OpenOffice.org vs. Microsoft Office

” Nobody disputes that Microsoft Office is king of the hill in
office suites, but if you put marketing and market share aside, how
does OpenOffice.org compare?

“How does OpenOffice.org (OOo) compare with Microsoft Office
(MSO)? The question is harder to answer than you might expect. Few
users have the experience or patience to do a thorough comparison.
Too often, they miss features that have different names or are in
different positions in the editing window. Or, perhaps they
overlook the fact that some features, although missing in one,
easily can be added through customization. Yet another problem when
comparing something to MSO is which of the eight current versions
of MSO do you use for the comparison?

“To cut through these difficulties, as I compared OpenOffice.org
3.1.1 and Microsoft Office 2007, I assumed until a search proved
otherwise that, if one office suite included a feature, the other
also would have it. I also focused on the three core applications:
the word processors, spreadsheets and presentation programs. The
results suggest a close feature match for average users, but in
some cases, a clear choice for expert users.”

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