Well, in my opinion, OpenOffice is a very cool Office suite. It has a word processor, spreadsheet, Presentations, database, drawing. Its 100% free, Theres even a portable Version of it in PortableApps.com which u can install on your Flashdrive. Its available for All Operating Systems, Windows, Linux, Solaris, etc. and ummmmm, oh yeah, I forgot, ITS 100% FREE!!!!!

Even when u fax, it'll pop the Fax Wizard setup with no problem.
One question: Why can't Microsoft include it when you buy a new computer. Why when u try to Fax, u need a damn fax service provider! They really suck. I remember when I needed a Word 2003 for my Keyboarding class last year. I wasn't gonna pay alot of money for it. So instead, a buddy of mine recommended OpenOffice.org. And its been my best friend ever since. Even in school, I just pop my Flashdrive without installing it on the school computers and its up and running. THAT IS COOL.

By the way, I have MS 2003 installed recently, through another buddy of mine. And guess what. I still use OpenOffice more. But I like MS Powerpoint better than OpenOffice.Impress. That I'll admit. But thats it. By the way, alot of people don't like Microsoft Office 2007. They changed it way too much.

What you guys think: Free OpenOffice or Expensive Microsoft Office?
P.S. They do the same work and u can save OpenOffice files in Microsoft versions file. Now that's cool.

I'm using MS Office, I also tried Open Office, if you don't want to spent a lot of money than is Open Office a very good substitute. Bute MS Office has a lot more possibilitys.

Star office is better than open office to. It depends on what you do. My ex loved open office. :)

well i am using ms office

but i got it while in college

if you are a student check with you book store

and see if they have a discount program

i got it for 20 bucks

it might be worth taking class to get software

but i was fulltime student at the time

it was 2002

If compatibility is important to you, I'd say that you should use MS Office. Like it or not, it's what the broadest segment of the market uses. Open Office is supposed to be compatible, but it is not at 100%. If you're in a profession setting and you can dictate what the entire company uses, then I'd say that you should be fine with Open Office.

I happen to use Open Office myself because compatibility simple is not an issue. If I need to send a document to somebody, I can save it as an MSOffice file and most of the time, it'll work exactly as I intend. If worse comes to worst, I can convert it into a PDF. I have NEVER had a problem with that.

i like open office, but if i'm worried about compatibility, i use wordperfect...which allows me to save my files in several formats, even as a word file.

I can't say that i mind the change in word 2007 much. XML makes it a much more versatile word processor, and honestly should they just keep the layout the same for all times. If you want improvement then things have to change eventually. In addition the new docx file format auto zips the document.

With all of that said, Open Office is putting some serious pressure on Microsoft. It may not have all the compatibilities that Microsoft office has, but Microsoft is still the standard for now. If Microsoft fail to keep up with the advances that Open Office makes then that might change.

I don't care if this makes me "less geek" in saying this, but I don't like OpenOffice. I used to use it a lot, and I don't find it intuitive at all. I've lost two projects on it and the compatibility with/conversion to MSOffice sucks.
I got the new MSOffice 07, and I hated it at first just b/c of all of the changes. But once you take a bit to figure out the basics, it's quite nice and a lot more intuitive than OpenOffice. Only prob I have is the change in extension (and remembering to change it to normal .doc to make it compatible). But OpenOffice has the same issue (along with many others imo) so 07 wins for me.

The new Microsoft Office 2007 has a new layout. It's a bit of a hassle to learn at first, but looks absolutely fantastic. After you get used to it's new layout, you're actually faster at doing everything.

Instead of word menus (menus with File, Edit, Format, etc.), you now have tabs displayed at the top, and then the sub-categories are displayed graphically and with words.

It's too bad we can't post pictures...screen shots are awesome!