Anyone tried/use Open Office as opposed to MS office?

I use it.

The excel clone is OK( ish ) but missing some of the fancier stuff although the data pilot feature is fairly useful.

The database is next to useless as there is no ODBC driver available and I could not find a way to connect an application to the database.

( not being able to connect an application to a database is so unbelievably stupid that thought I must be being dumb, but I've googled for a couple of days and it seems you can not ?!?!
It like designing and building a car that you can not attatch any wheels to )

If I am being dumb and there is a way to connect an Open Office Database to a VC++ program some one please chime in with how to do it.

but it is cheap

not sure why you would want to use Open office database? plenty of better free ones around. I think they just added it so they could say it has the same functionality as MS office suite

plenty of better free ones around

care to name one or two of the better ones ?


I was going to use the Open office one because I assumed it was a proper database.

I Still can't fathom the sort of person/people who would go to all that trouble to build 95% of a database and then not bother to build any connection funtionality... WHY ? serriously... why ?

http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/database/xe/index.html

http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/mysql/

they would be the 2 main ones i guess

I Still can't fathom the sort of person/people who would go to all that trouble to build 95% of a database and then not bother to build any connection funtionality... WHY ? serriously... why ?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenOffice.org_Base

As of 2010, it builds on the HSQLDB database engine written in Java.

They probably didnt build the database they just looked around for an existing free one and bolted it one to mimic ms office functionality.

HSQLDB is a decent java database, not sure what version you are using or if its 2010. Since its a new change maybe they had enough of the old database to

Thanks... I didn't know Oracle did a free 'Express' version, I'll explore that further.

yeah heard its good. If its anything like its bigger brother should be more than adequate

Do you know anything about Embedding SQL in a MS VC++ program ?

I used to use Oracle in the 1990's ( on UNIX ) and it was Simple with Pro'C'
but I can't seem to find a simple way of doing it on a PC with VC++

I'm guess that the Oracle Express version you mention doesn't come with a ProC precompiler.

* I'm guessing..

dont know really, seems like it should be possible from forums

http://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=981399&tstart=0

Well thanks for all your suggestions, I've been looking at the Oracle Express web pages you mention and it does look promising. It'll probably take me a day or two to see if I can get VC++/Embedded SQL set up.

thanks again, I'll let you know if I get there

I use Open Office for spreadsheets and considering it's free I have no real qualms other than the fact that the Help section has been useless to me so far but most Help sections are.

You can always try the beta version of Office 2010. From here.

http://www.microsoft.com/office/2010/en/default.aspx

It expires November this year I believe.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/OPEN-OFFICE-FULL-OFFICE-SUITE-/180499746079?cmd=ViewIt...

can you believe that they have the cheek to sell it?

"I use it.

The excel clone is OK( ish ) but missing some of the fancier stuff although the data pilot feature is fairly useful.

The database is next to useless as there is no ODBC driver available and I could not find a way to connect an application to the database.

( not being able to connect an application to a database is so unbelievably stupid that thought I must be being dumb, but I've googled for a couple of days and it seems you can not ?!?!
It like designing and building a car that you can not attatch any wheels to )

If I am being dumb and there is a way to connect an Open Office Database to a VC++ program some one please chime in with how to do it.

but it is cheap"

OpenOffice can connect directly to R which is the most advanced stats package on the planet and also free. It also has many inbuilt and add-on options.

There is ODBC connectivity. It is the last item in the drop down menu when connecting to an existing database on opening page. It also has many other direct connections such as JDBC, ADO, Access, Access 2007, MySQL, dBASE etc. You can write all macros in Basic, VB, Python and Javascript.

The OO database feature is meant to be used with the Calc spreadsheet. It is highly integrated and the functions of the spreadsheet can be used in the database. I use OO with MYSQL linked by php scripts to the web and it is a complete package for data collection, analysis and betting purposes.