Tuesday, June 06, 2006
Open Office: So far, so fabulous
So far, my Open Office experiment has been positively delightful. I am opening, editing, and saving all of my old .doc, .xls, and .ppt files without a hitch.
It has only been six days, but so far I have two pieces of advice for anyone who is considering migrating to the Open Office Suite from the Microsoft Suite.
1. Editing existing files is a great way to get started with any new software program. This gives you a basis of familiarity. And you probably have a ton of data files to edit, so you will have plenty of material to work with.
2. Start small. So far, I have only created two new files from scratch -- and both are very small projects, indeed. But instead of beginning with a mammoth project, I can learn by creating, say, a one-page letter in Writer or I can calculate a weekly marketing report in Calc.
Granted, this is not a very ambitious start-up to learning a new set of programs...but I did not intend it to be. At the moment, I am swamped with work, and I can't afford a slow-down to luxuriate in a more thorough training program.
But with Open Office, I am not experiencing a productivity loss, even though I have not invested in training. The Open Office interface is very familiar: i.e. -- if you know PowerPoint, you know Impress. If you know Word, you will easily grasp Writer. If you like Excel, you will love Calc.
I can see some potential hang-ups down the road: many of my third party PowerPoint add-in products (like Camtasia Studio and Image Importer) won't work in Impress...so I will likely have to go to my other computer and bust open the PowerPoint in order to enjoy the functionality of these add-ins.
Time will tell. ¶ 6/06/2006 08:41:00 AM
So far, my Open Office experiment has been positively delightful. I am opening, editing, and saving all of my old .doc, .xls, and .ppt files without a hitch.It has only been six days, but so far I have two pieces of advice for anyone who is considering migrating to the Open Office Suite from the Microsoft Suite.
1. Editing existing files is a great way to get started with any new software program. This gives you a basis of familiarity. And you probably have a ton of data files to edit, so you will have plenty of material to work with.
2. Start small. So far, I have only created two new files from scratch -- and both are very small projects, indeed. But instead of beginning with a mammoth project, I can learn by creating, say, a one-page letter in Writer or I can calculate a weekly marketing report in Calc.
Granted, this is not a very ambitious start-up to learning a new set of programs...but I did not intend it to be. At the moment, I am swamped with work, and I can't afford a slow-down to luxuriate in a more thorough training program.
But with Open Office, I am not experiencing a productivity loss, even though I have not invested in training. The Open Office interface is very familiar: i.e. -- if you know PowerPoint, you know Impress. If you know Word, you will easily grasp Writer. If you like Excel, you will love Calc.
I can see some potential hang-ups down the road: many of my third party PowerPoint add-in products (like Camtasia Studio and Image Importer) won't work in Impress...so I will likely have to go to my other computer and bust open the PowerPoint in order to enjoy the functionality of these add-ins.
Time will tell. ¶ 6/06/2006 08:41:00 AM
