Converting to OpenOffice from MS Office

JonJacobs · General User Joined: 11 Mar 2010 Posts: 7

My present computer I accidently built years ago is getting old and the HW is starting to fail. Soon I will have to buy a new computer, but I don't plan to lay out the $$$ for a new MS Office.

My present computer has MS Office 2002. My most important apps are Outlook (for e-mail), Word, and Power Point. My files are all backed up, but the apps will have to be installed separately. Other than Office, most of the apps I use I wrote myself, so they are not a problem.

If I download OpenOffice and use it, will I be able to use my existing files, and output new files of the same format? The .PST files of Outlook are particularly important.

How bad is the learning curve for the UI for the OpenOffice UI when I am so used to the UI of MS Office 2002?

Thanks,
Jon Jacobs
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PromptJock · Super User Joined: 26 Jul 2006 Posts: 741

Open Office should read your MSOffice files just fine! You do have to be aware that, depending on the "complexity" of those files (i.e., large Word documents), they may not "render" exactly with OOo, so you may have to edit them a little bit to restore their formatting.

OOo will also let you RE-SAVE those MSOffice files back to MSOffice format.

If you have Excel spreadsheets with macros, you'll have to edit them to work with calc.

the "learning curve" of OOo isn't that great, especially if you're familiar woth MSOffice. However, there are some commands that are a little different in OOo than MSOffice, but if you make use of the OOo on-line help you shouldn't have any problems.

Finally, this forum is a good place to ask questions - most all of us here are "veteran" OOo users (of differeing experience levels) and we'll do our best to help.

Does this help?
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Ed · Super User Joined: 28 May 2003 Posts: 1040

Writer and Impress are basically the same as Word and Power Point.

OOo does not include a mail client, but there are plenty of other free mail clients available. Importing .PST files into anything other than Outlook may be difficult, but a quick internet search indicates that there are ways of doing this.

JonJacobs · General User Joined: 11 Mar 2010 Posts: 7

Thank you both very much.
Now I'm not as nervous about the change I'm planning.
I'm still a little concerned about importing my PST files. Any suggestions about a particular product to handle it?

Thanks,
Jon
_________________
There are 10 kinds of people in the world:
Those who understand binary,
And those who don't.