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October 7 , 2005.
Is OpenOffice Writer better than MS Word?
OpenOffice Writer 2.0 vs. Microsoft Word 2003
Summary
It is impossible to say that either Writer or Word are "better" than the other.
Writer has much superior handling of styles, templates, master documents, and lists. Word has enormous libraries of art and excellent reference material via its online services. For non-native users of English, the grammar checking might be essential.
In general, however, here's the main points to consider.
Writer
- For "pure" word-processing, that is, creating text, lists and tables that will appear exactly as you want for print, Writer is the superior product. It's advanced use of styles and superior handling of lists pushed it closer to desktop-publishing capabilities.
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Writer's headers and footers work logically, as opposed to Word's quirky, limited interface.
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Writer's ability to save to standard HTML, to PDF, to it's open ODT format, or to Word's DOC format, make it the superior choice for interoperability, particularly with other operating systems such as Linux.
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Word's master documents and templates simply do not work correctly or as expected. Writer's do.
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Writer has superior indexing and table of contents capabilities.
Word
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It would be difficult for people that need Word's outline functions to move to Writer, which has much weaker outline tools.
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Word has impressive online tools and reference integration including Encarta and an enormous art collection.
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Word is tightly integrated with other Microsoft products including Outlook and Windows' ODBC drivers, making form letters more robust.
- Word is better at "helping" you with better auto-correct abilities, table auto-formats and grammar checking.
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