OPEN OFFICE SUITE. FREE! Many Languages are Available!

I use Open Office on ME, after trying OfficeXP Student Version simply as the shop had "no problem" selling it to me, and, so far, I am very pleased with it.

I found Office XP to be a waste of money as it offers only two new programs, Exel 2002 and Power Point 2002, whilst it replaced my existing Word 2000 and added Outlook when I already have Outlook Express, which ... comes with ... Internet Explorer 6 Service Pack 1. (IE6 SP1)

In the Student Version of Office XP there are three CDs, one with the programs you actually need, (and two which you don't in many cases) a second CD with a mass of multi-media "stuff",
and a third CD with an excellent interactive tutorial, similar to the Windows ME tutorial.

Open Office comes with a Word Processor ("Writer"), Excel ("Calc"), PowerPoint ("Impress"), Equation Editor ("Math"), "Draw" which is just like MS Draw, Another "Global" feature
which I havn't looked into yet, and an HTML Editor, plus a repair feature which over-installs/repairs the entire suite in about one minute.

So 7 Office Programs for ... nothing ... versus two for US$179.

Star Office retails at approximately US$90, which should be very worth-while looking at, as I believe it is similar.

I have tried out, .DOC, .XLS, .PPP & .PPS files in Open Office with no problem.

Given the high retail price of individual Office XP programs, anywhere from $0-$90 must be good value.

If using ME/98/98se you need to install the Unicode files first of all, to the:

C:\Windows\System , folder.

Install Open Office directly to C:\ , ... then ... add the dictionaries, one at a time to avoid system hang, and don't forget to run scandisk & defrag before AND after.

I have taken the two Windows Office XP programs off the system, sadly.

Office '97 was a much better buy, as there was the full suite with Access as well.

With Open Office you can leave MS Word on the system. Just observe the file associations when you install the Open Office program, if you choose to do so.

OPEN OFFICE SUITE
DICTIONARY INSTALLER
UNICODE FILE 9x/ME

I hope that this is of some help to you.

MC

NOTE: This is a Packard-Bell OEM install which makes a slight difference. However the Word 2000 program which came with the system, will not up-date, as the MS Office Up-Date site asks for me to insert an MS Office CD, which, being an OEM install, I don't have.

No such problem with Open Office!

Additional Information:

Microsoft Office Converters and Viewers

POWERPOINT VIEWER PPView97.exe
POWER-POINT ADD-ON MS PRODUCER


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[JohnWill]

If you want the ideal companion to Open Office, try checking in to www.redhat.com and downloading RedHat Linux 9.0 CD images! Three images and you'll have a host of free software, including Open Office.

[JohnWill]

Take a chill pill and relax, you take this stuff too seriously. I am referring to Linux, and since it's a whole new O/S, it affects your current system a bunch!