Microsoft Office vs. OpenOffice

September, 2010

 Almost all nonprofits want a powerful, useful-friendly word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation package – and Microsoft Office is the traditional choice.  But OpenOffice.org offers a completely free and powerful alternative, making it a viable, affordable option for organizations seeking a productivity suite.

Should your office consider OpenOffice? Will it make sense for your users and infrastructure? How do OpenOffice and Microsoft Office differ?  In fact, it’s very difficult to compare them as the applications are so fundamentally similar.  But in a short overview, we can provide a quick overview with some recommendations for specific situations.
 
  • Your office is happily using donated Microsoft Office 2007 licenses. Are you able to get Office 2007 or  2010 for free or very little money (for instance, via TechSoup)? Is your staff happy with it and comfortable using it to get your work done? Then we don't see a lot of upside in changing for the sake of change. Upgrading from Microsoft Office 2007 to 2010 is a relatively easily transition.
  • Your office is happily using donated Microsoft Office 2003 licenses. This is a little more complex. If you want to upgrade (and you almost certainly will eventually), you’ll need to move to the new Microsoft ribbon interface, a sizable change that will require a learning curve and possible training for your staff. OpenOffice will be more familiar (and completely free), but you’ll lose some very advanced features, and the ability to seamlessly open highly formatted documents, charts, pivot tables, and macros. Is your staff actually using these features? Do you have a sizable repository of complex document, spreadsheets, and presentations that you need to frequently open and edit? For instance, it may be challenging to move your accounting staff — which may in fact be creating complex spreadsheets with macros and charts — off of Excel. In this circumstance, it likely makes sense to take a careful look at what your staff is actually doing with Microsoft Office to decide whether the extra transition and cost is worth it for the sake of more advanced functionality.
  • You have a small, technically comfortable staff, philosophically aligned with open-source tools. If your staff would prefer open-source over Microsoft for philosophical reasons, and can roll with small changes in interface and less formal support, OpenOffice is a completely viable alternative that doesn't sacrifice productivity.
  • Your staff depends on sharing highly formatted documents or complex Excel functionality. Do you create a lot of highly formatted Word documents, pivot tables, or use a lot of macros? Do you share these files with other organizations? Then it may not make sense to move to OpenOffice.
  • You need to provide basic office software on old computers. If you are looking to support only basic functionality and need to use older computers — for a public computer lab, for instance — then a Linux/OpenOffice combination is hard to beat.
 
Both Microsoft Office and OpenOffice are strong platforms that will support office productivity. You might want to consider installing both office suites to allow your users a choice. Personally, we like having choices, and  the same may apply to you.
 

For More Information

A much more detailed comparison of these two packages. 
 
A useful comparison of not just Microsoft Office and OpenOffice, but also Google Docs and WordPerfect.
 
A look at online alternatives to both Microsoft Office and OpenOffice, including Google Docs, Zoho, and ThinkFree.