Microsoft Office 2010 Beta: Free Office That Works

[jacobdrj]

Well, I have been trying out the new Office 2010 beta for a few days. It seems to have solved the 'problems' of Office 2007, and gives me free use of Office on my home computer for at least enough time to get through Final Exams...

The fixed the OneNote x64 bug where you couldn't Print To OneNote... A big flaw in 2007. They also seemed to revert the menus to pre-2007 nomenclature. However, the ribbon-bar is here to stay.

The Office-spanning program synergy is much improved. In 2007, Access, OneNote and some other programs were not fully integrated with the rest of the Office suite. Stupid, I know... (From the guys who gave you the incompatible SideWinder joystick with Windows XP...)

There is a neat online backup software, which I have already taken some advantage of. I like it. I wish it would more easily work with older versions of Office, but I haven't figured that part out yet.

I still have OpenOffice on as a backup, but so far, I like what I see with 2010, and I love that, at least for now, it is free...

[Cry Havoc]

openoffice.org

[velik_m]

openoffice.org

[jacobdrj]

I mentioned that I have that too in my OP. Some people find using that difficult, particularly non-technically inclined people who don't realize that the standard save format for OO is not compatible with the industry standard MO.

Also, using OO is not a viable option for many college classes.

There is also google apps. That has the advantage of simultaneous editing. MS is trying to compete with that.

This post is a review of MO 2010 versus those other options.

[Bender]

openoffice.org
:tu
I have Office on my laptop, as well as OpenOffice. OO works way better for me, it's faster, works better with my shared windows printer on another machine, and I can save in Office format if I want.

but yeah I guess some college classes might require you to use Microsoft programs. that's great, when there is a superior suite out there, and free.

[baseline bum]

Real men write their papers in TeX.

[jacobdrj]

Also, there is nothing even CLOSE to MS OneNote in OpenOffice. If you have a tablet PC, you have to have OneNote to get the full use of it. It is so powerful. I invite anyone who has the opportunity to play around with MS OneNote on a tablet PC. It is truly remarkable.

[z0sa]

openoffice.org

:tu

[baseline bum]

http://www.fsid.org/wp-content/uploads/2007/05/miktex.gif

[jacobdrj]

Is there a truly free alternative to OneNote? I'd gladly try it if I could find it.

[Bender]

baseline bum is the board's biggest fan of open source... :tu

[jacobdrj]

Open source is good stuff.

[Cry Havoc]

I mentioned that I have that too in my OP. Some people find using that difficult, particularly non-technically inclined people who don't realize that the standard save format for OO is not compatible with the industry standard MO.

Also, using OO is not a viable option for many college classes.

:wtf

Switching from OO to MS Word File Saving is too complicated?

[baseline bum]

baseline bum is the board's biggest fan of open source... :tu

Free software is awesome, but especially when it's written by the greatest programmer to ever live (Donald E. Knuth, who wrote TeX). Dude actually published the source code to TeX complete with documentation in the TeXBook

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41WBSW2CCXL._SL500_AA240_.jpg

http://www.amazon.com/Computers-Typesetting-Volumes-Boxed-Set/dp/0201734168/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1260400687&sr=8-3

It's going to be a sad day when he dies. He's basically sequestered himself in an attempt to finish as much of his encyclopedia of algorithms, The Art of Computer Programming, as he can before age finally gets him.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4f/KnuthAtOpenContentAlliance.jpg

[jacobdrj]

:wtf

Switching from OO to MS Word File Saving is too complicated?

Not for me, and people of my technical background. But for the average person, yes, it is something that frustrates many users. Even for those technical enough to do it, they find it very problematic when the formatting changes with the file type.

In my line of work, I deal mostly with the end user. That end user is usually not of the highest technical knowledge. In fact it is quite a treat to deal with someone who has already attempted to fix their own problems by looking online on forums/message boards. End users trying interoperability have problems.

If you run only OO and deal with people who only run OO, you won't have any issues, obviously. OO is a solid program, as most of us know.

[Steel]

Agreed, open source is that shit. I love it. As far as Tex, I guess I have some reading up to do. As Baseline Bum stated "Real men write their papers in TeX". I have always thought of myself as a "real man". If this is how "real men" right their papers then I have some writing to do. Haha!

[baseline bum]

Agreed, open source is that shit. I love it. As far as Tex, I guess I have some reading up to do. As Baseline Bum stated "Real men write their papers in TeX". I have always thought of myself as a "real man". If this is how "real men" right their papers then I have some writing to do. Haha!

LaTeX is really cool (a set of macros written on top of TeX). Here's a couple of examples of things you can easily write using it:

http://img51.imageshack.us/img51/7936/screenshotrl.png

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://img39.imageshack.us/img39/4872/screenshotdu.png

[koriwhat]

^ what BB? haha

[rold50]

yup LaTeX is cool. you don't have to worry about formatting. You just type the text and LaTeX handles the final formatting for you.

[jacobdrj]

yup LaTeX is cool. you don't have to worry about formatting. You just type the text and LaTeX handles the final formatting for you.

Interesting stuff. I just downloaded this out of pure curiosity, but I am having trouble installing it.

But seriously, this is the wrong thread to have this discussion in. It merits its own. This was more of a review on people's experience with MO2010, particularly OneNote.

[baseline bum]

yup LaTeX is cool. you don't have to worry about formatting. You just type the text and LaTeX handles the final formatting for you.

I love it. It's similar to XHTML in that it allows you to specify data separate from formatting, but it's so much better since you can write your own macros. For instance, instead of writing


\{x \in \mathBB{R} | x > 0\}

to get

{x in R | x > 0}
(where "in" should be the epsilon-looking inclusion character the ASCII doesn't have)

you can define macros \SetMember{x}{A} (for x in A), \SetWithConstraint{elements}{constraint}, and \RealNumbers so the previous example can become



\SetWithConstraint{\SetMember{x}{\RealNumbers}}{x > 0}


Then you just change the definitions in the preamble if you'd rather have the call \SetWithConstraint{\SetMember{x}{\RealNumbers}}{x > 0} printed out something more like


x real (x > 0)

It's so cool the way you can give your documents real semantics as opposed to just a sequence of characters and images that only have meaning when read by a human.

[baseline bum]

Interesting stuff. I just downloaded this out of pure curiosity, but I am having trouble installing it.

But seriously, this is the wrong thread to have this discussion in. It merits its own. This was more of a review on people's experience with MO2010, particularly OneNote.

MikTeX is probably the best option on Windows. It's what I used on it before switching over entirely to GNU/Linux.

[jacobdrj]

So far my sister has not warmed up to MO2010B. Her school still uses MO2003. To top it off they are using FrontPage to do their HTML in.