microsoft word

[MuckleJoannie]

One gotcha to bear in mind is that Open Office's default for saving documents is the Open Document format. This standard format is not recognised by Microsoft, so to avoid other people not being able to read your documents you need to change the default file format.

 

To do this go to Tools, Options and click on the Load/Save option. Select Always save as Microsoft Word.

[EM]

... so to avoid other people not being able to read your documents you need to change the default file format.

Quite so in general. While on the topic of making things optimal for other people, if the document is just for reading rather than sharing for editing, providing PDFs is much better. It is still quite common to find documents on websites in DOC format where a PDF would be nicer. Nicer because they open quicker, are better formatted, and more people can read them.

 

Another thing I much prefer with online PDFs is landscape rather than portrait orientation. No disaster when printed, and much more convenient for reading with landscape screens.

[nautim]

If you want to buy one of the versions of Microsoft Office it's worth looking here

 

http://www.software4students.co.uk/

 

Quick and cheap.

[JordanKZ]

I think I'm actually one of the few people who liked the Ribbon that Microsoft introduced into office 2007 (and improved in 2010)...

 

Open Office on the other hand? It drives me insane. Some of the things it does is complete nonsense. Shift + backspace deletes everything in a cell in it's spreadsheeting application. I just want to back space and then have the next character as a capital

[Spinner72]

You're not the only one to prefer Office 2007/10. It's just a matter of steping back and geting the gist of the concept and you relise how smart and user friendly it is. I did so on reccomendation of a friend and am glad I did.

 

Open office is one of those strange pieces fo software where they've invested much time and effort in the difficult stuff (full support of MS Office formats) and yet not bothered with the easy stuff (use the same keyboard shortcuts/menu layouts).

 

It's not like they have changed them for any apparent issue of comfort or effeciency. Just different to be different!

 

Thats said - if you're on a tight budget, openoffice is a much better option than MS Works.