O.T. OpenOffice, was Re: Patient Voices

[Guest guest]

sammy_bates wrote:

....

> I use OpenOffice (http://www.openoffice.org/ website for

> download of the OpenOffice software). This is much the same as

> MS Office but free to individuals and in many ways a

> technically superior product. For example you can create PDF

> files from your OpenOffice documents as well as make them MS

> Word compatible.

>

> The superiority of PDF files is in their robustness - they are

> practically virus immune; their transportability across

> platforms (MS Windows >> Linux >> Apple); and their

> 'printability' using the Adobe Acrobat Reader.

....

For whatever it's worth, I also use and like OpenOffice. I find

that Microsoft Office does 10,000 amazing things, of which I

actually need and use 50 or 100. OpenOffice may only do 5,000

amazing things, but they include all of the 50 or 100 that I

use.

Actually, as Sammy says, it does some useful things, like

creating PDFs, that MS Office won't do. It even includes a

database component that costs extra (MS Access) with Microsoft

Office. And when it gets out of date, which all programs do when

operating systems and file formats change, you can get the next,

up-to-date version free too.

If you've already got Word documents and Excel spreadsheets, it's

very likely that OpenOffice will read them with no problem and

can write them back, if you wish, in MS Office formats.

Alan