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Non-genuine office suite
jos - 20/10/09 at 05:51 PM

Ive been asked by a friend about alternatives to the Microsoft Office suite (excel, word outlook etc) as their recently downloaded windows update has given then a few days to install a genuine copy.

Other than open office are there any other alternatives to try and what alternatives are there to Outlook (emails, diary contacts etc) as I dont know of any

vinny1275 - 20/10/09 at 05:56 PM

Open Office is brilliant, the latest one will work with the latest office formats (2007) as well. Mozilla do an email client that can replace Outlook - called Thunderbird. You can get Office Home and Student for 70 quid from Dabs if they really want MicroShaft tho.


HTH


Vince

jos - 20/10/09 at 06:02 PM

I thought I saw it advertised in PC World for £80 but didnt think it included outlook.

I couldnt find it on their website when I looked though so will tell him about Dabs

Thank you

MikeR - 20/10/09 at 06:03 PM

Does open office do macros yet?

The only reason i didn't stick with it was its lack of macro handling ........ once thats done (if it ever will / can be) i'll be moving to it.

ashg - 20/10/09 at 06:13 PM

this is where i got mine from didn't check if i was a student or not

£35 for full copy of office enterprise


http://www.software4students.co.uk/

im to good to you lot

[Edited on 20/10/09 by ashg]

andy350z - 20/10/09 at 06:27 PM

Lotus Symphony is also free

Lotus

MikeRJ - 20/10/09 at 06:33 PM

quote:
Originally posted by MikeR
Does open office do macros yet?

The only reason i didn't stick with it was its lack of macro handling ........ once thats done (if it ever will / can be) i'll be moving to it.


It's been able to run macros for a long while, the issue is that the macro language is OpenOffice.org BASIC rather than VBA, so you can't run MS macros without porting them accross. That said the Open Office spreadsheet can apparently run many Excel macros without modification (not tried it myself).

Humbug - 20/10/09 at 07:17 PM

quote:
Originally posted by MikeRJ
quote:
Originally posted by MikeR
Does open office do macros yet?

The only reason i didn't stick with it was its lack of macro handling ........ once thats done (if it ever will / can be) i'll be moving to it.


It's been able to run macros for a long while, the issue is that the macro language is OpenOffice.org BASIC rather than VBA, so you can't run MS macros without porting them accross. That said the Open Office spreadsheet can apparently run many Excel macros without modification (not tried it myself).


Lst time I looked (a couple of months ago) OpenOffice did not run Excel macros... at least not the ones in my workbooks!

btw... you mention "porting them across" - how do you do that?

Marcus - 21/10/09 at 07:46 PM

I'm a big open office fan, but I don't use macros (no idea how to!!)
I've tried to keep away from Microsoft, but I can't get into Linux, so Visa it is......

David Jenkins - 21/10/09 at 08:12 PM

Doesn't have to be Linux - I use Open Office on my Vista laptop...
... as well as on my Linux desktop!

[Edited on 21/10/09 by David Jenkins]

flak monkey - 22/10/09 at 06:57 AM

I use open office at home, and MS office at work. Really easy to switch between the 2 and everything is compatable.

Not had a problem with Excel macros, but then don't use many.

David