in some respects. As one example, someone can't justify spending $230 on Word and $230 for Excel for their PC (the two apps they're only really going to use), for instance, when they can spend $500 (only a little bit more!) for the whole Office suite, even though this means they'll be getting Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, Outlook, Outlook with BCM, and Publisher. Sure, buying all those apps on their own would total far more than $500, however how many people are going to use all of them, or at least use all of them on a frequent basis or to their full potential? Heck, most Office users don't even use Word and Excel to their fullest potential...

 

[efoto]

Yep, it's all Marketing and the like. And this takes us right back to Office in some respects. As one example, someone can't justify spending $230 on Word and $230 for Excel for their PC (the two apps they're only really going to use), for instance, when they can spend $500 (only a little bit more!) for the whole Office suite, even though this means they'll be getting Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, Outlook, Outlook with BCM, and Publisher. Sure, buying all those apps on their own would total far more than $500, however how many people are going to use all of them, or at least use all of them on a frequent basis or to their full potential? Heck, most Office users don't even use Word and Excel to their fullest potential...

Case and point, well stated. I know I don't use those to their fullest potentials, at least I don't think I do. I basically just use Word to write reports, organize textual thoughts, and general use word processing. I use Excel a little bit more with work and have done some serious stuff with it, but even then I continually learn new things about it. Perhaps I know 40-50% of the true power of the program. As its been stated in other threads, M$ really is a great software company, windows excluded.