Week 6: OpenOffice - Why Pay for MS Office?

I have MS Office 2010 installed in my computer at work and also at home. I decided to give OpenOffice a try though, and compare it to MS Office. OpenOffice is an open-source office software distributed by Apache for creating text documents, spreadsheets, presentation, graphics, and databases. It does not come equipped with an e-mail program such as Outlook, though. As an open-source software, it is free to download and use with no restrictions.

The installation itself was pretty easy and it only took a few minutes. One thing I have not figured out yet is how to prevent the database wizard from popping up on my screen every time I open the program. I had to create and name an empty database in my local folder, so I could start the program. So, every time I open the program, and the wizard pops up, I open the empty database, which then allows me to go into the word processing, presentation, and spreadsheet portions of the program.

The great thing about OpenOffice is that it lets you open any document saved in Word, PowerPoint, and Excel. The database program, however, does not let you open a file saved in MS Access with the .mdb file extension. I tried and it didn't work. That being said, the features available in each of these four programs are basically the same ones you find in Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and Access.

I find the word processing software very similar to MS Office and simple to use. The menus are also very user-friendly and self-explanatory with well-defined universal icons for creating links, searching, inserting pictures, paragraphs, font, etc. One cool feature is the button to convert text documents to PDF files. Finding templates to use in my documents was a little challenging, though. Then, I realized I could download templates by going to their page at http://templates.services.openoffice.org/?cid=923508. I was able to open any file format saved in Word (.doc or .docx), but I was not able to save my file as a .docx file, which the new file extension for MS Office 2010. So, I saved it as a .doc file.

The spreadsheet program provides you with all the features most people are used to in Excel - sorting, adding rows, columns, formulas, etc. I was able to open some of my Excel files and save them either as an Excel file , or as ods file (the openoffice extension). As with the text editor, I could not save it in .xlsx format (the 2010 MS office file extension). So, I saved it in the old .xls Excel file format.

Finally, I tested the presentation software. And again, I felt very comfortable using it. The menus are almost identical to PowerPoint. You can edit your slides and add transitions just like you do in PowerPoint. It is also loaded with lots of templates for your slides, and it lets you create a master slide for your presentation. There are five tabs, conveniently located at the top of each slide, offering different slide views (Normal, Outline, Notes, Handout, and Slide Sorter). In PowerPoint, you only get two tabs to the left of the slide (Slides and Outline) and the other ones are detached and located in task bar. As with the text and spreadsheet editors, I could not save it in .pptx format (the 2010 MS office file extension). So, I saved it in the old .ppt PowerPoint file format.

I highly recommend this open-source software to anybody. Regardless of how proficient you are in MS Office, you will be pleasantly surprised by how user-friendly OpenOffice is. There is very little of a learning curve involved.