Staroffice vs OpenOffice.org vs MS Office

[St Leo]

Originally posted by Dissident
just asking. I have never worked in an office. I have never used any of these programs. I know what Word is- more or less. Never heard of the other ones.

Word - Word processor; text entry and very light page layout
Excel - Spreasheet; number manipulation with formulas and very light faux-database work
PowerPoint - Slide and presentation creation
Access - N00b database
FrontPage - Crap
Publisher - Desktop publishing app; text entry and heavier page layout
Outlook - Calendar, address book, and lousy email client. Required for organizations stupid enough to use Exchange Server with MAPI protocol.

[Q Classic]

word : word processor
excel : spreadsheet
powerpoint : slide presentation maker
outlook : email, calendar
access : database
publisher : desktop publishing
visio : chartmaking
onenote : memo
infopath : dynamic forms

those are all the office progs i can think of.

star/openoffice by default comes with a word processor, spreadsheet, and slide presentation maker; ximian, now bought by novell, was like outlook. publisher is an analogue to adobe pagemaker, and i don't know of any analogues to the last three off the top of my head.

visio is niche, which accounts for it. onenote is new, which accounts for that. infopath is new, and useless (imho), so...

[Urban Ranger]

Q^3,

What version of Office has all that?

[Q Classic]

right, forgot frontpage.

frontpage : web design, similar to adobe golive or macromedia dreamweaver.

[Dis]

I use outlook express for my main e mail account. Is it really that bad?

[Urban Ranger]

No, it's BAD, not merely bad.

[Q Classic]

they're all part of the office product line.

i'd forgotten another product. microsoft project is also part of the office product line.

project is pretty much something i've never really looked into. it's supposed to help organize and maintain them, but...

project, frontpage, visio, and onenote are currently separate purcahses. all of those programs are in less demand than word.

in office 2000, the basic professional suite contained:
word, excel, powerpoint, outlook, access, and publisher.

in office xp, the basic professional suite contained:
word, excel, powerpoint, outlook, access.

in office 2003, the basic professional suite contains:
word, excel, powerpoint, outlook, access, publisher.

the enterprise professional suite is the same as above, but adds infopath.

in office 2003, which mcirosoft calls a "system", it's heavily integrated into its server products such as:
live communication server 2003
exchange server 2003
sharepoint portal server 2003 (or, conversely, windows sharepoint services for windows server 2003)
project server 2003.

[Q Classic]

outlook express is hellishly bad. the power of christ compels you to stop using outlook express.

[Nubclear]

I would stop if I could find something else like it

[Urban Ranger]

There are lots of free e-mail clients. Mozilla comes with one. Thunderbird is one. So is Eudora. There are always pine and mail

[Q Classic]

pine > mail.

outlook, mozilla mail/thunderbird, outlook express, and eudora... they all suck.

[St Leo]

Originally posted by Dissident
I use outlook express for my main e mail account. Is it really that bad?

http://www.mozilla.org/projects/thunderbird/

[St Leo]

Shut up, elder god.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Q Cubed
outlook, mozilla mail/thunderbird, outlook express, and eudora... they all suck.

Surely some suck less than others?

[Q Classic]

no. pine is the only email client real men use.