OpenOffice vs. MS Office for Education? 1039
dbrian asks: "I work in a large high school district where there will be some discussion on whether or not to purchase another term of 'Software Assurance' for MS Office licenses on thousands of computers. This seems to be an ideal opportunity to promote an alternative such as OpenOffice. It will not be an easy sell, even though OpenOffice should more than satisfy all curricular needs and save the district lots of money; like many other districts we have political and cultural 'challenges'. So, I ask you, have you been successful in moving your education or business organization from MS Office to OpenOffice? What were the pros and cons from your migration? What advice do you have in selling this to tech coordinators and administrators who are not enlightened by Open Source?"
Re:there will be hell to pay... (Score:1, Informative)
OpenOffice of course (Score:2, Informative)
Re:there will be hell to pay... (Score:5, Informative)
Guess what?
If the punk brings a wordstar file, to heck with him.
Re:there will be hell to pay... (Score:2, Informative)
Outside of this problem, I have been able to use Open Office completely this semester for all of my word processing and data needs. It works really well, most of the time.
My only real regret was writing a full paper in the latest beta version of it, for the thing crashed consistenly when performing a File>Save, no kidding here, resulting in a crashed word processor with a blank saved document.
Why not Star office??? (Score:2, Informative)
Same stuff, just has the added functionality (I think spell checker, some additional translations, etc.)
And it comes from a large software company. That can be enough sometimes to get past the stuff shirts...
go with OpenOffice (Score:1, Informative)
Tried it, hated it, went back (Score:5, Informative)
Re:It's quite simple really: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:It's quite simple really: (Score:3, Informative)
Guess I must be using an ubber eleet modified version since I can go to "File -> Save As" and save in any number of formats including
The default swx format can't be opened by MS Office either, which means there will be some trouble viewing student/teacher documents unless the defaults were changed (or if one was to teach everyone to export to some cross-office compatible format, but that's boiling the ocean...)
Speaking of which, as OpenOffice adoption grows, when in the hell is Microsoft going to add support for those formats. I think it's already past time to do that since the last reports showed that OOo was used in about 10% of businesses.
You're focusing on the wrong thing... (Score:1, Informative)
Most software is purchased because the perception is it solves a problem or business need. Why is OpenOffice better suited to meet that need?
1. Cost (enterprise wide licenses at no cost, but documentation and media [commercial off the shelf version] costs X
2. Licensing (students are licensed to use at no cost) [ok, so is everyone else, but focus on comparitive function]
3. Compatibility (Did you know MS Office doesn't open on older versions?)
4. Security (MS Doesn't support older version bug/defect/security fixes. Every student's computer that isn't protected is a vector for virus or trojan entry)
5. Disk space (which uses less space on the harddrive?)
6. System Requirements (what memory and cpu speed is required)
7. Interoperability (which systems does it run on? what systems will it not work with) Note: They're may be need to have excel to export reports in a MS Centric solution that OpenOffice can't handle - be honest and figure out their NEED. Of course this could be a boon, encouraging open techniques that work for both OpenOffice AND MS Office, rather than just one. The joys of OPEN technology!
8. Section 508 Compliance: If they receive federal funds to make this purchase or their state requires it, OpenOffice file format is more accessible and the product has full keyboard access.
9. Auditing (You'll never have a MS Licensing audit or site license tracking, or costly counts after-the-fact )
10. Features (last I checked, MS Office didn't export to PDF without purchase of Adobe software) (I could be mistaken about this - go do your homework!)
Do you see where I'm going with this? Don't be a Zealot. You're not pushing a religion - or you shouldn't be. If you really want to be enlightened, offer them a better CHOICE and be prepared for them to not take your offer!
~Gildas ('cuz I'm too lazy to log in)
Re:It's quite simple really: (Score:3, Informative)
1.) Outlook (not outlook express)
2.) Games
3.) Graphics Apps
Also mention the big corporation behind it (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Hard one (Score:5, Informative)
Educational Resources (I believe there is one for each state -- I know there is one for Missouri and Iowa) takes care of schools.
They buy the media (usually betwwn $50 and $200) one time then buy licenses that can range from a few bucks per machine into the $20-$30 range (depending on the software).
If the schools aren't doing this, then the TC's of those schools aren't doing their job properly. There are many district and state related mailing lists that the TC's can get on that will provide this type of information.
I'm not saying that OpenOffice isn't a good thing to switch to -- I use it in the shop. I'm just saying that schools don't spend anywhere near what individuals (and even businesses, unless the business is very large and constantly threatens to go to other software to get a better deal) pay.
Re:Tough sell (Score:2, Informative)
I believe you are underestimating the price benefit considering how cash-strapped most public schools are right now.
Solid problem w/ OOo over MSO (Score:5, Informative)
Aside from the "minor," bugs with OOo that this thread is bringing to light, there is another serious consideration as far as interoperability and cross-office compatibility: Visual Basic for Applications (VBA).
Before anyone considers a migration from MSO to OOo, you must consider your existing use of VBA; if none at all, no problem. On the other hand, if you have administration using VBA to manage accounting information, and teachers using VBA to manage grades, and students using VBA as part of their curriculum, then OOo is definitely going to be a more expensive solution, at least in the short term.
On the flip side, VBA is one of the major featu^H^H^H^H^Hsecurity concerns; you could try to take that angle if you are using VBA extensively.
Re:It's quite simple really: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Demo it? (Score:5, Informative)
The article didn't mention which version of Office he'd be upgrading from. If it's something moderately old (maybe Office 97, which would be pretty reasonable given the governmental nature of the job), then I'd say that Office XP will require as much training as OpenOffice.
On the same note, my 45-person company was facing a group upgrade from Office 97, and our enlightened IT guy switched everyone to OpenOffice at that point. After the first week everyone just took it for granted and never really mentioned it again.
Re:Demo it? (Score:5, Informative)
Openoffice has this thing called *network install*, once it has been installed on a main server all that is needed is to install small user files, if you can click next, next, next then you can do it in less than 10 seconds. I can install OOo on 50 computers in less than 45 mins.
2 - How much will it cost to upgrade some computers, since OOo is usually more resource-hungry than Office?
OOo can be made to load up on boot so that it loads almost as quickly as MS Office. If the computers are automatically turned on in the morniing before school starts this shouldn't be a problem even on a pentium running win95.
3 - How much will it cost in money and grief to retrain everybody (yes, there are people who just get by with Word provided you don't ever change anything to their computers).
An idiot can learn how to use Openoffice. Especially if the idiot has used MS Office. In any case school is for learning. I'm not just talking about the students either, that goes for the teachers as well.
4 - How much grief will the remaining file format incompatibilities with Office bring to the school?
I challenge you to list any format incompatibilities you may think *school* kids may come across when converting from MS Office to OOo.
Re:there will be hell to pay... (Score:3, Informative)
WTH are you talking about? I've been using MS Word docs with jpeg's/tiffs/png's/etc inserted into them since OOo v1.0.1 (that's my first install of OOo).
My only real regret was writing a full paper in the latest beta version of it, for the thing crashed consistenly when performing a File>Save,
What kind of idiot writes crucial documents with *BETA* versions of programs. I haven't used the latest 2.0beta of OOo so I can't comment on your problem. A simple bug report to the OOo bug website will get you a quicker reply than you could get out of MS. Especially with critical nature of your bug.
Exchange compatibility? (Score:3, Informative)
From what I've experienced, other programs such as Eudora can easily do everything Outlook does
Except connect to Exchange servers whose inflexible administrators have turned off POP3 and IMAP access for alleged security reasons, right? And does Eudora have a calendar or can it share contacts with a popular calendar program?
Re:Demo it? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Demo it? (Score:5, Informative)
So instead of teaching people "click precisely here, then here" you teach people to actually read the file menus.
It really isn't that difficult. Its all in how you explain it.
Open Office has all of the word processing features you'd need at a high school. While many of those secretaries do use things like mail merge quite effectively (which exists and is easy to use in OOo), they're not likely to be using some sort of powerful, complicated macro, which is the only reasonable reason I've seen to not switch to open office. Its like teaching someone to fish vs giving them a fish. You can just show them how to do what they want in [input specific program here], or you can teach them to read menus and dialogs and help files and cover their computing needs for life. So get used to using a computer instead of a program, grow up, join the twenty first century, and stop using the bandwagon peer-pressure approach.
OO.org's Marketing Site for Education (Score:2, Informative)
http://marketing.openoffice.org/education/schools
Re:A few reasons (Score:3, Informative)
A lot of the "civilians" that I help out have bought computers bundled with Office and have Office provided at work, so they don't understand that it's not PART OF WINDOWS (if they understand that Windows isn't a fundamental part of the computer, which lots don't).
Recently Office has been yanked from the more competitive PC options from Dell and the like, so more people I know buy a computer and freak out when they find out that they have to buy Office (and then freak out again when they see the price).
Worse yet, there's still a middle ground option with Works Suite (which bundles Word), so lots of people are still getting this broken impression that Office is Windows is computers!
At any rate, anyone considering OOo absolutely MUST download the new Beta. While the new Database component of it is certainly Beta quality, the Word Processing/Spreadsheet/Presentation stuff is still rock solid. That said, there have been light years of improvement since the last version.
The OOo beta handles layout better than 97 or 2003 for many documents. This is no small feat, since, at least in Office 97, there is quite a lot of variation even within Word as to printing layout. It may not be common knowledge, but Microsoft uses almost the same Win32 API calls to print as it does to display on the screen. This has the interesting side effect that things that mingle the two (Word) can be affected by switching PRINT DRIVERS!!! I've even had bad print drivers cause crashes when certain documents are displayed (had to change to a different printer on another machine to open it there, changing back to the same printer caused the crash, new driver version replaced that bug with other ones).
Crashing aside, switching printers often causes layout changes. Professional printing shops HATE this "feature" of word. The mantra is usually "come back with a PDF or sign off on a crappy proof". I had hoped we left this behind with WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS, but not so!
Biggest Problem that stopped us (Score:2, Informative)
This is one of the biggest reasons I can see for medium/large organizations not using OO. Luckily the problem became apparent in early testing before we rolled it out to a bunch of users.
I think OO is great and I use it exclusively at home, but I can't see it in an environment where a lot of file sharing is going on.
Microsoft Office (Score:4, Informative)
I'm sorry, but OOo just blows. I've used 1.1 and 2.0 (beta), and they both suck in a wide variety of ways.
Here's a few:
- OOo defaults to A4 on my distro. You have to recreate the damn template to get it to use Letter.
- OOo's spell checker has neither the comprehensive dictionary nor the excellent suggestions that make Word's usable
- OOo manages to use 171MB on my Windows system, and a similar amount under Linux. Compare that to 15MB for Word - more than a 10x difference.
- OOo's spreadsheet doesn't autofill well. For example, Excel's autofill doesn't muck with the unchanging "data" part of the percentile function. OOo's does. In addition, if you move an entire column in OOo, the cells often don't update properly.
- OOo doesn't use native file selector dialogs (on Linux) without buggy 3rd party plugins.
- OOo sometimes coredumps when I try to start a presentation under Linux.
- OOo's 2.0 beta doesn't have working spellcheck at all on Linux.
- OOo doesn't use native GUI calls, so every element has that "not quite right" feeling.
- OOo can't autosave to a temp file; it must save to the original file
- OOo Impress doesn't ship with any templates.
- OOo has no groupware integration.
- OOo's outlining doesn't work like Word, AbiWord, KWord, or practically any other word processor.
- OOo de-italicizes an entire word if you hit CTRL+I before typing the space.
These are not minor squabbles. They are major issues that add up to a product that feels buggy, bloated, and awkward. It's a suite that just doesn't feel ready.
Yes 'Demo it' - Here's what I'd do / have done... (Score:5, Informative)
Here's some more things you can do:
1) Demo it by giving it away to those who are making decisions as well as to the teachers. Before OOo 2.0 I would have said not to because of installation hassles, but even the 2.0 beta makes this a thing of the past. Be prepared to answer questions on usage and comparisons to MS Office. I would recommend using 2.0 beta since it's release is imminent and it is far more polished.
If you can wait, I'd wait until The OpenCD w/2.0 OOo is finished before handing them out, but if you can't, then by all means give them the beta anyway.
2)
3) International concerns? Some private schools wrestle with the fact that Word 2000 in Asia and elsewhere, does not produce the same
4) Prove compatibility with existing MS
5) Use the past to point to the future. Point out that there was a time back in the 'elden days' of computing where
Remember this mantra:
Mayhap some of your administrator's remember a conversion process long ago with Wordperfect or some other format. Remind them that this process would not exist for OOo for two reasons:
a) Import of
b) Export of pure XML data is assured with OOo.
And finally, mention that it's FREE. Better still, preface this with the fact that StarOffice's terms for schools are outragiously good. Tell them that in standardizing to OOo, your teachers, administrators, students, parents, whoever wnats a copy from the library (you DO have some in there, right?), can have it free of charge. Remember: 'Free' should be the LAST thing you mention, not the first.
Let them know how the world is changing. Show them examples of who and where OOo is already being used full time. Convince them that they could grasp the brass ring before most others have. After all, isn't embracing new technology and learning new things what education is about?
Again, be honest about what OOo can do for you, and how it will improve compatibility and document longevity. You can win this battle (I did at Linden Hall School), but you have to 'sell it' for the right reasons and be prepared to help in the transition.
Good luck!
Re:Demo it? (Score:3, Informative)
if you want a fairer comparison, try the mac version, word uses 44.3mb here..
Also theres the output files, open a word document in openoffice and save it out again in the openoffice format, every time i have done this the resulting file has been smaller, and going back the other way creates a bigger file again.
Re:Demo it? (Score:3, Informative)
Also when your trying to count lines with a macro, it ignores lines with bullet points... this annoys me too, how do i turn it off?
these bugs have existed for many years and have not been fixed.. if you find similar bugs with openoffice report them and see how long it takes before they get fixed..
A School District That Has Done This (Score:3, Informative)
7 million seats
Big enough?
Ratboy
Re:Demo it? (Score:3, Informative)
Go through the regular installation procedure.
Then, when you want to install it for a user, *as that user on the client machine* navigate to the installed OO directory (in Program Files or wherever you installed it.) Click on the setup program in the network installed directory (not the one in the distribution package.) It will offer you the choice of a full install and a workstation install (as I recall) -- choose the workstation install, it's the smaller of the two.
It just installs some personalization files and you're good to go.
General problem using WP for big documents (Score:2, Informative)
Ensuring consistency is a mess, pagination is a mess and oftentimes there is some little thing that doesn't work as it should.