November 22, 2005
Free Alternative To Microsoft Office
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Free Alternative To Microsoft Office
- by Jim Edwards
© Jim Edwards - All Rights reserved
http://www.thenetreporter.com
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Anyone who ever priced the Microsoft Office Suite knows it
represents a significant investment.
A quick check of the CompUSA.com website shows Microsoft
Office Standard costs $399 and Microsoft Office Professional
will set you back $449. Now, this doesn’t discount the value
of the software.
In fact, the functionality in MS Office represents the true
workhorse of home and small business computing, namely: word
processing (Word), spreadsheets (Excel), presentations
(PowerPoint), and desktop database applications (Access).
However, with the cost for such functionality at a premium,
it comes as no surprise that a viable alternative emerged to
challenge Microsoft’s position atop the office application
market.
OpenOffice.org offers a suite of office software
applications free to download for anyone with a computer,
including PC’s operating with Windows or Linux.
Open Office also offers a free version for Macintosh
computers.
Open Office offers its software freely to anyone who wants
to download it.
Their all-volunteer organization, sponsored in large part by
Sun Microsystems, operates with the noble goal of making
productivity software available worldwide in 36 languages,
particularly to economies that simply can’t afford the cost
of other office solutions.
The Open Office software publishes in the Open Document
Format to make data universally available (instead of using
proprietary file formats that, for instance, make it hard to
share between Microsoft Word and Word Perfect).
Open Office contains several main components, each of which
help the user with specific tasks.
Writer - This software offers a full-featured word-
processing program enabling the user to type letters,
brochures, faxes, even entire books. No matter what you need
to type, this program lets you do it. It also offers such
features as spell check, auto-correction, and thesaurus.
Calc - Calc offers a spreadsheet program enabling the user
to create cells containing text or digits, execute simple
and complex calculations, database functions, and more. Calc
is perfect for accounting spreadsheets, inventory and more.
Impress - Impress enables the user to create “slideshow”
presentations containing text and images for use in sales or
group presentations. Impress also allows the user to create
impressive slide transition effects and eye-catching
animation.
Draw - Draw gives the user the ability to create simple to
complex drawings using vector graphics. Users can create
drawings by hand, or incorporate an array of existing
shapes, arrows, lines and other graphics.
Though it does represent an excellent alternative to
expensive office software suites, Open Office is not without
a few drawbacks.
Since they make the software available free of charge, tech
support for the free version only lasts 30 days. Also, by
its nature, the software is a “work in progress.”
As such, you will find bugs periodically that should get
reported to the Open Office website so they can fix them.
However, despite these drawbacks, Open Office software rates
a “must look” if you need word processing, spreadsheets and
other capabilities we’ve naturally come to associate with
home and small business computing.
–
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3 Comments »
November 23, 2005
John Burton :
Jim Edwards,
I just finished reading your article in today’s Virginia Gazette concerning the OpenOffice.org software suite. While you did do a good job of describing the package and many of the capabilities, you neglected to mention several important points.
1. Even though it has it’s own file format, OpenOffice.org V 2.0 does an excellent job of reading and writing MS Office format files. I
interact daily with many clients/customers who use MS Office as their standard. I use OpenOffice.org under Linux and have no problem reading the files they send to me nor do they have any problems with the files I send to them. If I edit a file originally in an MS Office format, OpenOffice.org will automatically save it in that format. The level of interoperability with MS Office is excellent.
2. The look and feel of OpenOffice.org is close enough to MS Office that any experience with MS Office will be directly applicable to OpenOffice.org.
3. OpenOffice.org can directly export a document into PDF format. I find this extremely useful when creating material that needs to be shared between many people. I can create / edit a document and
export it to PDF as easily as if I were simply saving or printing the file. Once created, anyone with a PDF reader (Adobe Acrobat Reader, XPDF, Ghostscript, etc) and read, display and print the file.
I have used OpenOffice since before Sun was involved with it. At that time it was called Star Office and developed by a German company. We (as a company) are in the process of moving away from MS Office products due to the expense and restrictive licensing agreements. Many of our clients / customers are US Government agencies and have standardized on MS Office for document interchange. OpenOffice allows us to still interact effectively with clients, but move away from MS Office.
I feel the above features make OpenOffice.org a *very* attractive alternative for the SOHO user. Additionally, when primary / secondary schools teach “computers”, they are really teaching the children how to use MS Office products. When children do homework on the computer, it is typically creating PowerPoint presentations or Word documents. OpenOffice allows the student to do their homework, based on what they’ve learned at school without the expense incurred by purchasing MS Office.
Once again, good job on the article. I am looking forward to seeing more like it in the future.
John Burton, Ph.D. Principal Associate, G&A Technical Software, Inc.
December 4, 2005
Melissa Hoff :
Hey Jim,
I just came on this product about 6 months ago. I see you are using some of that marketing “clout” to get people to see the product. I think it is really awesome what you are doing for them. You are considered somewhat high profile online and if anyone knows about marketing they know about you. Maybe that will help Open Office with the help that they are seeking. Just so everyone knows they are seeking any kind of assistance you can afford to give. Even if it is going into a place like this or forums and saying hey check out this free software. They really desire to be a household name. I have been using it for all of my documentation needs. I love the fact that I can draw up proposals, and term and agreement contracts and either upload them as is on the net as html or PDF (NO ADDITIONAL SOFTWARE NEEDED), or print them out and send them to customers. The choice is mine. There are so many cool features that come with it, there really is not enough room to write it all here.
The real reason I am here is not only to say thank you for helping others see a cost effective way of handling Documentation, But if you look above by the video you will see what I have to say about the new “Fire Side” Video you did… I am going to be investing in your seminar video training.
Thank you for all the wonderful resources you put online all the time for everyone. It is very cool that you willingly give back to everyone by bringing the best products to us all the time. And giving back to people who really need some support from a man who has the captured attention of literally thousands of people in the online community.
Melissa Hoff, Success Coach
September 22, 2007
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