Review: OpenOffice Portable v2.3
Don Bradbury takes a look at the Free Portable Office Suite from PortableApps.com
| Product | OpenOffice Portable v2.3 |
|---|---|
| Company | PortableApps.com |
| Web | PortableApps.com |
| Price | Free |
| We like | Good all-round facility; all standard office modules included |
| We don't like | Slow to run and operate from flash memory devices |
| Rating | 7/10 |
| Requirements | Any version of Windows from 95 to Vista |
While it may be true that utilisation of the potential power of the USB stick and other forms of Flash Media for running applications is yet to be fully realised, brave efforts are already being made in that direction. The organisation bringing this portable applications suite has established itself as a viable contender to userp the powerful, but expensive, defacto market leader Microsoft Office standard suite. Indeed, such is the facility of this open-sourced standard suite that many are already leaving Microsoft behind and happily adopting the OpenOffice suite for their standard office applications running from a hard drive.
In more recent times, much work has been done to create a portable version that will load onto, and run from, USB or other flash memory, and we've been taking a look at the word processor - Writer - and spreadsheet - Calc - modules in this portable suite, though it also offers presentation software, a drawing package, a database application, and a maths module.
These application suites are totally free; not only that, but they are open-sourced to all users as well. For the portable apps you simply go the the PortableApps web site and download your choice of software. The portable suite is a 77.4MB self-unpacking executable file that can be loaded onto, and then unpacked into, a USB memory device, or as we said, any flash memory device, such as an SD card for example.
The rationale behind the creation of a portable suite is, of course, to enable any PC user running Windows (usefully, any version from 95 to Vista) to transport the software between machines, leaving behind on the host computer absolutely nothing to corrupt, hog, or in any way deface the Windows installation. It's all taken care of within the flash memory device.
Download and Install
The portable office suite took eighteen minutes to download, but then a meal-break three quarters of an hour to unpack and install itself on a 1GB USB2.0 memory stick, with hundreds of DLL, JAR, PY etc files finally yielding a 220MB folder full of files and the application executables - ready for setting up your own shortcuts if you want.
The installation Wizard offered a folder but no drive letter; you have to add that yourself before you can proceed. The problem there might be that the installation drive may not be your intended default location as Windows will decide the drive letter after each reboot, depending on which of your ports are currently filled. The solution to that would be to fix the drive letter as we outlined in our previous feature on this aspect of using add-on devices on a Windows computer. Vista users should take a look at Fixing Drive Letter Assignments
Writer
There's a lengthy text file, should you care to look for it, detailing current problems, but we found the Writer module, though slow to load, worked well enough. It offered most of the generally expected facilities of a modern word processor. That text file also bids you read the rather lengthy license agreement. Though the program is completely free, registration is asked for here, and lengthy delays rather annoyingly accompany each operation.
But, in use, we actually preferred some aspects of Writer to our usual Word application. For example, we were able to relocate graphics within the frame of a page more successfully, and all-in-all we would be happy to make use of OpenOffice Writer if that was the only word processor we had available.
The main complaints were generally to do with the speed of response to commands, or the lack thereof, especally file loading, saving, and other standard operations, which could be painfully slow when running from USB2.0 flash memory. Loading files took typically 30 seconds or so, though we have to say the formatting of the document remained intact on our test docs, and during editing all the usual word processing maneuvers we tried worked well enough for us.
Calc
The Calc spreadsheet module also worked well in most departments, though it didn't like certain of our XLS worksheets, with macro support being a main complaint. We are always concerned, though, when we see reports popping up containing expressions like "this macros"; it suggests hasty assembly, though we're already in version 2.3.
However, most test worksheets loaded and ran satisfactorily, one of which we had programmed with many common - and some not so common - spreadsheet functions. We were pleased to see that full support for all the XLS functions we used was included in this.
Facilities within the application were again what might be broadly expected, the Tools menu reproduced below showing that it offered spell checking and so on, auto-correction, full customisation and options, and even a Goal Seek mode, together with links to Gallery and Media Player.
Other modules
OpenOffice.org Portable, besides the word processor (Writer) and Spreadsheet (Calc), also includes impressive-looking applications that provide a database (Base), a drawing package (Draw), a presentation application (Impress), as well as a maths module (Math). We think each of these is worth investigation if you are in need of free portable applications.
In conclusion
While we applaud the efforts of OpenOffice.org in producing such a package of applications, the lack of speedy response to application loading, file loading and saving, and other general operations was frustrating when we ran from a USB2.0 device. We think that only those desperate enough to take an Office applications suite on the road would be happy to make regular use of these modules. In an emergency, great; for general use, forget the flash memory device option and load it to your hard drive; that would be our recommendation.
In some modules you'll also be invited to install a Java Runtime Environment for compatibility, but OpenOffice Portable is totally free, the modules seemed to work well with a few exceptions, and we were pleased to see that such philanthropic people as OpenOrg still exist in this mercenary world.
