Last day of free Windows 10 - July 29

[Peregrine]

Every time I've tried to use those free ones that swear compatibility with MS Office, I've had issues with compatibility. Gave up long ago.

[fastninja500]

Originally Posted by skinsguy37

Oh yeah. .... First rule of thumb that I always have done when I ran OpenOffice or LibreOffice is to change the default file format to the default MS formats for the various office applications (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.) Just in case you had to send a spreadsheet created from Calc to someone running Excel, there won't be any issues with opening the file.

I'm the other way - whether in LibreOffice or MS Office, I save the output to the Open Document format (i.e. .odt, .ods, etc...). This way, it can be opened and edited in both office suites. I keep it simple and stick to the basics, using only the features that can be saved in the open document format.

Same difference I guess.

[rcsteiner]

Originally Posted by Peregrine

Every time I've tried to use those free ones that swear compatibility with MS Office, I've had issues with compatibility. Gave up long ago.

Keep in mind that they have to reverse engineer the format. MS formats tend to be partially documented at best ... the binary blobs embedded within can be a real challenge for any third party to deal with.

[OpanaPointer]

Originally Posted by Peregrine

I think you underestimate most people and the power of the word FREE.

I was allowing for the "FREE" part, just saying that if it involved any effort at all a lot of people wouldn't have done it.