I write good business letters; often for other people; sometimes a printed letter gets more attention than an email. The envelopes, formatted and printed in Open Office, are proper business envelopes. At a time when we are working more from home more, Open Office is a sensible alternative to expensive word processing, and spreadsheet programs. I do my company books with an Open Office spreadsheet that I designed myself. It calculates income, expenses, sales and income taxes etc. as I go. When it's time to do taxes, the numbers are all there at the bottom.

I use Open Office for at least three hours every day—usually six. It is my go to word processor. I've written two novels and a collection of short stories with it. I was easily able to format and style the layout for the paperback and eBook files, so they conformed perfectly to Amazon's publishing requirements. Most folks don't know this is possible so they farm it out and pay dearly. I didn't rate the support category above because I have never had to use it. Open Office works fine all the time. It's totally reliable and at a cost 100% less than MS Word.

Figuring out how to do headers and footers on alternating pages was a bit of a brain buster, but I got it. I'm sure it could be more intuitive.

Easy to switch from Microsoft Word and not get lost. Functionality is basically the same.

Moving documents from Word to OpenOffice always ruins the formatting. Essentially, you have to start in OpenOffice and finish here unless you have extra time to reformat everything.

I've been really happy with it (some concerns with some specific version, but nothing that couldn't be resolved downgrading to the previous one. The lack of support and the creation of LibreOffice made it a deprecated solution, unless you are already a user who doesn't feel confortable with changes (but you would feel much happier with LibreOffice from minute 1).

I have been a daily user of OpenOffice since its earliest versions. It has been THE alternative to Microsoft Suite for many years, and at no cost. Its vast number of developers around the world made it easy to find solutions to your problems in any language, and to install flawlessly a wide number of plugins. But the situation changed in 2010 when concerns arose around the management of the project. Actually Apache is the owner of the project, and also if it is still free, I wouldn't recommend to spend a second on it.

Its development has not been updated in the last years, if not for minor updates, and community support is falling down. Also if a strong community is still existing, it has majorly moved to LibreOffice project, a suite which is the choice if you are looking for an (inexpensive) alternative to Microsoft. Having to chose between OpenOffice and LibreOffice (both based on the original OpenOffice experience), there is very little to discuss: the second one is the only alternative you should consider.

I am very happy overall with using this program. It is a complete and lightweight program that allows you to do almost everything it promises

It's easy to download, it's a lighter program than those on the market

it is difficult to recover data, lost due to PC malfunction, not previously saved

I have had OpenOffice freeze in mid of work and the only way to solve the issue was to restart the pc. you can as well go to save and have the entire application shutdown automatically.

Free and open-source, it can do some of the tasks that are done by other professional software in its category but I would recommend choosing another if you want reliability and better performance.

Mostly on certain systems, you will encounter bugs that can cause you to lose or interrupt your work. The open office has other issues that can as well affect those you work with. It could be adaptable to some and absolute a nightmare to others. If you are familiar with Microsoft office don't think you will be able to use open office easily matter of fact it can be a very big problem to switch.

I depend on it daily for writing and spreadsheets and am not disappointed! Cannot beat the free price.

It does everything -- i mainly use word processing and spreadsheets -- without getting wrapped up in Microsoft's intrusive and expensive software. I can open and save as Word, can open CVS, etc. Easy and effective

What's not to like, except they leave phone apps to private developers and i do wish i could search and replace tabs and other formatting symbols, but nobody's asked this since Microsoft Works in the 1990s!

I switched from MS Office to OpenOffice and I must admit, I feel no difference. It is a good thing, though, as Microsoft Office is rather expensive, while OpenOffice is completely free! I would expect a significant quality drop between the two, but I have not found one. I can only recommend everyone to switch over as it has saved me hundreds of dollars so far.

It is good at doing what it advertises. It is a full on suite of programs on par with the mainstream alternatives. I was especially surprised with how easy it was to switch from Microsoft products to OpenOffice and how little difficulty there was.

Sometimes it lags a bit. It feels like it has some optimization issues. Larger actions make my computer lag more than it ever happened with MS Office suite. I also noticed some issues with layouts and formatting - it just won't behave as I would expect it to.

Overall we had a good experience. It's a comprehensive program. I prefer OpenOffice over MS office.

OpenOffice is a versatile Office Suit, less complicated, light, and professional. The setup is done in no time and it loads quickly. Helpful for beginners.

The interface is not that unique but somehow it doesn't matter. The search option isn't that great. Not easy to recover corrupted files.

it's a great software for all your office needs. it's easy to use!

this is the best free office software out there. i use this as an alternative to microsoft office 360. it's free & works just as good, if not better.

microsoft office documents don't always transfer over to open office exactly the same. that's the only glitch i've found with this software.

I had Microsoft Office for many years, Due to business slowing down, we had to rely on another software, Apache OpenOffice was just as good a software as I had used.

I like this software, any documents made from another compatible software, will be able to export it to this cost efficient just as well.

lack of templates for useful documents to use for implementing a plan. I didn't see much of word art offers

We found OpenOffice years ago when we were first starting out and needed an alternative to spending thousands of dollars on Microsoft Excel. We use this daily for in house use and when working on projects for customers. Because so many people use Excel we simply work on OpenOffice and reload to Excel with very few changes necessary. This software saves us time and money and to continue interacting with other businesses seamlessly.

This software is very user friendly and meets the word processing and spreadsheet needs of our company. We use it daily for word processing, article construction, publication writing, and all of our spreadsheets. To say it is amazing does not do this software justice, I mainly use these two features but know it does far more, such as Drawing, Presentations, Calculator and Illustration. Co-workers use some of those other included features, but my work keeps me occupied otherwise. The word processing and spreadsheet program sections can be converter to Microsoft Office products with minimal effort. Especially nice is that Microsoft Word and Excel products can be opened by OpenOffice. This feature has saved us so much time. If we make changes to those documents they may be saved to either OpenOffice or Microsoft formats. The program is updated frequently at no cost or loss of information.

There has not been a single complaint from my staff. I personally have a problem printing envelopes, but I think that is because I rarely do so.

Overall, it's great! In a nutshell, this is a free version of Microsoft Office, for most practical applications.

The best thing is the price, as it's free to download and use the full suite of functionality! However, that wouldn't matter if the software was poor. The good news is that it's not, and OpenOffice gives me virtually every feature from MS Office that I regularly use. I don't doubt that MS Office has a leg-up in certain areas if you need deeper, more obscure features, but for day-to-day document creation, Open Office is great.

Two things: 1) I can't seem to find a way to save a document as a .docx. That might be proprietary to MS Word. 2) I'd like to be able to see more than just the last 10 documents I opened. It'd be nice to be able to choose an item at the bottom of the list such as "Show more" that would open up expanded document history.

Since my student-subscription ran out i was not willing to renew my subscription with the full paid version of Microsofts Office. So i switched to Apache and - honestly - was not disappointed. Since my last time using it, it gained a lot of functions and especially stepped up in overall appearance of the userinterface and in accessability. I would definitely recommend checking it out, before spending loads of money on commercial competitors!

It's astonishing, that Apache OpenOffice is still a freeware, if you keep in mind the incredible amount of functions it features. The "similarity" to Microsoft Office makes it very easy to switch between those products. The same goes for interchangeability of data. With Apache OpenOffice you can edit data from Microsoft Office without any loss in format and layout.

While it features a lot of features, there might be some very advanced functions, that are not availible in OpenOffice. That might not be a problem for the bigger part of users, because one might not even know about those. But for commercial usage it might fall short at parts.

I've used OpenOffice for YEARS now. There are so many things I love about it, it's hard to indicate just a few in one review. As a writer, I need a word processing software that, put simply, simple! OpenOffice has the capacity to do a LOT of complex things for other industries--like graphics, spreadsheets, presentations--and it can do everything Microsoft Office does, but I think the standout thing about OpenOffice is it never glitches on me (except maybe visually when I'm scrolling through an 500-page document) and it doesn't take up a lot of space on my computer so it always opens right away--as opposed to Microsoft Word which always takes forever to open and crashes on my Macbook Pro frequently. Also, OpenOffice is free.

I don't have any complaints. Sometimes when I'm working with a 500/800 page document, the text sometimes glitches visually, but all I do is scroll up and down a bit and that fixes it.

Offers the same functionality as Microsoft word for free! It also works across platforms such as Windows and Linux. Works fast and runs without glitches or errors. Easy for even my elderly parents to use.

There really is no support besides a user forum, but for free software, what can you expect? You have to remember to convert your document types to MS before transferring to others or they can not open the documents.

I've used Apache OpenOffice for years. I used it when I was a college student until now at my current career. This year actually makes it 5 years that I've used Apache OpenOffice. Happy anniversary!

The best thing about Apache OpenOffice is that it's free, not to mention, that it offers the same office software that it's competitor Microsoft Office does. This software has every feature that you could think of and is so easy to use. I know that it may not be a deal breaker for a lot of people, but I even when downloading this software, it is so fast to download and you are able to select which Apache software to download onto your computer, even if it's just one, for example, OpenOffice Calc.

There's really nothing that I dislike about this software. I would have to sit and really think and just force something. This software is flawless.

For those that love Microsoft Office and its indispensable status as the required software suite for business, but hate having to pay an outrageous price tag. I've been using OpenOffice since back when it was OpenOffice.org, and it was and still is mind blowing how a software suite that basically did nearly everything Microsoft Office could do could also be free of charge.

Compatibility issues are the biggest concern. If you originally created a document in Microsoft Word or Excel and then try to open it in the equivalent software within OpenOffice, you may get a red flag that not everything will transfer correctly. Likewise, those that are used to Microsoft Office and its features may occasionally find that OpenOffice doesn't do EVERYTHING Microsoft Office does, at least for now. For instance, the ability to freeze panes in Excel was a useful feature that OpenOffice Writer didn't replicate until later on.

OpenOffice is a free alternative to Microsoft Office that may be used to make presentations for co-workers, briefings, and bulletins, as well as organize data.

OpenOffice is a more comprehensive and user-friendly program than Microsoft Office. OpenOffice allows you to quickly change margins, typeface, size, and other settings, and I believe it does it better than Word and in a more user-friendly way. Within one program, it can handle spreadsheets, basic databases, presentations, basic drawings, and all of the other Microsoft Office capabilities. It also allows users to create third-party plugins, giving you a lot of flexibility when it comes to pursuing extremely particular goals within the application.

The software can occasionally malfunction, causing it to sluggish or even crash, although this has only happened a few times in my experience. Rather than DOC, OpenOffice's primary document format is ODF. When I open Microsoft DOC files in OpenOffice, I occasionally see incompatibilities, such as formatting issues.

The product is easy to use, economical and a great resource for a company short on immediate funds for a paid license(s) to similar software.

The price for OpenOffice is unbeatable at free. My first favorite component of this suite is OpenOffice Writer. It carries enough features to enable a user to write and maintain an immense document, such as a novel, easily. In order to make an OpenOffice Writer document compatible with Word, simply save the .odt file as .doc. OpenOffice Impress is my second favorite software in the bundle and can be used to create very nice presentations. It is also a bit easier for a tech newbie to work with vs PowerPoint.

OpenOffice Math has a con. Simply because it is not something I would need or use often. Saying this, if I did need to use it rarely, it is a bit time consuming to justify learning for a use greater than once or twice use every two - three years.

The best thing about the OpenOffice program is that it can be downloaded and used completely free of charge without paying licenses, it is released under a license. This means that any commercial, educational, and public administration project can be installed on as many computers as possible. since you can make copies and distribute them without any expense, it is easy to install and very manageable, OpenOffice is completely accessible for beginners, it is simpler than updating to Microsoft Office 2007. Since OpenOffice is a unique and complete software program, everything works articulately between the different applications. Even the help system is the same for everything. You do not need to know which application has been used to create a document, it will always be used correctly. So simple that with a single download from the Internet or installing it from a CD you will have a multipurpose tool in your home or office.

It can be said that he lost the rhythm of the updates, and no progress has been seen in his evolution, likewise he makes greater use of memory and CPU since it is heavier and wider than other programs and this has the consequence that work slower.

My overall experience with Apache OpenOffice is average because it allows me to easily write a document, create a spreadsheet, or a presentation but it has limited capability and the formatting does not work well with other office products. There are other free available offices that are much better than OpenOffice.

What I like most about the software is that it is inexpensive and the source code is available for me to modify to my liking. I like it that the software is able to save in many different formats that can be open on another computer using a different type of office.

What I like least about the software is the interface, the formatting and the navigation. The interface is not very attractive looking. The formatting changes if I saved a document and opened it in a different office, and the navigation is more difficult compared to products like Microsoft Office.

Open Office is my go-to for document creation and editing.

I absolutely adore the comprehensive document creating and editing program. It's just as efficient and user friendly as major namebrand word processing programs. It has bells and whistles that make document creation of more than just a business letter a positive experience; but at the same time it's also no-nonsense and uncomplicated.

Honestly I don't think there's anything I -don't- like about Open Office. Sure sometimes the .odt format can be a little annoying when someone else tries to open it up in a program other than Open Office, but that's easily fixed by saving it in a supported format.

Overall, my experience has been excellent and I've been using it for several years. While Open Office is my primary for word processing and I occasionally use it for spread sheet work, I still use Microsoft Office365 for that type of work.

It's an office suite with modules similar to Microsoft's Office and it's files are compatible with same.

While most of the files across the Board there and different labels and subsequently names for action within similar application when compared to Windows Office.

Apache OpenOffice has become a great alternative to other brands and since its creation has improved significantly. When I discovered it I suggested it to my work team and I constantly receive congratulations for the good choice we made with the implementation of this software. Apache OpenOffice has everything you need in an office.

Apache OpenOffice has many advantages, among which are its gratuity and the possibility it offers to make extensions and modifications to the software. In my office, the free software proposal has been interesting and we have progressively migrated to Apache OpenOffice for multiple reasons. It is a very interesting program that I want to recommend because of the great experience we have had with it.

Among the few disadvantages that I find in Apache OpenOffice, there is the compatibility problem that sometimes occurs with other office packages that causes the margins not to be in the same place or the tabulations to move.