The Silicon Amanuensis: Open Office 3.0 is World Class and Free
Steve Beisner -- May 23, 2008
Though it is expensive and sometimes frustrating to use, Microsoft Word has long been the standard tool for word crafters. OpenOffice is a cooperatively developed ("open software"), free alternative to MS Office. The OpenOffice word processor (OO Writer) is a drop-in replacement for MS Word. Beyond the cost advantage, there are other good reasons why a professional writer might prefer OO Writer to Microsoft's offering. We review the newly available "beta" release of the next version, OpenOffice 3.0.
OO Writer, like MS Word, belongs to an elite group of full-feature word processing programs. They both have the features and the horsepower to handle even large, complicated writing projects. Both products have excellent support for paragraph styles, outlining, and hierarchical navigation through huge manuscripts.
But while you might pay several hundred dollars for Microsoft Office, OpenOffice costs nothing. Remarkably, many users will find OpenOffice to be just as good as Microsoft Office. In fact, as a writer of large, novel-length works, I consider OpenOffice to be a better choice than its expensive cousin.
Availability
The developers of OpenOffice have recently made a "beta" release of the next major version, OpenOffice 3.0. Although the final release of this version won't be until later this year (2008), I've been using the beta release in my every day work for more than a month and have found it to be fast and reliable. The new OO Writer even has a few tricks that MS Word lacks, and I now prefer it over the Microsoft product.
Until this release Apple versions were released separately under the name NeoOffice. With the 3.0 version, the Apple, Windows, and Linux versions of the software are all in sync. This makes OpenOffice the only full featured word processor that fully supports all three of the commonly used consumer operating systems... a good hedge against technical obsolescence.
Learning OpenOffice
If you're a user of MS Word, you should feel pretty comfortable with OpenOffice. The writer will discover that most common actions work the same way in both products. OO Writer has a really excellent built-in Help facility. I've found it a more than adequate source for learning non-obvious aspects of OO Writer. I also use Google extensively as a "help desk". For example, if I want to find out how to "dock" a toolbar, I Google for "OpenOffice toolbar docking".
Compatability
If you have a disk full of MS Word (.doc) files you may be concerned about switching to a new word processor. It's not a problem! OO Word can seamlessly open and save documents in Microsoft format. If you're so inclined, you can even set an option within Open Office to make the Microsoft formats the default for saving documents. On the other hand, the OpenOffice format is now an international (ISO) standard, and OpenOffice files tend to be more compact, taking up less space on your hard drive.
Figure 1 -- OO Writer with a manuscript for a novel.
Navigation on the left, Custom styles on the right. (Click to see larger image.)
Another new ability of OpenOffice 3.0 is the creation of PDF (Portable Document Format) files. Apple computers have this built-in, but if you run Windows, the new ability to create PDFs without buying additional software is a real boon.
Large Document Support
If you write novel-length works, then you are familiar with the problem of locating a particular scene when you are working on another part of your manuscript. MS Word has the "outline view" as well as the "document map". The former means abandoning your normal page view, navigating the outline, then changing back to the page view again -- clumsy! The later has a fatal bug that been part of MS Word for years: enabling the document map often "auto-formats" your document... not the kind of "help" a writer needs.
OO Writer has a separate Navigation toolbar (see Figure 1) that shows you an outline of the entire document side by side with the document itself. The illustration shows a chapter outline, but a click will reveal an outline down to the scene, or even paragraph level, if you set up your paragraph styles to support it. Nice! On the same screen, note the righthand display of the paragraph styles, making it easy to create consistent formating of a manuscript with your own custom formatting instructions.
Figure 2 -- OO Writer with a manuscript for a novel.
"Two-Up" display
(Click to see larger image.)
Other Goodies
The Figure 2 illustration shows the new "two-up" side-by-side display of two pages at a time. At the bottom of the window is a slider control for the amount of zoom, an easier way to adjust the displayed size of a document and to select 1-up, 2-up, 4-up, or whatever display.
In summary, the new OpenOffice appears to be a better MS Word for the best possible price ($0.00).
OpenOffice is a free download, whether you're running Windows, Apple OS-X, or Linux on your computer. On the OpenOffice website you can find downloads for the newest versions, including the 3.0 beta version discussed in this article, as well as earlier releases.