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I've done some fairly advanced stuff with OpenOffice.org now, including taking XLS and DOC files back and forth between OOo at home and Microsoft Office 2003 at the local public library.
Take my word for it as a former Excel support tech: Calc in OOo 2+ is a full-service modern spreadsheet program. I had created a spreadsheet file with complex lookup and indirect addressing, which worked in Excel but caused Calc 1.1.5 to choke; Calc 2.x handled it flawlessly. OOo 2+ also supports a type of array formula that 1.x didn't; see the conditional consolidation topic on my advanced Excel tips page.
The Writer word processor seems to work great. I've been able to do everything I set out to do in it so far, including things like editing highly formatted files for Avery label products, originally created in Word. Writer even has support for regular expression text searches. Most people won't know how to use those, but they can be very powerful, and one could get help from someone. I haven't had a chance yet to tackle a big documentation project in Writer; that would be interesting.
There are some detail differences, of course. For example Calc uses semicolons to separate arguments in functions, where Excel uses commas. See my Desktop publishing and Excel pages in this same About PCs section for other comparisons. In general, if you can do it in Word and Excel you can probably find a way to do it in Writer and Calc, or something close enough for job requirements. Of course, neither spreadsheet program will do everything the other one does, and the same is true of the two word processors.
I've done some experimenting with the Base database manager. OOo always had database functionality, but in OOo 1.x it was sort of a hidden insider thing. In OOo 2+ it has an almost Access-like user-friendly interface: try File, New, Database. There's a spiffy wizard that will lead you through building single-table databases for various common applications, from subject categories, with your choice of predefined typical fields. The wizard lets you modify field lengths and other attributes along the way. Or you can create your own tables from scratch, specifying all your field names and data types. You can also use OOo Base as a "front end" to connect to existing databases created by other systems, including Microsoft Access.
The main problem with Base seems to be not enough user-friendly documentation. About the best I've found so far is Getting Started with Base [PDF] which is Chapter 10 from the OOoAuthors User Guides for 2.x. If you're already a database programmer you won't have any problem, but those were the folks that didn't have any problems with databases in OOo 1.x. In 2006 I was trying to do a fairly simple database with two tables linked one-to-many, and struggling a bit. Base was slow enough on that system that I didn't make much headway with it. Eventually I may end up writing some Base-for-Dummies-style content myself, if I can figure it out.
OpenOffice.org uses a simpler interface style than what you may be used to from Microsoft Office.
Windows applications that open document files conventionally use one of two interface styles:
Through Microsoft Office XP, the Office modules such as Word/Excel 2002 used MDI; Windows WordPad, Notepad, and Internet Explorer through version 6 use SDI.
In Office XP Word MDI, there's an application window for Word, which can be maximized or windowed on the Windows Desktop, and inside the Word application window there can be one or more document windows, which can be maximized or windowed inside the display area of Word's application window.
It's possible to move part of a Word application window, or any application window, partially off the Windows desktop (try it). It's also possible, when you have a document windowed inside Word 2002, to move part of the document window out of the display area of the Word application window.
WordPad SDI is simpler: there's still an application window, but it can only open one document at a time, which always uses the whole display area of the window. If you open another document with File, Open, it replaces the current one; if you double-click another document associated with WordPad in the Windows shell, it will open in a second completely separate WordPad application window.
OOo behaves like a single application which functions in different modes depending on which document type is open, and it opens each document in its own separate application window. The menus and toolbars you see change appropriate to the open document type. This removes one level of nesting from the user interface (document window inside application window).
This is essentially standard Windows SDI, except that you can open any document type from any OOo window. Probably the simplest way to use OpenOffice.org is to focus on your documents and folders via Windows Explorer and folder windows, rather than the application, and leave it to OOo to sort out the document types based on the file extensions.
Microsoft Office 2003 modules use a more or less SDI-style interface in which each document opens in a separate application window, but you still get an error if you try to open an Excel document from a Word window or vice versa. I'd guess Microsoft Office 2007 is probably similar in this respect.
Writer doesn't copy Word's split screen feature, which lets you view and edit one document in two different places within the document; OOo is actually more flexible. You go to Window, New Window, and OOo will open a whole new scrollable application window displaying the same document. You can then edit in either window, and changes will be refreshed in all OOo windows displaying that document. You can size, move, tile, or cascade the windows to get whatever view works for your purposes. It works the same way in Calc spreadsheets.
OpenOffice.org apparently uses the same style of Help interface as Sun Microsystems commercial applications; I found it a bit confusing at first.
Browsing the Contents tab (left-side navigation pane) works the same as in any typical Windows program's Help: double-click a book icon to open or close a Contents section, and double-click a topic icon to display that Help topic in the right-side pane. The main difference compared to MS Office is you always have the Help topics for all the OOo modules, such as Writer or Calc, in one subject tree.
The pull-down list at the top of the window (pictured) sets the OOo module you select as the current Help section for searches on the Index and Find tabs. I guess this only makes sense: if you're trying to find out how to do arithmetic in a Writer table, you wouldn't want to see a bunch of Find hits about Calc pivot tables. Index is all the selected module's Help topics alphabetically; Find is full text search.
Of course, most of the time the context-sensitive Help is the easiest access method to use; just click Help or press F1 while attempting to use a feature.
To find keyboard shortcuts for an OOo module: on the Contents tab, open the Help section for the document type—text, spreadsheets, presentations & drawings, formulas—and go to General Information and User Interface Usage, Shortcut Keys.
One little jargon quirk to keep in mind: Text in OpenOffice.org mostly means formatted word processing documents, in the program and Help interfaces and in documentation. Microsoft Office mostly uses the word text to refer to ASCII plain text as in Notepad.
A key resource for spreadsheet work is always the functions reference. This is especially true when transitioning from Excel to Calc, since one has to wonder if there might be specific syntax differences for particular functions. Fortunately the functions reference is easy to find in OOo Help: on the Contents tab, go to Spreadsheets, Function Types and Operators, and choose the appropriate function category.
You can also search for a specific Calc function name: set Calc as the search module in the pull-down list and type the function name into the Find tab. Help will find and display the correct function category, and then jump to the section for that function. Since Calc functions pretty much all have the same names as Excel functions, this may be easier if you're not sure what function category you should look in.
OOo has a little light-bulb icon called Help Agent, that appears down in the corner whenever it fixes something for you, such as replacing two hyphens with a dash. This is similar in behavior and intent to Microsoft Office Assistant, which was familiarly—and sometimes unprintably—known as Clippy. Anyone who was annoyed by Clippy probably won't like Help Agent much better. To turn off the Help Agent in OOo, go to Tools, Options, OpenOffice.org, General, and uncheck Help Agent.
Relative to Microsoft Office Help, the OOo Help windows are probably most similar to those of Office 2000. I don't know about you, but I have a hard time finding Help topics in the Office XP and Office 2003 Help interfaces, which appear in the task pane introduced in XP.* In general I'm finding the organization of the subject tree on OOo Help's Contents tab more rational and faster to find topics in by browsing than the Help subject trees in Office 2000, in spite of the fact that OOo presents all the Help topics for the entire suite in one subject tree.
Both Microsoft Word and OOo Writer have features called something like "Check spelling as you type," which put little zig-zag red underlines, or squiggles as I call them, under words the program thinks may be spelled wrong. It's an old convention from red-pencil proofreading.
People with good spelling don't really need this feature and tend to find it annoying. It will flag as misspelled most proper names, filenames and program code, and any technical jargon not found in the program's spellcheck dictionary. Besides, even with the squiggles turned off, the older on-demand spellcheck function is still available at any time.
I have a spelling checker,
it came with my PC.
It plainly marks for my revue
mistakes eye can not sea.
I've run this poem threw it,
I'm sure you're pleased too no.
It's letter perfect inn its weigh,
my checker tolled me sew.
To turn the squiggles off, in both Writer and Word, you have to find a somewhat buried Options setting. In OpenOffice.org, go to Tools, Options, Language Settings, Writing Aids, Options section, uncheck the check box labeled Check spelling as you type, and click OK. This turns off the squiggles for all OOo modules. Some squiggles in special regions like headings and frames may not go away until you close and reopen the document.
Any decent doorstop-size Word book should be able to tell you where to find the corresponding Word setting under Tools, Options. Microsoft moves that stuff around between versions sometimes anyway.
If you like the squiggles, as many do, in OOo Writer you can right-click a word with a squiggle and get a mouse menu (context menu) of suggested corrected spellings, plus some other tools.
Of course, with any form of spellcheck, you still have to be able to choose correctly between words with similar spellings and different meanings, such as pallet and palette, or cosmic and cosmetic. Otherwise your work may end up featured on Jay Leno's Monday-night "Headlines" comedy bit.
You can open the Calc spreadsheet program, and in any cell type the pseudo-formula:
=Game("StarWars")
... spelling and capitalization exactly as shown, and a functional version of the funky early 80's arcade game Space Invaders should appear. Respond to prompts with mouse clicks to start the game; then use arrow keys to move, and press the spacebar to fire. Have fun.
You'll notice all the prompts are auf Deutsch (in German). It's pretty clear that code's been in there since before Sun bought the original StarOffice code base from its European developers.
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