In 2007, Microsoft introduced the latest version of the software, with radical changes to the interface and the file format. This article considers alternative strategies for users who remain unconvinced by this new version of this classic word processing application.
Introduction
If you do not wish to use Microsoft Office Word 2007, then you will need an alternative. In this article, we shall consider an open source alternative and how to enhance the functionality of Word 2003 if you are happy with this version.
The OpenOffice alternative
OpenOffice.org grew out of the proprietary software application suite StarOffice, which was made available free of charge in 1999. In 2000, the source code of StarOffice was made available for download and a fully open source project was started, known as OpenOffice.org. Version 2 was released in 2005, and version 3 was released in beta in 2007, although the nature of an open source project means that projects may spend longer in beta than commercial applications.
Prior to version 2, OpenOffice was a poor second to its commercial rival. Frankly, it looked that the poor relation, and its only real selling point was the fact that it was free. Version 2 was the first credible version, but still had some performance issues compared to Word 2003. These were of two types: it took longer to load than Microsoft Word, and if you were opening a file in .doc format, it had to be converted. By October 2008, Version 3 shows little evidence in use of its beta status. It represents an evolutionary rather than revolutionary change in performance.However, because Word 2007 is now also incompatible with the .doc file format, the commercial product has lost a competitive advantage, and the time to open an existing .doc file is much more comparable than previously. Further, Open Office now handles more older versions of Word out of the box than Microsoft Word itself. Many of my correspondents are as unfamiliar with .docx as a file format as they were with .odf (Open Document Format) previously.
The OpenOffice interface is much more familiar than Word 2007, and is closer to 2003 than 2007. If you share my negative view of the 2007 interface, then this is another plus for the OpenOffice. Finally, the ability to produce Acrobat files has been part of the OpenOffice functionality since version 2.
So what are your options?
If you are a current user of Word 2003, then my advice is to stay with this version if this is an option. This is a very stable and reliable release. Many users are still using this version, so there are few interoperability issues with other users.
If you are a new user, then Open Office 3.0 is now a viable alternative with a much more intuitive interface than Microsoft Word 2007, and its real world performance is closer to its commercial rival than it has ever been. On the other hand, if you already own Microsoft Word 2003 and are happy with it, I see little reason to change.
If you are staying with Word 2003, and need to produce Acrobat documents, try installing Cutewriter. This is a free utility which installs as a printer under Windows allowing you to produce pdfs not just from Word, but from any Windows application. In this way, you can keep your trusted word processor, and gain the ability to produce Acrobat documents from web pages and Emails as well as documents, spreadsheets and presentations.
Problems with Microsoft Office Word for Windows 2007?
This series considers the 2007 version of Microsoft Office Word for Windows, looking at one years user experience and considering some alternative strategies
