I really, really want to like OpenOffice, which I downloaded and installed today.
But. It doesn't wrap text the way I want it to. MSWord has three options: print layout (obvious), web layout (wraps text to the window size) and “normal”. Normal is what I always use. It wraps the text at the page width, like print layout, but does not show the top and bottom margins of the page, so there are no big gaps in text where the page breaks are.
OpenOffice Writer, as far as I can tell, won't do that. (If it will and I'm missing it, please tell me!) One of the things I look at when I write is whitespace – if my paragraphs are too short, often I need more non-dialogue stuff. (Usually.) So in web layout, all my paragraphs look “too short” and it's driving me nuts. And in print layout, I get those huge distracting gaps at the page breaks.
I can get used to web layout, I suppose, and switch to print layout to check paragraphs. Or make the window narrower (which loses stuff on the toolbars, and means I can see the distracting things on my desktop).
This is minor complaint, I suppose, but it seems like a simple thing for them to have included.