Revisiting an old friend: OpenOffice
Posted: 2012-12-22 19:55
Most folks know the "back story" behind the fork of Open Office (OO) into Libre Office (LO). And when LO was forked, it was a perfectly sensible thing, based on Oracle corp's obvious lack of interest in the project.
Speaking for myself, I found things to actively dislike in both OO and LO in the years that followed. For instance, OO was dog slow to open a file dialog, while LO showed some obvious rough spots when reading/writing files from the "other" Office suite.
Of course, Oracle ultimately ditched OO completely, and development has since moved to the Apache Software Foundation. Just on a lark, I decided to install the most recent version (3.4.1) of Apache Open Office (AOO).
All I can say is: Wow. AOO combines the best of both OO and LO, while simultaneously eliminating most of the pain points present in both products. By comparison to either product, AOO is a joy to use.
YMMV, of course. But if you're among those who find OO or LO a bit cumbersome to work with, it might be worth your while to check out AOO.
Download here: http://www.openoffice.org/download/
Speaking for myself, I found things to actively dislike in both OO and LO in the years that followed. For instance, OO was dog slow to open a file dialog, while LO showed some obvious rough spots when reading/writing files from the "other" Office suite.
Of course, Oracle ultimately ditched OO completely, and development has since moved to the Apache Software Foundation. Just on a lark, I decided to install the most recent version (3.4.1) of Apache Open Office (AOO).
All I can say is: Wow. AOO combines the best of both OO and LO, while simultaneously eliminating most of the pain points present in both products. By comparison to either product, AOO is a joy to use.
YMMV, of course. But if you're among those who find OO or LO a bit cumbersome to work with, it might be worth your while to check out AOO.
Download here: http://www.openoffice.org/download/