How good is OpenOffice these days?

[FoxEye]

Last time I tried to use version 2.something and I didn't like it at all.

Slow, ugly, limited and dependent on Java. Think it crashed a couple times too.

Anyway, I have the option of buying MS Office 2010 Pro Plus for £40 via college, which is very tempting.

Would anyone rate OpenOffice over MS Office these days? For actual real work and productivity, as opposed to messing around.

Does version 3 make it suck less (or more?)

 

[FoxEye]

For actual real work and productivity? Well if you open up a word processor, and expect to find a word processor then OO (or AbiWord) would be a better choice. But if you actually care for whatever extra features MSOffice has then get that.

I've been using AbiWord for a while, but it has a really annoying "disappearing text" bug under win7 x64. You can be edited a sentence, and suddenly the first three or so words will just vanish, and everything to the right will shift over to take its place. But the words are still there If you edit some more, sometimes they'll re-appear as if nothing had happened

Anyway, after putting up with this odd behaviour for a while, I got fed up with it and decided it was a pretty critical bug for a word processor

And yeah, £40 for Office 2010 Pro Plus is a steal. Think I'll go for it.

 

[FoxEye]

I use it as a matter of principal... a bit slower on a low spec pc but works fine for me...

You say a matter of principle... what principle is that? I like FOSS as much as the next man, but I do still think products should be judged on merit, not idealism.