Item: Apache OpenOffice
Rating: 10
Author: Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Apache OpenOffice

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I use Apache OpenOffice for the redaction of quotations, bills of materials, slide shows, letters and several other types of texts. It solves the problem of needing a good text processor but mainly a free alternative to Microsoft Excel with Calc, which is used for most of the administrative tasks regarding money and even some regarding engineering, like reports.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Being free
Opening MS office documents
Having a good user interface

Cons

Some people used to Microsoft products can feel it's a little bit old in its style
I saves documents in its native format, which is incompatible with MS Word or Excel, unless you change that in the preferences tab
The UI is not very pretty

Return on Investment

It has save me for 8 years the cost of a subscription for MS Office, so the ROI is instant and savings are continuous. 60 USD per user per year adds up quickly.

Usability

It's good overall, just the UI it's not the prettiest, feels like an older version of MS office, but gets the job done. Once get the hang of it it's easy to use, besides it has great documentation on how to use it and there are many forums that discuss many related topics.

Alternatives Considered

Microsoft Office 2016 (discontinued)

Apache is the free alternative to MS Office and is enough for basic tasks. It doesn't have all the modern functionality that newer versions of MS Office have, like cloud connectivity and that kind of stuff but for a basic office suite it's really good and it costs nothing to own.

Key Insights

Do you think Apache OpenOffice delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Apache OpenOffice's feature set?

Yes

Did Apache OpenOffice live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Apache OpenOffice go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Apache OpenOffice again?

Yes

Likelihood to Recommend

It's perfectly suited for small bussinesses like mine that only need basic functionality out of an office suite. You can do almost everything you would do with MS Office but for free. Very good if you need to redact documents that will be printed or saved as a PDF only.

I'd say it's not great if you need to share documents with other people who use MS Office, like most do, because although it can save in MS Office formats, they are older versions, so you can't open files created in the new versions.

Comments

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Great free alternative to MS Office