Face-Off: OpenOffice 3.0 vs. Office 2007

Microsoft's Office 2007's ribbon interface divides users into two camps: those who herald its elegance, and those who hate the fact they can no longer find menu commands as easily as in previous versions.

Remind you of anything? OpenOffice.org 3 emulates the interface of Microsoft Office 2000.

Word 2007's grammar and spelling check has greatly improved over previous version.

OpenOffice.org's Writer, has the capability to catch spelling errors, but even in the final release, there is still no grammar check.

A one-stop-shop splash screen from which all OpenOffice applications can be launched, plus Extension manager, where anything from a blog publisher to a Lithuanian dictionary can be downloaded as add-ons for OpenOffice sets the open-source productivity suite apart from the more regimented MS Office suite.

OpenOffice's Calc offers the same functionality as Excel, such as a Pivot Table (left). However, the Test Center's reviewers still found a performance lag in Calc 3.0 compared to Excel while working with large, complex spreadsheets.

In some online forums, users have complained that OpenOffice's drab color scheme and style makes working with it for long periods more tedious in comparison with the snazzier look of Office 2007.

Among the biggest criticisms of MS Office is the endless versioning, and more importantly, the cost.