Introduction to Open Source: Open Office Section

Introduction to Open Office

Open Office is an Open Source free Office suite which replicates many of the capabilities of competing software products like the Microsoft Office Suite and Corel Office.

Here is a list of the topics in this section:

1. Advantages to Open Office: The advantages to this excellent program.
2. Disadvantages of Open Office: The disadvantages of this program.
3. How to get Open Office: How to install and start using Open Office.
4. Document and program conversions from Microsoft Office to Open Office: The equivalent programs and filetypes between Microsoft Office and Open Office.
5. Screenshots: Screenshots of Open Office.

Advantages to Open Office

• No marketing schemes to try to force you to their product
• A good product will always be released, since the programmers aren't paid to put out a product at a certain date
• More frequent updates, which always actually help the program.
• You can help the project keep on going through programming, testing, and/or donations
• Made by regular people on their own time, not by a big corporation like Microsoft
• Simpler and more user friendly design than its competitors.
• No need to worry about copyright issues.
• Isn't cluttered with useless “extra's”.
• It's free
• It's very easy to install, start up, and use

Disadvantages of Open Office

• It runs slower than Microsoft Office.
• It is not 100% compatible with Microsoft Word files (but it usually works).
• The user interface is not quite as intuitive, but it can be learned quickly.

How to get Open Office

1. Go to download section of theOpenOffice website.
2. Download either "OpenOffice.org 2.0 Beta" or "Latest Stable Release: OpenOffice.org 1.1.4".
1. Click on the link for the version you chose.
2. Put select your language and operating system (probably English and Windows).
3. You can select any download site, but it will download faster if you select one geographically close to you.
4. If you have a very slow modem, it may be wise to either get a cd from a friend, or order one from Open Office.
3. Extract the zip file on your computer.
1. If you have Windows XP, right-click on the file and choose "Extract All" and follow the steps.
2. If you do not have Windows XP, use a program like WinZip.
4. When the files are extracted, run the program setup.exe, and follow the instructions on the screen. Choosing all default options should work fine.

Loading a Microsoft Office File in Open Office

Though it may seem difficult to open Microsoft Office files into OpenOffice, it's actually very simple. All that you have to do is to right click on the file, bring the cursor down to the “Open With” line, and click on “Open Office” when the option becomes available.

Document and program conversions from Microsoft Office to Open Office

Microsoft Application	Open Office Application
Microsoft Word	OpenOffice.org Writer
Microsoft Excel	OpenOffice.org Calc
Microsoft PowerPoint	OpenOffice.org Impress

Microsoft File Type	Open Office File Type
.DOC (Word file)	.ODT, .SXW (Writer file)
.XLS (Excel file)	.ODS (Calc file)
.PPT, .PPS (PowerPoint file)	.ODP (Impress file)

Screenshots of program

Here are screenshots of the Open Office programs, click on them for full size versions.

Open Office Writer


Open Office Calc


Open Office Impress