OpenOffice

[kernykat]

I've had it installed for a while now, but neglect to use it, in favour of Microsoft Office.

I'm *trying* to like it, but every time I use it, there are always niggling little things that annoy me so I switch back to the MS product.

This is today's experience, trying to use the spreadsheet:

• I press delete to delete the contents of a cell and it brings up a dialog box asking me what I want to delete: format, numbers, dates, formulas. It shouldn't take more than one keypress for such a simple task.
• I had a formula A3=A1/A2. A2 was blank for the time being. A3 showed the extremely helpful message of 'Err:503'. Excel would tell you that it's a divide by zero error '#DIV/0!'.
• I want to move the contents of one cell down one, so i select it, and drag the selection frame down one. does nothing. I try dragging the middle of the cell- nothing, I try dragging the corner box- nope. The only way i've found to do this is cut/paste. A simple two click procedure in excel becomes complex in OpenOffice.
• I want to re-arrange the columns, so I select the column I want to move, and try to drag it across.. Nope. there is no selection frame around the column, just the first cell- so I try dragging that across. Viola! It moves the column, despite the same thing not working on an individual cell. BUT, it overwrites the destination column instead of inserting it in between. In excel, I would typically hold down shift to change the overwrite to an insert. I can't find any equivalent in the right-click menu or anywhere else obvious, thus I have to:
  
  1. Select where the new column is to go, right click and insert a new (blank) column.
  2. Select old column.
  3. Drag the first cell of the old column to the new column.
  4. Select old colulm and detele it using the right click menu.
  Instead of:
  
  1. Select column.
  2. Drag column to new position while holding shift.

Maybe i'm too entrenched in MS Office, but as I see it these are efficiency issues, not just one implementation versus another. Simple differences I can accept: rearranged menus, toolbars, different formulas ( AVG() in excel is AVERAGE() in OpenOffice).

Thankfully today's task is not a complicated one, so I shall persist with OpenOffice.