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?"
Demo it? (Score:5, Interesting)
That way you kinda ease them into it.
Just a thought.
Re:Demo it? (Score:4, Insightful)
Not a testament to M$'s programming, but it a testament to their marketing department.
Re:Demo it? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Demo it? (Score:3, Interesting)
But for what I use it for, it's mostly usable, albeit no
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..
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:5, Insightful)
Stop being the typical MS fanboy and apologist and start being more realistic.
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, Insightful)
Re:Demo it? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Demo it? (Score:5, Insightful)
This time would be the same time that it cost to upgrade to a new version of Word. (That's IT time too!)
2 - How much will it cost to upgrade some computers, since OOo is usually more resource-hungry than Office?
Do you really think that upgrading to a new version of Word will use less resources?
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).
It will cost what it costs... Once. Then whenever a new version of OO comes out there will be no cost. However if they were to upgrade to Word, they would have the almost the same cost, cause there's new features there too!
Also as it was pointed out in an earlier post, it's easier to move away from Word to OO then the other way around.
4 - How much grief will the remaining file format incompatibilities with Office bring to the school?
None. OO can read and write both formats. If the school wants to stay with
So please stop being the typical mindless free software drone and start being a bit more realistic.
So please stop being the typical mindless MS drone and start being a bit more realistic.
(and to think I've got you marked as a friend too
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:Demo it? (Score:3, Insightful)
OOo 2.0 (currently beta) is an MSI based installer. Maybe you can use Microsoft management tools to deploy it to a thousand workstations at once.
This code is a one time cost. Microsoft's "Revenue Assurance" licensing is an ongoing cost.
How much will it cost to upgrade some computers, since OOo is usually more resource-hungry than Office?
A good and valid question. Will this cost as much as Revenue Assurance licensing? Afte
OO.o works on WIN95 (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Demo it? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Demo it? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Demo it? (Score:5, Insightful)
Kids don't need skills to be competitive in the corporate space as corporations don't hire children (for jobs that might require word processing skills). And, any application-specific skills will be outdated by the time they get to the "corporate space", no matter what application is used.
People are clearly only taught rote monkey skills and are unadaptable as everyone where I work is still using the same OS and applications they learned in high school. All of our servers and desktops are Apple II's. Except for those stuborn people who refuse to give up their Coleco's and PDP-11's.
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.
It's quite simple really: (Score:5, Insightful)
2. OpenOffice fully supports Microsoft Office file formats.
3. OpenOffice can be distributed to students without cost.
4. OpenOffice (and its sister project NeoOffice/J) run on ALL popular OSes, including Macintoshes.
5. OpenOffice is continually updated to have the latest features, again at no cost.
Re:It's quite simple really: (Score:5, Insightful)
I just wish this were true... It gets close, but there are still many, many problems.
Re:It's quite simple really: (Score:4, Funny)
Re:It's quite simple really: (Score:5, Interesting)
it will not open older Word documents in Office 2003 that were created in office 97 correctly. OO.o opens them far closer to the actual desired output.
yes, this is true, after upgrading marketing tyo office 2003 we had a rash of complaints opening word documents from 1998 was causing problems or looked wierd.
microsoft cant even be compatable with it's self.
Re:It's quite simple really: (Score:5, Interesting)
This is an honest question. Why isn't OpenOffice experiencing the same explosive success as Firefox? What is keeping these same Firefox "switchers" from getting their hands on OpenOffice, as well?
Re:It's quite simple really: (Score:3, Interesting)
My only answer is, that OpenOffice *is* experiencing tremendous growth. My wife actually converted before I did. She got tired of Word blowing up on her all the time and asked if I had something that would work. I sheepishly told her that I could let her *try* OpenOffice, and she agreed. She's never looked back.
Re:It's quite simple really: (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's quite simple really: (Score:5, Insightful)
One word: Outlook
Re:It's quite simple really: (Score:3, Informative)
1.) Outlook (not outlook express)
2.) Games
3.) Graphics Apps
Re:Why does everyone love Outlook so? (Score:5, Insightful)
Try really digging into Outlook and compare it to Eudora. The interface is a lot cleaner and more refined (especially in Outlooks 2003). The organization capabilities far outway Eudora. Calendar, Tasks, Notes, they all work great and if you have a Windows based PDA you HAVE to use outlook just for all the stuff you lose otherwise. As a PIM it is excellent. Eudora is far from being a true PIM since it has minimal if any real compatibility with either Palm or Outlook.
If you ask the true die hards though which program is the most powerful they'll tell you it is Lotus Notes. Having used Outlook/Exchange, GroupWise, and Lotus in business settings I will state that Lotus is the most powerful probably but it seems to diverge a bit from the norms setup by Outlook and GroupWise (that evil program from Novell).
I haven't used Eudora in ages, so feel free to enlighten me if they have actually added useable Rules, Spam Filtering, and cleaned up what was one of the worlds ugliest interfaces for a long while.
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:It's quite simple really: (Score:3, Informative)
A few reasons (Score:5, Insightful)
* Download size. Firefox is under 5meg for Windows, OOo is approaching 100meg. Someone on a modem would download Firefox but most likely not OOo.
* "If it ain't broke". People visible see problems in IE thanks to popups, spyware, etc. MSOffice doesn't have the same problem.
* Piracy. IMHO most (home) users of MSOffice get their copy from friends or work, I've not known of too many people to buy it for themselves, even the educational version. With MSOffice perceived to be "free", why bother with something else?
* File formats. MS Office is considered the defacto standard therefore for interoperability reasons a replacement must offer perfect import/export support for its file formats. Public perception also plays a part in this, while OOo's importers have improved these past few years people may still think of what it was like two years ago and not consider re-investigating it.
* Laziness. People are lazy. If they perceive no improvement with changing then why should they put out the effort?
* "Oh-Oh-what?" How many people even *know* about there being alternatives to MSOffice?
Damien
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
Re:It's quite simple really: (Score:5, Insightful)
That was in many ways Firefox's advantage over Opera and Mozilla, it looked a lot better and cleaner. And don't lecture me on how software should be judged by quality instead of prettiness, I know that. You know that. But does the average user know that?
Re:It's quite simple really: (Score:4, Insightful)
"Prettiness" is one of many crucial aspects of software quality. I'm not talking about prettiness only for the sake of being pretty, don't get me wrong. But a well thought-out, consistent, logical user interface indicates that the whole package was designed well.
Re:It's quite simple really: (Score:3, Insightful)
Personal experience in terms of learning curve. Prior to using iTunes I had used: Real, Windows media player, Winamp; Dell Juke box and Real seperate Juke box app. I could never figure out why you would want an
That's good GUI design.
Why do you think they aren't? (Score:3, Interesting)
People are flocking in droves to OpenOffice. It just doesn't get as much press as Firefox.
Re:It's quite simple really: (Score:3, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's quite simple really: Not all that simple. (Score:5, Insightful)
I used OO at university without problems for a year until I had to take a class that used a macro-filled Excel file. Had to break down and buy the student version of Office. I think macros, especially for heavy Excel users, are the showstopper. A lot of people with complex spreadsheets (sometimes inherited from former employees) are going to be the biggest group of 'No' votes in the article poster's project.
Re:It's quite simple really: Not all that simple. (Score:3, Insightful)
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 expor
Re:It's quite simple really: (Score:3, Insightful)
Umm never...
Microsoft included Wordperfect and other similar formats as an encouragement for people to try switching TO Word and not having to lose their documents. Few are looking to switch from OpenOffice to Word, and offering compatibility would switch more away than to.
US Letter vs. A4 is just as bad (Score:5, Insightful)
For example, some documents that are on one page in office might be 2 pages in openoffice.
I've read reports that Microsoft Word is just as bad about precise layout from version to version or even from printer to printer across the same version. Take a document formatted for US Letter paper and print it on A4 paper, and see what doesn't break. If you want pagination to be maintained, use PDF or any of several page-layout formats that represent the document exactly.
Not impossible but... (Score:5, Interesting)
I work as an administrator/application manager at high school, the point you have to consider when trying to switch is:
Documentation, some teachers probably need to adapt their lessons, are they motivated for that and do they have the experience to make a change for them self?
Why should teachers be motivated to switch? Because it is a moral obligation for non-profit organizations to use product that are more suitable for the common good and not just profitable for a monopoly.
Education should be accessible to all layers of society, even the ones that don't have the money to buy "big bucks office".
So by using open source they aren't forced to use illegal software just to be able to get educated.
I don't know about you... (Score:5, Interesting)
So no, we're not planning on moving anyone to Open Office. We have, however, moved a few workstations to Star Office.
Re:I don't know about you... (Score:3, Insightful)
Even with the quick-launch loaded, it takes OO.o ungodly long to open. And on top of that, the quick-launcher takes forever to load. I have 16 programs that automatically load on start-up (everything from my wireless network connection, to Folding@home,
Will it be useful? (Score:4, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Will it be useful? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Will it be useful? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Will it be useful? (Score:3, Insightful)
The fact is, pretty much all office suites are pretty much the same. Most people at my school had MS Office installed at home, but they were still able to pick up WP just fine. No one ever had any problems with it.
I think the same thing would be true for OOo. Sure, it won't be able to deal with MS Office macros or
Re:Will it be useful? (Score:5, Insightful)
Crappy Tech Policies (Score:3, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Openoffice 2 is superb (Score:5, Interesting)
It's a straight "savings" pitch (Score:5, Interesting)
Compatibility (Score:5, Interesting)
Just because OO isn't always perfectly compatible with Office doesn't mean anything since MS Office isn't even compatible with itself sometimes...
Tough sell (Score:5, Insightful)
Open Source?
Short of "Don't even bother", I'd say that you have your work cut out for you. Undoubtedly these people will be familiar, even comfortable, with MS Office and you will face huge momentum because your target audience probably sees no problems with MS Office. All the benefits of OSS except price will likely fall on deaf ears, so you'd better do your homework and have a very compelling presentation.
I can't offer specifics because I'm not really familiar with OO. In my mind it is self-evident. Office sucks more ways than you can count. Period.
However, you can't make this sell by bad-mouthing Microsoft or Office. Most non-techie people won't see it that way, and in fact will probably have a high opinion of Office since it's all they know. OO can't be just "good enough" to replace Office. It has to be made clear that it is superior... and not in the ways that we computer folks tend to think, but ways that will be convincing to non-technical people. You got a "gimme" on price, but the rest will be a steep hill.
Good luck, I wish you well.
We're all just meat.... (Score:5, Insightful)
And that's the problem. Employers will usually trade critical thinking, adaptability and just about any other virtue for a little bit of training in some crappy piece of software.
That's the problem with modern business in America. People just want the seats kept warm. More often than not, they have no interest in anything about a person other than keywords on their resume and how little they can get away with paying them.
I know firsthand. I've been told numerous times that my resume doesn't really reflect my skill and experience because I haven't listed every technology or software package I've so much as brushed up against a book on in Barnes & Noble, which apparently is the standard these days.
I made the mistake of writing a resume meant to be read, not just searched for the latest MS kludge of the month buzzword. Of course, the last time I was hired by such an employer, all I did was make them angry by repeatedly demonstrating how clueless they were.
Keywords. Keywords. Keywords. And "MS Office" is one of the big ones. No one cares if you're a halfwit, slacker or a cheat, as long as your resume has the keywords. You'll just be laid off in a year regardless when the next reorg or merger happens.
To most corporations we're all just meat.
I've found (Score:4, Interesting)
Rate me flame bait, but this is honestly what I have found. Take somebody that never used MS Office and only used other products, and put them infront of Word and get them to do something reasonabily complicated, they are lost.
Take the person raised with MS Office and put them infront of OO and they seem to find their way around.
Strange but true! So I have personal reservations about using one or the other in a public (or private) school or body.
Re:I've found (Score:3, Insightful)
Segragate your users! (Score:5, Insightful)
The ones that just need to write english reports would be well served by Abiword.
The ones that need just a bit more page layout flexability and a good spreadsheet could use OpenOffice.
The 'Power Users' that use Excell like a psudo-database, and have gotten used to Word's horrably random page layout should stay with MS Office. L
So...
Kindergarden through 8th Grade -> Abiword
8th through 12th -> OpenOffice
Normal Teachers -> OpenOffice
Crazy Teachers, Faculty etc with hard to port custom grading scrips, tables and other crap -> MS Office
Evaluation (Score:5, Interesting)
Pros and cons (Score:5, Insightful)
Easy that one:
Case #1: students and/or personel work exclusively with OOo:
* PROS: OOo costs $0 and it's more than adequate
* CONS: None or nearly so
Case #2: student and personel want to exchange file to/from MS Office, to work at home or communicate with other non-OOo organizations:
* PROS: See above
* CONS: plan on commiting suicide soon after deploying OOo, when everybody comes to you and says "this documents looks like @*#& on Word, it's all your fault, it worked before!!"
Since case #2 is prevalent, as much as I enjoy OOo myself, I say stay the hell away from it if you're in any position to be blamed for problems.
Sad, but that's the way it is...
Re:Pros and cons (Score:3, Insightful)
For those that actually do work at home, as it costs $0, they usually can afford buying it.
So basically, the only problem is getting the brighter students that do homework and own a computer to install it as a 2nd option. But, being brighter students that do homework and own a computer, the school should encour
Appeal to the teachers. (Score:5, Insightful)
- It appeals to the "help the community" group by knowing that they are looking out for their teachers.
- It could be used to pressure the school board. "They are sending money to Microsoft rather than to our starving teachers."
- It helps the local economy by keeping the money, well, local.
Oh, and if it gets media attention then the pressure will really be on them. Just my two cents worth.Tried it, hated it, went back (Score:5, Informative)
We use Star Office and Open Office (Score:3, Interesting)
The way this came about was I started using it on my own. Whenever someone new came in, I'd set up their PC with Open Office instead of Microsoft Office. Earlier this month, our accounting clerk, the final holdout, asked to switch.
Now the only Microsoft Office we have is on the Macs. And they are using a really old version of Microsoft Office because of one particular feature available on that version.
I've talked to many of the school board members about OpenOffice and Star Office. They keep complaining about the school district being short on money but they still haven't seriously looked at switching.
Some important points (Score:5, Interesting)
Schools are, in general, far better placed than large companies to switch to OPenOffice. That doesn't mean that it is an easy or painless transition, merely that it is a lot easier than it is for corporations to make the move.
Jedidiah.
Results: so-so (Score:4, Insightful)
On the other hand, for some parts of the suite, like for the presentations part, the MS variant is still so much better interface wise that it saves a *lot* of time using the real variant - we are talking hours and hours here. And yes, doing presentations are a large bit of what the students do around here.
It doesn't really handle MS documents all that well either, in the sense that almost anything opens, but the formatting is often distorted and the same thing the other way around, plus that the warning everytime you try to save something back to doc can be really scary to the average user. To those who say that formatting shouldn't matter - it does. We are not talking about just being readable, but papers and mateial that should look a certain way, if only because the student wants it to look that way. And we are not talking advanced stuff either... a simple image can be enough to throw it off.
Personally I do use OOo exclusively, but then again I'm not the average user; I'm a geek. No amount of gentle education, helping out or poiting to similarities will get the average user to even try something new if it doesn't behave just like they are used to - at least that is my experience. A real pain in the ass.
On the plus side, we don't use doc as the internal format, we use HTML or in worst case PDF instead, which makes the situation a bit brighter.
Get a plan! (Score:4, Insightful)
Two. Make sure you factor in the conversion (old files still need to be accessible) and retraining costs (users and support), including time and effort. Many users will complain loudly to their bosses if you give them a new app without training (easy to learn apps and well written user guides don't make a difference).
Three. Compare the cost of subscribing versus the cost of upgrading when the next version of office comes out (that you want to upgrade to). I know of a few organizations that skip releases because of the upgrade (mostly time and effort) costs.
Four. Consider reducing the number of copies. Doesn't always work if it drops you from a high discount category in a low discount one.
Five. The time may not be right. Microsoft is entrenched and people have to be ready to switch. You probably need a multi-year plan to slowly bring OpenOffice (and Linux for that matter) onto peoples desktops, and make the decision to dump Microsoft a natural decision.
Last. Make sure you don't end up on the pile with others who have made unpopular decisions. It just means your are no longer able to influence change.
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.
Use both! (Score:3, Insightful)
You're going to have a hard time pushing away from MSO when 95% of the professional office environments use it. The idea of this schooling is to get the student in the grove of what to expect in the real world. What's the chances of OO being the dominate or even having a large slice of the pie by the time they graduate? Pretty slim. By giving them the opportunity to use both you can at least expose them to alternatives. Who knows, a decade or so down the line you may even convince your district to convert.
L.A. Charter School 100% OpenOffice (Score:5, Interesting)
how new technology adoption works (Score:5, Insightful)
1. First thing you have to do is find a teacher who will be supportive of your efforts. It's best of the person has been around for a while and has respect among the other teachers and decision makers. You have to convince this one person to give Open Office a try. Once you've done this you have someone who will help you meet your goals.
2. Your teacher is convinced that they should use open office. Great, now you have to get them to introduce it to their students. It's easier to get approval to do a trial run than make a permanent change. So ask the teacher to run with open office for one of their classes for an entire semester. This will give both the teacher, the students and yourself some really good experience with using open office in this particular environment.
3. If the trial when well, it's time to tell a few people about what you've done. Find a couple more teachers who would be open to the idea of a non-ms office suite. With the help of your champion teacher tell this new group of teachers what you've done. Tell them about all the success you had and the problems you had and how you dealt with the problems. Problems are OK to have, so long as you have a way to deal with them.
4. Now maybe you have a half dozen teachers that are ready to try using open office. Get them all to run trials in one of their classes. You've now run 7 or so trials of open office. You have lots of real word data to build a case with now.
5. Now you have to introduce the idea to the executives and decision makers. Make nice reports with lots of graphs and pictures. Make nice presentations for them to view. Get your teacher friends to help you explain to the decision makers why open office is a good choice. Explain to them that you've already ran trials and they were successful. Detail the problems that you ran into and how you solved them.
6. Don't buy any more copies of MS office.
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.
Government procurement by brand is illegal (Score:5, Insightful)
You might also discuss the legal and policy importance of procuring software using open file format standards, a subject discussed at length in the article. Microsoft Office's XML Reference Schemas, because of an overly-restrictive patent license, do not satisfy such requirements, which are critical to software interoperability in eCommerce and eGovernment. OpenOffice file formats do not suffer from that vulnerability.
There is also the important issue of vendor lock-in. OpenOffice, being cross-platform, is a giant step in the direction of freeing organizations from the necessity of using a proprietary operating system. Moreover, even should the school ultimately decide to continue using the Windows platform and Microsoft Office, it can likely receive a far lower bid from a MS Office vendor by using a specification that would allow selection of OpenOffice.
Drafting government specifications in such a way that only one vendor can supply the procured product, particularly in a time of shrinking government budgets, is wasteful and anti-competitive. You might consider developing or requesting an estimated cost comparison, using the previous MS Office licensing cost as the base. A substantial savings is likely, freeing funds for other purposes.
OO isn't Office (Score:3, Insightful)
In terms of total functionality and usefulness, I am completely happy with Office 2003. I don't like the alternatives. I don't even like Office 2004 on the Mac. For me to switch to anything else means I loose in overall user satisfaction.
Sorry, but I hope my school never tries to save money by going to OOo.
However, if you don't have Outlook/Exchange, and just use Office for Word & Excel, I'm not sure if it matters.
I have similar experience (Score:3, Interesting)
1) district tech people will get freebies er, um, demos, from microsoft. you know, windows server, visual studio, etc., to "tryout" as it were. gonna influence their decision
2) people will already have 1000's of prior docs in
3) "if it's free, it can't be good" and "it's what they use in the real world" will prevail. schools are no longer institutions of learning, but exist simply to train workers. i could cry. we don't read nor write nor think anymore. sorry to kvetch. but, there is a mindset about "Office" and you're just a salmon.
4) teachers get a copy for home. so they think they're getting a steal. kinda hard to overcome that.
5) here's the glimmer of hope. set up a small lab with OO.org. since the really expensive thing for schools is hardware (software is actually pretty cheap. they want to get the kids hooked.) set up a linux thin client lab, or a linux lab with older computers. then use OO.org there. the other thing is this: since you can't give Office to the kids, but you can OO.org, make a technology plan to have a "give the kids a CD day". perhps if the kids turn in work in
6) another alternative. since much school hardware is OOOOLLLLDDDD, try abiword. it's small and fast. that'll get them interested in OSS.
look, I've been a teacher for ten years and been excited and shot down too many times to tell you. am I cynical, sure. you're going up against a beauracracy who doesn't care about saving money. remember, they have to do budget burning too. saving them money screws that up. sad but true. i hope you get this far down.
A School District That Has Done This (Score:3, Informative)
7 million seats
Big enough?
Ratboy
Re:what about technical support (Score:5, Insightful)
The issue you're seeing is not relavent in a school environment. Students will regularly start with a blank page, or a template created specifically for the course. They will NOT have three hundred page manuscripts that describe... actually, what the heck DO people put in those 300 page documents? I have never figured that out. The only document I've ever had trouble porting was a resume I did with Word 97. The formatting got screwed up in OpenOffice, but then again it got screwed up in MSOffice 2000 as well. *shrug*
THere are benefits to using industry standard programs...
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:3, Insightful)
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 w
Re:I GOT A GREASED UP YODA DOLL SHOVED UP MY ASS! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:OpenOffice of course (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm really confused, now. What did you find that wasn't compatible?
I'm seeing two different attitudes here: OO is fully compatible with MS or OO has some incompatablities.
I'm not trying to flame or anything, it's just that I really want to know why there's two differing opinions. Is it a version issue?
Re:OpenOffice of course (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, Indoctrinate them into your belief system early.
Re:The real question (Score:3, Interesting)
Now of course there are exce
Re:A Common Question, with Answer (Score:4, Insightful)
I've tried that. It was a very disillusioning experience. I handed out bootable Linux CDs with lots of cool apps on the first day of my physics classes, along with a brief sales pitch on how great open source was. I got absolutely no response. Not a single student even mentioned having stuck it in their box at home to try it. They see Windows and Office as being free -- typically the parents bought whatever computer the kid uses, and the kid couldn't even tell you whether their copy of Office (a) came bundled with the machine, (b) was bought separately by their parents, or (c) is pirated. It's not even a concept to them. They just know they "have Microsoft."
Re:Compatibility (Score:3, Insightful)
Not true! Many documents don't open properly in different versions. The 4 most used right now are 97, 2000, XP, 2003 and going between these is still a royal pain in the ass. I'd say MS Office is closer to high 90's than 100% despite Microsoft's claims.
Open Office - 99% compatibility with MS Office documents
For Word Docs it's pretty close to real Office. It doesn't, however, handle Excel macros and a bunch of other different types. As a guess, I t
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:Hard one (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Hard one (Score:4, Interesting)
Sounds like you guys (well, the business department anyway) should be looking for good textbooks period--even if you stick with MS Office. (Though I don't know if any exist in that genre.)
I used to work in the computer lab at a community college. I couldn't stand all those stupid textbooks (they don't really deserve to be called that, BTW) that "taught" the student in terms of step-by-step click at the mouse coordinates kind of lessons. Nobody actually learned anything about computers.
No learning meant that students had questions, which meant less time for me to play Doom. And they were always stupid questions. My favorite was the time when somebody brought the book and told me they didn't know how to do it. I read the book back to them and they walked away contented! If only all problems were so easily solved.
Re:Hard one (Score:5, Interesting)
I used to teach computer skills at a college level (Intro to Computer-Aided Engineering), and we didn't bother with a textbook for that reason. What we did was present them with a finished product, some useful tips (e.g., Need to change font color? Look under Format...), and then turned the students loose. It was my job to assist as they worked, and generally make sure that everyone was on track. If they had questions, I would generally say something like, "I don't know, but let's see if we can find it." The fact that I, the authority figure, also had to look for things really drove home that using software is just remembering simple rules, not remembering how to do everything in every program. I even got a nomination for the department's 'Teacher of the Year' award (not that I was elligible, being a TA and all) from someone in that class.
Of course, as we got into more complicated software packages, I had to teach them the basics of programming, Finite Element Analysis, and drafting as well, but by that time, most of the students had picked up on the fact that if they looked, they would find it.
Re:I wouldn't use OpenOffice for a school (Score:5, Insightful)
And before you say, "Yeah, but what will they need to use in college?" consider what you used in college. Was there anything that OO.org in its current imperfect state could not handle perfectly well? Typing essays and reports? Including a simple table or chart of your chem lab results?
The problem with most schools is that they focus all their energy and resources in providing students with the "best" facilities, equipment, etc. and then miss the whole point of properly educating with an eye on the future.
Re:Since when does Office cost anything? (Score:3, Insightful)
Those who can realistically expect a visit from the BSA. That's everybody who isn't an individual at home.
Re:Since when does Office cost anything? (Score:3, Insightful)
It impressed me instead (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, I did my graduate thesis presentation in OO.org 1.1.2 on my Linux box. Problem was students graduating had to upload their PPT files on a WinXP, Office 2003 machine.
Since my university was aware that PowerPoint presentations are particularly sensitive to Office version changes (let alone OO.org!), they allowed students to "test" their PPT files on the machine they would have used the next day.
My PPT was almost OK. There were minor issues: some font rendered slightly differently and arrows and graphs