Now I don't want to use MS WINDOWS any more.

but Unfortunately, I must use word and powerpoint to do my document and ppt....and my classmates and advisor use MS office....

So can you tell me which suite can I use under LInux and it is compatible with word and ppt....

There are some suites you can pay for like crossover office aimed towards good compatibility.

If you're looking for something free, I use openoffice and have found the compatibility and functionality to be great.

yes, I need something free.... thank you very much

Have you thought about StarOffice.

It is like the closed source version of OpenOffice, so it isn't always as up to date but it does have some nice extras, but it is free for students.

http://www.sun.com/products-n-soluti...taroffice.html

Details are on that page, and the only thing you have to do more to get it than with OpenOffice is fill out a mandatory registration form before you start the download. Then, after installing the software, when it comes up about registration, click that you have already registered because the download registration counts.

I love Open Office but I have had some problems with long documents from MS Word. I have found that AbiWord fills in nicely when OO Writer is struggling.

I haven't had any problems with Calc handling Excel files and I don't use Powerpoint so I can't comment on OO Impress

mark

If you need 100% compatibility, you will need to use Crossover Office or be lucky installing it with the default wine.

Open/Star Office are way better office suits in my humble opinion, but things are handled differently between MS Office and OpenOffice, as background images or placement of tables in a text document, for example. That means there's no way that _all_ documents created in MS Office will work in OpenOffice or vice-versa, but it will be acceptable.

If OpenOffice won't work for you or Crossover Office/wine aren't what you are after, then it's just better to dual boot...

OpenOffice is not to bad for compatibilty. I use it exclusively, tho I tend to just import docs and fix then in OOo if I need to. In some ways OOo is better than MS Office.

If you need 100% compatible then the best bet is still to buy crossover office (wine based) for $40 and install real MS Office on your linux box.

Do a search and you will find how to install MS Office on free wine as well, tho this will be more work.

My understanding (correct me if wrong) is that Oo can
read 95+ % of MS word files. The biggest difficulties is
reading MS word macros. Most people do not use
macros - they just type in texts and add a few tables/graphs/
etc. However, businnesses use fancy stuffs. So it
depends on what kind of docs you are reading.

Sheng-Chieh

The issues i've found that I would love to find a linux solution for:
table of contents, formatting of headers and footers when theres an image involved.

MSOffice has a nice feature that does table of contents updates automatically. I still dual boot since i work with MS users to create contracts and proposals and whatnot, and i don't like to have to go back and fix conversion problems every time i work on a new version of the document.

I had some header and margin issues when using open office. As much as I like OO, that is simply not acceptable when, say, typing a resume' to be submitted electronically. Crossover office is not free, but if I recall, you can get xandros 2.0 for free, which includes both star office and crossover office. I've tried xandros before, and it's actually pretty functional, if you can get past some small things (it really tries to be like windows).

The free version of Xandros includes neither StarOffice nor Crossover Office. I downloaded it a month or so ago and tried it, it only includes OpenOffice. I doubt CodeWeavers or Sun Microsystems would be very happy with Xandros if Xandros was giving away their products for free.