MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - MS Word vs Open Office vs Google Docs.. etc..

donovan1983 · 01-07-2010, 03:10 AM

I use OpenOffice because it's multiplatform, free, and I've been using it a while. I do not like Word for Windows much at all beyond Word 97. Word for Mac is actually pretty nice (it is related to the Windows version in name only), but I won't be upgrading beyond the 2004 version since the main reason I even got Office 2004 back then was because OpenOffice had yet to get a native Aqua port out for OS X. I first used OpenOffice before the OpenOffice project even got started. Back then it was StarOffice 5.2 and I think Sun had either just purchased Star Division or it was just before they had. It was quirky, but free and worked quite well and I got used to it.

Google Docs I have played with a little but didn't find it to be useful. The lack of a WYSIWYG mode for document editing was alone enough to turn me off to it.

Another word processor I have played around with a little is Abiword. It is actually pretty nice, working rather similarly to Word 97, while offering more features in general (except for inline grammar checking). It seems to be compatible with even more formats than OpenOffice, which is quite a feat.

For basic text editing, even though I only know the very basics of it still, I tend to turn to VIM. It's simple and vi or VIM is available by default on any UNIX or Unix-like system.

01-07-2010, 03:10 AM	#20
donovan1983 Member Posts: 23 Karma: 475310 Join Date: Dec 2009 Location: San Antonio, TX Device: Kindle Paperwhite	I use OpenOffice because it's multiplatform, free, and I've been using it a while. I do not like Word for Windows much at all beyond Word 97. Word for Mac is actually pretty nice (it is related to the Windows version in name only), but I won't be upgrading beyond the 2004 version since the main reason I even got Office 2004 back then was because OpenOffice had yet to get a native Aqua port out for OS X. I first used OpenOffice before the OpenOffice project even got started. Back then it was StarOffice 5.2 and I think Sun had either just purchased Star Division or it was just before they had. It was quirky, but free and worked quite well and I got used to it. Google Docs I have played with a little but didn't find it to be useful. The lack of a WYSIWYG mode for document editing was alone enough to turn me off to it. Another word processor I have played around with a little is Abiword. It is actually pretty nice, working rather similarly to Word 97, while offering more features in general (except for inline grammar checking). It seems to be compatible with even more formats than OpenOffice, which is quite a feat. For basic text editing, even though I only know the very basics of it still, I tend to turn to VIM. It's simple and vi or VIM is available by default on any UNIX or Unix-like system.