<p>Preparing for my son to go off to school is going to bankrupt me. I’m looking for reasonable and responsible ways to shave expenses without having him end up looking and feeling like he’s some rag-tag waif who should fear asking for a second-helping of porridge.</p>
<p>Someone else here mentioned Open Office. Basically, it would save my $120 over the license I’d have to acquire for my son’s new Vista laptop so that he can have a word processor, PowerPoint, and spreadsheet suite.</p>
<p>Is there a reason to spend the $120? Is there a reason to save it? Opinions, anecdotes, expertise (real or imagined) are all welcome on this issue. Thanks!</p>
<p>Word is easier - no question. Everybody else will be using it, support is available, etc. But 2007 is a new and (in my NSHO) crappy version of the software. If your son starts off with Open Office, and has some adaptability, he will be just fine with it. It will read .doc files and save his work as .doc files readable by Word. It will create a .pdf version (which is what I always recommend people use for anything that’s not supposed to be altered by the recipient) and has a spreadsheet, powerpoint, etc. equivalent included.</p>
<p>Strike back at the Beast of Redmond! Free yourself! Free your son! Go for it!</p>
<p>I don’t use either Open Office or Office too much because I much prefer the simplicity of writing TeX in a minimalist text editor. Still, I like Open Office better than Office when I have to use a word processor/presentation tool/spreadsheet. I can use it in both Gentoo and Windows, and saving in the right format reduces compatibility issues. </p>
<p>Since it’s free, why not install it on the home computer and try it out?</p>
<p>I have Open Office and I love it. I haven’t used Office on my home computer in years. Actually, I don’t even have it on here. I constantly save files and take them to work in Office 2003 and there hasn’t been any problems.</p>
<p>What I would suggest is DL open office for him (after all, it is free) and when he gets to school check out their software deals for students. I know through my school i could get Windows XP for 5 bucks and various other software very very cheap. Or call up the school now and ask them if they have any such programs for their students.</p>
<p>I have Open Office on my laptop and Office on my desktop. There are very minor difference in the way they do things. One or two things that I use regularly in Excel don’t seem to have buttons in OO which is slightly irritating. I got sent a doc. invoice recently which must have had imbedded Excel files. It looked almost all right in OO, but it didn’t have the totals added up. When I opened it in regular Office it did. It’s the only thing I’ve found that was incompatible in years.</p>
<p>I also don’t think OO has an equivalent of Publisher which I use pretty frequently. (It’s probably my favorite Microsoft program.) But I’m sure if I asked Mathson he’d find me an equivalent for my laptop if I really needed it there as well.</p>
<p>The new Office 2007 is a pain and only recommended to users who have no previous experience with the software. </p>
<p>The Open software is … worth what you pay for. While one should not criticize something that is free, I doubt that many would have the same opinion were the software sold for real money. No matter how similar it looks, it is not worth handicapping your son for several years by causing a few incompatibilities and lack of any support at his school.</p>
<p>Divide the cost of the software by the number of years at college, and the answer becomes clearer.</p>
<p>“It will create a .pdf version (which is what I always recommend people use for anything that’s not supposed to be altered by the recipient)”</p>
<p>Are you aware that there are programs available that take PDF files and reverse them into .doc format? Don’t assume that if something is in PDF format that it won’t be modified.</p>
Of course - I’ve got two different ones myself. I’m not talking about guaranteeing the integrity of your file, just seeing to it that the version you send to someone will look the same at their end as it does at yours. A .pdf file will print out at the other end with exactly the formatting, etc., that you put into it; it’s essentially a picture of your printed page. A word processing file, however, will usually reformat on the other end, and may change in various unintended ways. For example, if you use a font that the receiving machine doesn’t have, a different font will be substituted. Line breaks will change for different printers, even with the same font, etc. For turning in a finished product, .pdf is a lot safer than any word processing format, with the added bonus that it’s universally supported.</p>
<p>I’d second Xiggi’s suggestion to buy MS Office 2003 instead of 2007 if you have to get the MS product. 2007 is a mess. I disagree that OpenOffice is worth what you pay for it - it’s worth a lot more than that. But it does have its shortcomings; that’s why I would only recommend it to someone with a certain amount of initiative and skill (maybe persistence is the better term) in dealing with wordprocessing and spreadsheet software.</p>
<p>For the clueless, what is this Open Office thingee? I have Vista, and a temporary sampling of Microsoft Office which will soon be ending. Help…is this something I should be interested in getting on my computer?</p>
<p>go to <a href=“http://www.openoffice.org%5B/url%5D”>www.openoffice.org</a> and download the office suite. Install it (it’s free) and start using it. Then decide for yourself.</p>
<p>Parent2noles, I own the Office 2007 Professional (retail release-not Beta), and I rue the day I decided to install it. </p>
<p>Although MS guarantees a safe installation NEXT to an older version, I can categorically assure that it is a bunch of BS. The new Office digs very deep in your system as it attempts to integrate with many other programs. The results are not pretty and, if you value your old files and programs, you may be sorry for having trusted Microsoft on this one.</p>
<p>Please note that I AM a fan of the Office series and I would not dream using a different set of programs. Unfortunately, this new version, despite its new look and the VERY few functions that are interesting, is hardly worth the upgrade. Actually, upgrading to it is a VERY bad idea as the program only makes sense for people who are NEW to Office. The learning curve is hellish. </p>
<p>As usual, most of us will have to learn to use that darn ribbon as it will become ubiquitous. In the meantime, we’ll have to put up with botched templates, see more of our files hopelessly “upgraded” after transmitting or receiving them, and put up with added waiting time at boot up or during the day. </p>
<p>By the way, do you consider the “ease” of printing a document on Office 2007 an upgrade? :)</p>
<p>Well, I have it as well (Office 2007 Pro) and I believe the “ribbon” functionality will be found to be vastly superior to 2003 once folks learn how to use it and how easy it really is.</p>
<p>I’m also a Mac aficionado and see how as Windoze (a little Mac lingo there :)) improves, it becomes more Mac-like. However, O 2007 is incorporating some intuitive angles not found even on my beloved Macs. </p>
<p>I still think it’s a huge improvement over the menu-crazy ( :eek: ) O 2003.</p>
<p>I believe those without feet firmly ensconced in concrete (i.e. the younger generation) will love it’s intuitive ribbon and instant feature display <em>in context</em> in short order. It’s just too cool, and I’m not given to praise anything Microsoft.</p>
<p>While I’m addressing low-hanging fruit here…Open Office is tiresome after a (very short) while. It’s better than nothing.</p>
<p>I’ll second what Xiggi said. We installed '07 on one of our home machines and, in addition to lack of backward compatability with previous versions, outright refusal to print, copy and send documents for no apparent reason, random (and inaccurate) error messages - my wife ended up establishing a cozy personal relationship with the support guy who ended up reinstalling the entire program (and possibly part of our OS) remotely from… well, wherever he was in cyberspace. It still runs slow and erratic.</p>
<p>Seriously, you should never buy a Microsoft product in its first year or two of release if you can avoid doing so.</p>
<p>I’ve got the Teacher-Student version of Office 2003. It comes with 3 licenses as well.</p>
<p>The Office 2007 product comes priced at $115 on Amazon. The Teacher-Student version does not upgrade, but that’s not a concern for me.</p>
<p>Also, my son doesn’t have much experience with Office…so he won’t have habits to unlearn. And his school doesn’t require a computer, so he won’t suffer with compatibility.</p>
<p>That’s why Open Office has some appeal. Nothing to unlearn, no compatibility issues, and he’s going to have to do something because he only has the trial version of Office 2007. I thought he had to get Office 2007 because Vista and Office 2003 were not compatible. If Office 2003 is compatible, that might be my answer.</p>
<p>I find Open Office to have limited functionality and integration when compared to other products like MS Office or WP.</p>
<p>However, it’s free.</p>
<p>While Vista is coming, for a smoother OS (in the Windows world) I’d suggest sticking with Windows XP Pro for another year. In that interval many driver issues will have been resolved making Vista easier to implement.</p>
But it does have its shortcomings; that’s why I would only recommend it to someone with a certain amount of initiative and skill (maybe persistence is the better term) in dealing with wordprocessing and spreadsheet software.</p>