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Open Office - Writer

This document compares the basic features of OpenOffice.orgs Writer application to Microsoft Word.

I decided to do this because so many of my friends are evangelistic advocates of Open Office. They recommend (badgered me about) it as a full replacement for Microsoft Office. I have looked at Open Office a number of times over the past eight or ten years and was not impressed with it's ability to provide a replacement for Microsoft Office. Its differences were so striking that I have adamantly recommended against it. My friends assured me however, that things have changed. This document is my attempt at a fair appraisal of the Writer portion of Open Office. I will add articles on Open Office Calc, Base and Draw as I have time to review them.

A note for MS Office users: I purposefully did not use the help menus that are available from Open Office (OO), because I wanted to see how much of this I can find quickly on my own.

First impressions are important.
My first observation is one of aesthetics. Open office still has a very plain Jane look and feel. It doesn't give one a sense of strength and solidity. However, it does present a utilitarian face. The automatic left justification of the white space bothered me immediately. Maybe it's just me, but when I am working on a document I want it in the center of my screen, no matter what the size, unless I choose to scroll one way or the other. Interestingly, when I increase the page width to 150% it suddenly shifted to the right side of the screen?
My opinion, for what it is worth is that it should default to center of screen unless moved by the user.

Graphics capabilities
I use a lot of graphics in my documents so that's one of the first things I experimented with. I inserted pictures into document. The insertion tools are slightly different from MS Office, but close enough for the average user to figure out. Graphics insertion appears to work much better in Open Office that it does in MS word. For one thing, the graphics stay on the screen after they are inserted. They seem to be stable while you are working on the document, unlike MS Word, where the graphics often fail to show until you go to print preview, print, or somehow force them to appear. Graphic formatting and placement controls seem to be pretty much the same.

Color
I also use a lot of color in my documents, and I tend to customize the colors quite a bit. This was a source of disappointment in Open Office. Color control is much more limited.

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