Cal said:
Does anyone know of a word processor that is better then
MS Word? My company has lost $1000's in struggling with
the worthlessness of MS products. I wouldnt be here
asking this quesiton if Der Balmer and Der Gates didnt
destroy the competition.
Need feedback
Cal,
I don't know if there is anything *better* or not. That's in the eyes
of the beholder. Full disclosure: I *really* like Word, but prefer the
older versions, e.g. Word 97. Will move to a newer version probably
with an upgrade to a newer version of Office later this year (only
becuase I need the other components).
A couple of viable Alternatives (surely there are more):
OpenOffice.
http://www.openoffice.org/. Free for download. Licensed
under GPL. Full Office suite: word processsor, spreadsheet,
presentation, drawing, database tools, etc. If we weren't already using
Word and Office, we'd use this more. We use on our Linux boxes. More
than "good enough" for a lot of people.
Abiword.
http://www.abisource.com. Free for download. Licensed under
GPL. Works on most operating systems. Terrific word processor for
writers. Blazing fast. Looks and feels like Word 2.0 (which I find
attractive) with modern data format interchange capability. Only thing
I find lacking is only simple support for tables. More sophisticted
table capability due in next version.
I like the above products. However, we don't use them (yet) extensively.
You mention that your company has struggled with the "worthlessness"
of Microsoft's products. Full disclosure: in my opinion, Microsoft's
products are not worthless and are superb. At the same time there are
shortcomings and areas for improvements. You'll find shortcomings and
areas for improvement in all alternatives, including OpenOffice and
Abiword. I stronly recommend that your company take steps to fully
understand the root-causes of your organisational struggling else you
may find you struggle again with any other products you deploy. Just my
two cents.
