Ask Luke: OpenOffice, Microsoft Office and Works

I am so excited! I received another question for my Ask Luke series!

Heidi asked about the differences between OpenOffice, Microsoft Office and Works and if they would work on her machine. First the easy part. There are versions of all three that work on just about any computer that is still running. So, yes. Definitely. Here is the rest of my reply.

Heidi,

I am glad you asked. This is a rather confusing topic for those who are new to computers, and even for us old dogs at times.

For everything you might want to do with a computer there are usually several applications that can do the same thing.

I see that you have discovered Firefox. What you may not know is that Firefox was created by a team of programmers that wanted to make a better browser. At the time, Internet Explorer was being given away free with Windows so they knew that there was no money in the project but they had some spare time and really wanted something better.

So the team agreed that they would make the software for free and not only that, they agreed that they would make the source code (the human readable version of the application in the original programming language) openly available to anyone who wants to look at it or work with it. Programmers usually keep their source code secret to make it harder for competitors to make competing products. Instead, they encouraged others to make their own versions or even better to contribute back and make the original Firefox even better. Their idea has been a huge success!

Firefox is not the only group of programmers doing this. Other groups have worked on graphics software (Gimp and InkScape), Blogging (WordPress), and today’s topic, document editing (OpenOffice).

OpenOffice is a free alternative to Microsoft Office that can open, edit, and save the same file types as MS Office plus a few more.

OpenOffice is designed to be small and easy to use, but like Firefox, it has plugins that let you add any feature that you use regularly. MS Office users typically use less than 10% of the features in Office but it is a different set of features for each person, so the rest of the application just sits there on your computer taking up room and slowing it down. The open source nature of OpenOffice is what makes the plugin system work well. You even can get features that the original programmers of MS or Open Office never dreamed of. This is the version that I was offering here.

You can download OpenOffice for free at: http://www.openoffice.org/

Microsoft Works is a cheaper, smaller, but much weaker alternative to the two full office suites.

Microsoft, seeing that most people did not use the full-power of their flag-ship Microsoft Office, made a smaller version too. It has a very limited feature set, and it does not cost as much. They even give it away with new computers sometimes. The problem is that Microsoft Works is really cheap. It does not take long at all to discover a feature you would like that it does not have. And since Works is close-sourced nobody but MS (and it’s partners) can write a plug-in to add that feature. And Microsoft is not going to write a plugin for Works as long as they can convince you to upgrade to MS Office to get the feature.

The funny thing is that you can write applications on top of MS Office (not Works where it is needed). They are a bit clunky but I made my living for 10+ years by doing this. So for me to switch to Open Office is a big deal. I think if I can get OpenOffice to work for me with all of the features that I need, anybody can do it. OpenOffice 3 is really great.

If OpenOffice does not do what you are looking for, ask me. There are many other options out there.

I am constantly reviewing software for clients and myself. If you tell me what you are trying to do I can probably find a free or less expensive way to easily do it.

By the way, since Open Office is free, this should be obvious, but just in case… I am not getting paid for this or getting any other perks. I just enjoy the software and appreciate all the work that the OpenOffice programers have done.

If you have any other questions on anything involving technology, computers, business, economics, China, Asia, or non-profits please ask, I am always looking for new topics that will be relevant to my readers.

Related posts:

1. Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac – Free!
2. We have a winner! Free copy of Open Office given away!
3. Microsoft Set to Take Back Some Ground?
4. Software I use and why – Desktop Applications
5. The Trouble With Open Source