Free Office software
January 18, 2019
Free Office software
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with Apache OpenOffice
The Apache Open Office suite is seen in our organization as a replacement for Microsoft Office that will be used across all departments. Right now it is not, however, I have been evaluating it for a while now in order to present the replacement proposal to higher management. The biggest business problem that this will solve is reducing cost while addressing the needs covered currently by Microsoft Office.
- The best thing that OpenOffice does is being free. The cost of Microsoft Office is high and smaller shops can't afford it.
- OpenOffice has similar features with Microsoft Office and that is a lot, given that the Office team at Microsoft is huge and this product goes through all cycles of marketing, product planning&requirements, development, testing, rollout, and production maintenance.
- In terms of performance, I have seen OpenOffice run as well as or even better than Microsoft Office.
- It is cross-platform, one of the key strengths of OpenOffice.
- Provides compatibility of the generated files with Microsoft Office - this will make the transition to OpenOffice for any company smoother.
- The look & feel in general of OpenOffice is outdated and it doesn't match with the one from Microsoft.
- The usability of the menus can use a little improvement; sometimes it is harder to find what you need in a reasonable time.
- Some incompatibilities with .docx and macros in Excel .xlsx files are present. If you have complex macros and formulas in Excel files you may find it won't work in other tools.
- Moving to OpenOffice will save the company the cost of 500+ of Microsoft Office licenses in our company.
- Because it is cross-platform, we could also save 500+ of Microsoft Windows licenses if we move everyone to Linux.
- On the negative side, the lack of online collaboration and browser support may be an issue when you use clouds like Box, Workboard etc.
OpenOffice comes for free and with almost the same functionalities as Microsoft Office. Even if there may be some small incompatibilities, saving 500+ Microsoft Office licenses can be a real incentive for a small company. Together with moving to OpenOffice, as a part of the same cost-saving plan, one could also get rid of the Windows licenses since Apache OpenOffice is cross-platform.