Newbie wants to know about openoffice and Xubuntu

[aperla]

I would like to use the openoffice suite of programs. What I have garnered off the net and some parts of this forum....that it is not up to desktop standards.....that the image is "fuzzy"....can anyone please give me some insight...I would really like to view and create some multimedia presentations...much like powerpoint.....

Any help and advice...will be greatly appreciated
A Perla

[techieMoe]

I would like to use the openoffice suite of programs. What I have garnered off the net and some parts of this forum....that it is not up to desktop standards.....that the image is "fuzzy"....can anyone please give me some insight...I would really like to view and create some multimedia presentations...much like powerpoint.....

Any help and advice...will be greatly appreciated
A Perla

Where on earth did you hear that OpenOffice was "not up to desktop standards"? OpenOffice is the most feature-complete, standards-compliant office suite available to Linux users. It's quite well received in almost all camps. I'm curious what gave you the impression that people here didn't like it. Quite the opposite; most of us use it daily.

Also, "fuzzy"? Are you perhaps talking about problems with antialiasing of fonts? I've not run into that problem lately, but if you are we can probably help.

OpenOffice has a program called "Impress" that's essentially the same kind of program as PowerPoint, and I believe it also reads .PPT files as well, though I could be mistaken.

[aperla]

When doing an google search...I came upon a Ubuntu forum.... [I cannot post a URL...I'm not permitted}


It gave me the impression that they were having difficulty using openoffice.....I did not mean to ruffle feathers....I just wanted some insight...If you feel that I should give it a try.... I will.....ami word does a nice job....but I wanted something that would let me view and create powerpoints

Thank you for your help...

A Perla

[techieMoe]

When doing an google search...I came upon a Ubuntu forum.... [I cannot post a URL...I'm not permitted}


It gave me the impression that they were having difficulty using openoffice.....

Well, I'm not saying people don't have issues with it, though I've not seen many threads on this forum specifically. Also, take Google searches with a grain of salt. Most people who don't have problems with a piece of software (or any product really) don't feel inclined to get online and talk about it. You tend to hear most from people with issues, and they may or may not be the most objective depending on how frustrated they are.

I did not mean to ruffle feathers....I just wanted some insight...If you feel that I should give it a try.... I will.....ami word does a nice job....but I wanted something that would let me view and create powerpoints

I'm not ruffled, just a bit confused! I've had good experiences with OpenOffice myself and I recommend it to friends. It's free of charge, so you're not really losing anything giving it a shot. Ubuntu has it installed already, so you shouldn't even have to download it. Do post back if you're able to open PowerPoint presentations successfully. I'm curious to know about that myself.

[markharding557]

open office is very good where some poeple get confused is that it is a bit different than office and there may be odd incompatabilities but it is a different program at the end of the day.
incidently it is available on windows as well

[elija]

There was some concern expressed by some people about the quality of font rendering in Open Office across all operating systems. Apparently this has been fixed in version 3.1 but I don't think my eyes are good enough as I can't see much (if any) difference!

I don't know what you mean about the image being fuzzy. Maybe the people who see that also need glasses

Impress will create and save Powerpoint presentations but it is not a bit of Open Office that I have used, so I don't know what it is like. I tend to use Writer and Calc which are both fantastic bits of kit.

[aperla]

Thank you all for taking the time to answer my questions....I will download Open Office and give it a try....I have an older laptop that has Xubuntu running...along with just a 10 gig HD......

Thanks Again

A Perla

[bigtomrodney]

Thank you all for taking the time to answer my questions....I will download Open Office and give it a try....

Make sure you install it through Synaptic Package Manager...no need to go through the heartache of trying to install it manually

[aperla]

I tried to download OF....but they wanted me to become a member...I was under the assumption that it was free????


Thanks to all those who have helped this newbie....by the way ...I was able to connect to both my windows shared printers.....and I have installed a few programs that were already to go on my system.....so far my Linux experience has been fantastic....thanks again to all forum members

A Perla

[waterhead]

I tried to download OF....but they wanted me to become a member...I was under the assumption that it was free????

Use the terminal and have apt install it. Copy this command to the terminal, it may add a few dependencies to the install.

 sudo apt-get install openoffice.org-draw openoffice.org-calc openoffice.org-impress openoffice.org-writer