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Switch to OpenOffice? Pros and cons?
Aisha Ahmed | Feb 27 2008
In Pakistan, bootleg copies of software are the norm. When you buy a computer, if you tell the people who are setting it up that you want genuine software, they look at you like you’re crazy. So you go buy a computer, tell the tech support guy what software you want on it, and take it for granted that practically none of it will be legally yours. All of which bothers me (that’s why I know that you get strange looks when you ask for genuine software). But the fact of the matter is, most proprietary software is simply unaffordable on the average Pakistani computer owner’s budget. So I’ve lived with a lot of bootleg software for most of my computer using life. For example, most educational institutions in Pakistan do not buy genuine software, so if you’re in a public computer lab, you’re probably using pirated software. Off and on, I search for free software that will do the job for me, and switch over, just to assuage my own conscience. Ignoramus that I am, I was unaware of the existence of OpenOffice until a few months ago. Since then, I’ve been wondering whether I should switch over to it. Which leads to my actual question(s): Other than the moral argument for using software that one actually owns, why might one choose to switch over to OpenOffice? What difficulties should one anticipate? And would one lose an awful lot of functionality? Would it be totally stupid to install OO without uninstalling MS Office to begin with, and futzing with both for a while? Many thanks in advance to whoever takes the time to read and respond to this. 1 Comment
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 Other than the moralSubmitted by mwr on February 28, 2008 - 6:30am.
Cross-platform usage: you can get identical versions of OpenOffice for Windows, OS X, Solaris, Linux, and who knows what other platforms. And if you convert any future engineers over from pirating everything, send them my way. I’m tired of hassling with these graduate students who’d rather pirate something than ask their advisor if they can scare up a spare $40 for a legitimate copy of MS Office. Oh, and you do get an awesome illustration package included. It’s not quite up to Illustrator standards, but there’s simply no comparison in MS Office.
Depends on what you’d need. This feature comparison appears to have a bit of detail, and isn’t showing any substantial differences, but that’s obviously not a neutral source there. One annoying thing in the spreadsheet package is having to separate function arguments with semicolons instead of commas, but that’s fairly minor.
They’ll coexist happily, though you may need to watch out if OO tries to take ownership of the .doc, .xls, and other Office file extensions. I know it defaults that way when you don’t have MS Office installed, btu it may be different when MS Office is present. Play with both, and see what’s missing, if anything. »
About bardophile Bio bardophile is a teacher and curriculum planner/developer working in Lahore, Pakistan. She is also a first-time mom, so GTD strikes her as rather a lifesaver. |
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