What? A Complete Office Suite, And It's Free???
In November of 2006, Extension 4-H put together a CD that contained a full and complete office suite and a tutorial on how to install the software package. Each of the Colorado county offices received one copy of the CD. The office suite that we distributed is part of an open source project called OpenOffice.org (referred to here as OOo).
What was the reason for distributing this CD?
Some of the files that are available to 4-H members on the Colorado 4-H website are Microsoft Word .doc files, and they need to remain in the .doc format in order to maintain a particular locked feature that has been applied to the document. Since not all users own MS Word, we wanted to offer them a free and effective alternative.
What does the OpenOffice.org Office Suite have to offer?
- Word Processing Tool ( Writer )
- Spreadsheet Tool ( Calc )
- Presentation Creator similar to PowerPoint ( Impress )
- Database Management Tool ( Base )
- Vector Drawing Tool ( Draw )
- Mathematical Function Creator ( Math )
As you can see, the OOo Office Suite offers much all of the same types of tools that Microsoft Office offers and even a few more. The beautiful thing about OOo is that these applications are highly functional, refined, completely free, absolutely redistributable, created with community effort, and are widely available to anyone in the world, regardless of their operating system. The folks at OOo have created installation files for the following operating systems: Windows, Linux, Solaris, Mac OS-X, Linux PPC, and Free BSD. That's a lot of different platforms and shows how much effort has gone into making this software available to any computer user (not just Windows or Macintosh users). The OOo website also provides a plethora of documentation on how to use their software applications.
What file types can be used with the OOo Suite?
Most of the Microsoft file types can be utilized within the OOo Suite. However, you may find that not all features carryover from the MS file type to the OOo file type. For instance, not all types of macro features that were created in an MS Excel spreadsheet will carry over into the OOo Calc tool; the spreadsheet data will still be there, but the macro feature may not work properly. So, a general rule of thumb is that most simple documents that were created with MS Office are compatible when used with one of the OOo tools.
What does this mean for you?
Assuming that your office falls under the CSU umbrella, it is likely that you are already using Microsoft Office. MS Office is supported by CSU and by Extension's (CE) technology unit, so there is no need for you to switch.
My purpose in writing this article is to let you know that there is a free and effective alternative to MS Office, which may be a sensible option for you to use on your home computer. However, if you have technical difficulties while using the OpenOffice.org Office Suite, the CE technology unit does not suppose this software. Not to worry, I can tell you that all of my home computers are running OOo (including my wife's computer) and it works absolutely flawlessly for us. I'll further add to my disclaimer by saying this: although I personally enjoy using open source software, please perform your own research and use the software at your own risk. There are a lot of free and open source applications out there, widely available for anyone to use.
What is an open source project, and what is open source software?
In general, open source software is produced by an individual or multiple individuals who work in a collaborative effort, where the software is free and the source code for the software is widely available so that any capable individual can modify the software to suit his or her own needs. Open source projects are usually organized groups of individuals who work toward a common goal as it relates to creating/improving a specific software application or suite of applications, and the project is a "community" effort.
You might ask yourself, "Why people would do this - why do they spend their time creating software that could be sold for money when they are just giving it away for free?" The idea is that software improvements are made through community effort. As a developer, you might create a software application and make it available for others to use. Someone else might take your source code and add a whole series of new features to your software, and they make it available for others to use. Someone else finds that they can improve the application in some other way and so they alter the software and make it even better. It's all about community effort and working towards the common goal of taking something and making it better. It's not about money, power or greed. What a great idea! I think that Socrates would be quite pleased. [ The actual Open Source definition may be viewed here: www.opensource.org/docs/definition.php ]
Links of importance:
OOo main website: www.openoffice.org/
OOo Downloads Page: ( click on the "get openoffice.org" link on the homepage )
OOo Documentation and Manuals: documentation.openoffice.org/manuals/
Please feel free to contact me if you have questions about the OpenOffice.org Office Suite, or about open source technology.
Darrin Goodman
darrin.goodman@colostate.edu
[ Note: the original writing of this article was performed with the OOo Writer tool. ]
