the Open Office Experiment

Not long ago I wrote I was going to see if Open Office, a free opensource package similar to Microsoft Office, could serve as my main tool and mean I no longer have to buy and update Microsoft Office. See that posting.

So far, there are a lot of pluses to the application. It is robust and I create what I need, though on occasion I miss some of Microsoft Office’s advanced features, especially in Powerpoint.

Yesterday I ran into a problem. I created a presentation in Open Office but it would not covert entirely into Powerpoint and I had to use Powerpoint for a presentation today. Not all the graphics converted and the links turned from blue to white, leaving them impoosible to see on a white background. I found away around this issue, but it was major inconvenience.

Open Office needs to keep pace with the growth and development of Microsoft Office for it to be a viable alternative. It mustbe able to open any file from Microsoft Office and right now it is not happening as it should.

I will continue with my exploration because despite some drawbacks (what application doesn’t have them?), this might be a good application for small non profits who can’t afford expensive software purchases. Stay tuned.