I use OSX and Linux, both of which run OpenOffice. The reasons why are irrelevant at this point. One last reason why I like OpenOffice is its platform independence. sxw and have a look at whatever is in the XML before I publish it to the world. At least in OpenOffice I can decompress the. I’m happy this doesn’t happen anymore, but there’s still lots of metadata that most people aren’t even aware of. Early versions would sometimes even dump parts of your computer’s RAM to a saved.

It turns out MS Word saves more to your file than you know at face value. There are plenty of cases where companies and governments have been put in deeply embarrassing positions because of some. I can also extract my information from those files whenver I feel the need. I can investigate exactly what goes into a. Microsoft should not make this situation possible in the first place, it’s their own product for crying out loud!Īnother part of freedom is the fact that MY data isn’t trapped inside Microsoft’s undocumentend and proprietary file formats. You can blame it on the developer of the Access app, but that’s just ridiculous. I have MS Access databases that work properly in Access ’97 SR1, yet they don’t work in any other version either before or after it. Something I have seen Microsoft’s product fail at miserably in the past. With OpenOffice I’m free to use whatever version I want, knowing that the newer ones will always be backwards compatible. Microsoft is pushing tirelessly for people to upgrade their Office (and Windows) versions in tandem because the licensing is their main revenue stream. You’re supposed to run Office XP on Windows XP. MS Office 97 may run on XP, it is not supported by its maker on this sytem. You have to learn how it works, or it too will feel like the cardboard box you speak of. Same goes for any application, including MS Office itself. It’s not a 100% MS Office clone, so you must learn how the product works. OpenOffice isn’t exactly a cardboard box, if you use it the way it was intended. Freedom is my key reason for moving to OpenOffice.

Openoffice org suite com