Home - Articles - Messageboard

OpenOffice 1.0 Writer at Work
By: bilbrey on 2002-05-22 09:22:56
Section 2 - The basis of comparison

< print >
<< back < articles home > next >>

It's only fitting that when I go on my journey of discovery to locate the marketing specifications for the word processing application from the dominent desktop software firm, I run into a little problem...

An error occured while loading
  http://www.microsoft.com/isapi/CTRedir.asp?type=CT
  &source=WWW&sPage=Flyout_S1_Node2|Left%20Nav||Office
  &tPage=/office/:

The process for the http://www.microsoft.com protocol died unexpectedly.

A browser refresh fixed that problem. I wonder which webserver software they're running? Mmmm. Anyway, it takes quite a bit of spelunking to get to something that faintly resembles a feature list. Oddly, it's a downloadable .doc format. And it took 4 attempts through unexpectedly dying protocols to get that document downloaded. Fortunately, I can open and read this "product guide" in OpenOffice. Odd, though, that I need to program to read marketing information about the program. (I'll note that they do offer "viewers" from a link on that page, but since I don't need it...) After all that effort, it's just a listing of the new or enhanced features for Word 2002 - Nothing that provides me with a basis for comparision. I'll just have to do a side-by-side comparison of the features that I think are significant.

OK, here's the drill. We'll compare MS Word 2000 against OpenOffice 1.0 Writer, paying special attention to features that interest me. I have spent a long, long time living in Word, and I'd like to know how easy this transition is going to be, so let's just dive right in and start comparing apples and apples.

Note: Microsoft and Microsoft Word 2000 are trademarks of the Microsoft Corporation.

<< back < articles home > next >>