I was thinking of putting the free Openoffice suite on my new pc to be cost effective instead of getting Microsoft office with a price. What do you think?

You are able to download OpenOffice for free here: http://www.openoffice.org/
And then decide for yourself (seeming it's free)

You mentioned "instead of getting Microsoft office"
Have you used Microsoft Office 2007 it is also free to trial ! (free 60-day trial of the 2007)

Many users are changing to free (including such things as Antivirus and Firewall softwares)

The next step would be free Linux OS instead of Windows

I have Microsoft Office 2003 on one of my computers and I have used Openoffice at work. I don't want to use Linux as I play many games which are only suitable for Windows XP. I was asking for opinions on other experiences with using Openoffice to see what they think. The anti virus I got was Trend Micro which was for free from work.

Oh I see

I like MS Office, but I don't like the cost

That's my opinion

I have used OpenOffice many times. I don't like that you cannot create such formats as DOCX (although these can be viewed in OO)

What is OO?? I don't like the format DOCX......it comes from vista and it sucks. I have Vista on my Laptop and I hate it! Compatibility issues.

Even google docs has still yet to configure how to upload docx files after now months still no progress.

OO= Open Office

And when creating documents I've found that some users (of mine) prefer docx (it's just a personal choice - as you asked for)

Personally I love Office 2007. I think its a great improvement over 2003. I have not gotten the chance to use the new OpenOffice.org yet so I really can't compare the two yet. I think I will download it to my test machine right now!

I however, have used OpenOffice.org 2, and that would be comparable to MS Office 2003 (which curently runs on my old, 'bad' hardware emachines) and I still would go for Office 2003.

The price is the worst part about MS office, and really, OpenOffice provides basically everything you need to write documents and such, besides the apprently missing DOCX format for OO.....hmm sounds like ill still be for Office 2007 when I test out the new OO....

Anyway thats my opinion =)

**update**
I have downloaded and installed OpenOffice.org 3 on my test computer and am impressed. This is a nice improvement over OO2. I am still in favor of MS Office....but this is a great suite for the 'businessman on a budget', and was particularly impressed with the Office Power Point replacement 'Impress'. Very easy to navigate around and make great presentations.

Anyway, my official answer to the first post, is...no. I dont think OpenOffice.org can replace MS Office overall. However, pendotigers, if your building a PC on a budget OpenOffice.org 3 is the way to go

Open Office has a couple of distinct advantages that I like: it can import any Microsoft Office file and it can make pdfs. For those who don't use Open Office, you can send your documents in a pdf format. I have downloaded version 3 but I haven't tried it out yet.

Sure you can send them as pdf, but if you want anyone to be able to edit them later you are screwed.

I've got Office 2007 on Vista, and Office 2008 on Mac, and I like Office 08 on Mac a lot better, it has a floating box with expandable/collapsable things for doing things rather than that 'ribbon' layout.

Office 2007 did not come out of Vista as pendotigers said. Why do people even say things like that? Do they really think that or are they trying to associate Office with the Vista bashing fun that has been going on forever even though most people that use Vista prefer it to XP.. Office 2007 and Vista came out around the same time, that is it. XP runs Office 2007 just fine.

OpenOffice is fine if you need an office suite at home and don't deal with people doing complex formatting in Word, macros in Excel, or fancy transitions in Powerpoint. Simple converting opening and saving will be fine, and if you can collaborate with others that use OpenOffice then all the better. But for doing the serious stuff for your employer, sending documents to others to review, ect I'd feel MUCH more comfortable if I knew I was sending it in the exact way its going to appear to them when they open it.

I like your avatar...it's one of my favorites.

I started on a Macintosh in 1990, then I went to a pc in 1996, and I like using both Windows and Linux. The operating system wars, computer wars, even version wars, all seemed senseless to me because it's really about personal preference. One person's Ubuntu is another person's Vista is another person's Office. Besides, they're all made by companies where the owners and executives are vested in one common goal: make more huge amounts of money by the minute. Steve Ballmer's fiery antics gross me out. He comes across to me as a bouncer for Steve Gates.

You've made some good points about Office versus Open Office. In the business world where over 90 percent of all office suites are Microsoft, it's more convenient to have Microsoft Office. But you know, I still really like Open Office. I have a state position where I don't use any office suites very much and I think Arizona would do well to put its entire state agencies on Linux.

I'm back in school now, but when I was out in 'the real world' I had very little to no use for any office suite on my personal computers. I only used Office stuff at work, the last year I worked there I needed a new computer and we had an extremely limited budget, so I put one together (not counting the OS and software) very cheap. So to keep costs down I tried to use OpenOffice on it, and I just found I couldn't do it, I needed MS Office, too much productivity loss and trying to verify something looked fine in Word after making it in OO. Once I got Office 2003 on it, I was relieved.

I too started on Macs. My dad was getting a PhD when I was growing up and everyone in his dept was using Macs, so he bought one, an SE/30. I played around on that a lot, I remember taking Shufflepuck off the Mac Classics that we had in 7th grade and putting it on his comp. No installing, just copy the application, much like how it still is today for most apps. Then we got a Performa 550, and later a UMAX SuperMac during the clone years. By that time Apple was going downhill fast and we had very little use for a computer when I was in HS. I went to college in 98 and got my first PC then, used PCs exclusively until 06 when I reentered the Mac world. Now I have a mix.

Remember Apple's System 7? That was my favorite! I could get in and out and inside out of that operating system. It was the most elegant system I had used up to that time. I had that on Apple's first Power Mac. The hard drive was 750 MB, less than a gigabyte! I tried to install CorelDraw on it and I didn't have enough room on the drive. Then I bought a Micron with a 4-gigabyte hard drive. I really thought that was enormous! I bought an iMac since everyone in the company I worked at had Macintoshes, but I gave it away eventually. I didn't like the 15-inch screen. OS 10, though was fun. I've been on PCs since 1997, and I recently put Linux on a second hard drive. Open Office is wonderful. I really like working with it. But I bet I could tick a few people off by sending them Open Office files..."Sure you can open it, just put Open Office on your computer!" Hah!

Yep, that SE/30 had 6.0.4 on it I think. We eventually got around to System 7. Cool that someone actually was there and remembers they were called System 6 and System 7 at that time. I think 8 was maybe the first time it was OS 8. System 6 was great, but then 7 came out and you are right, it was fantastic, actually 'revolutionary'. I remember 7.5.5 being the best OS I'd used ever (up until maybe Win 98se?) OS 8 was good, but 7.5.5 had the performance and low hardware requirements that are awesome. 8.5 was the last we could run I think. By then, Windows had owned it for a while.

There arre some incompatibilities between the two, so if you need to exchange documents with someone, you might have problems with that. But give it a try anyway - you never know until you try.