If you are anything like I was two years ago, I’m sure you’re scratching your head, wondering just what the heck I’m talking about. What on earth is Open Office? Open Office (or OO) is fantastic project that has been around for quite some time. It is a program that gives you for free what Microsoft charges you big bucks for: A word processing program (like Word), a spreadsheet (like Excel), a database (like Access), etc. It was developed because the programmers believed that everyone should be able to have access to these basic programs, whether you can afford outrageous prices or not (no, I’m not a Microsoft fan, how could you tell?)
The beauty of this program is not that you can type up a word document for free (although that is rather nice) but instead that you can save that document in whatever formatting you want. For example: Let’s say you got a gig off the Internet where you have to type some articles in Word and send them in. You don’t have Word, and you don’t have the money to buy Word. You can download OO, type the articles in it, and when you go to save, you can simply select “Save Type As” and choose Microsoft Word (.doc). It will ask if you are sure, you click yes, and now your document can be opened by anyone who has Word, and it will have the correct formatting, the correct extension (.doc)–no one will be able to tell that you typed it up in OO instead of Word, because they are identical. I have Word, and have tested this multiple times–it really does work.
What if you need to type a document in Word Perfect? Unfortunately, OO does not offer the same deal with WP that it does Word: If you need a WP document, you will have to buy WP. Luckily, there aren’t that many companies that require WP anymore.
So you can send a document to someone else written in Open, saved in Word, and they won’t be able to tell. But what about if someone sends you a document in Word and you open it in Open? It isn’t as smooth the other direction: You will be able to see some formatting errors. It isn’t anything huge, like having the whole page is distorted or something, but there will be an occasional funny marking on the page. What I have found is that if I select the whole document (Ctrl + A), copy the whole document (Ctrl + C) and then open up a fresh text document, and paste special, without any formatting (Ctrl + Shift + V) then the funny markings go away, and you are left with a clean document. And that only has to be done if the markings really drive you crazy. You can read it without a problem.
The spreadsheet portion of Open works the same with Excel: You can put together a spreadsheet, save it in .xls format (Excel format) send it to someone, and they would never be able to tell the difference. Coming in, there will be some slight formatting errors.
Overall, I actually much prefer to use OO than I do Word or Excel, because I have gotten used to it and how it works, and I have found it easier to use than Word or Excel. I now only use Word when absolutely necessary. There are some cool features that OO has (like always keeping a icon in the lower right hand tray so you can open a document from anywhere, without having to go into a program first) that Word doesn’t even touch. I, though, don’t do much but type up blogs and an occasional letter on my computer. If I needed to be able to do fancy formatting or other really technical jobs, I would have to do it in Word. OO isn’t capable of everything Word is, but then again, Word isn’t capable of everything OO is. There are tradeoffs to both programs. If you are just starting out in the world of work-at-home jobs and you don’t have the cash quite yet to spring for Word and Excel, I would definitely recommend downloading Open Office and using it until you can buy Word. Who knows, you may fall in love with OO (I certainly have!) and never want to use Word again.
Hava
Who dedicates this blog to Microsoft haters everywhere… 😉