Issue 28.15
Microsoft Office is the default standard for Word Processing, Spreadsheets, Presentations and Contact Management. The programs (Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook) have been the leaders and almost a requirement of those in business for a number of years. Even Apple has allowed Microsoft to create versions of this software for their computers which is pretty unusual. Up until a few years ago, Word Perfect was a formidable challenger to Microsoft for office suites and they are still around. I personally liked the old versions of Word Perfect better than any of the new software, but compatibility has been a problem. If you use Word Perfect you can save documents in Microsoft formats in Word, Excel and PowerPoint, but Microsoft doesn’t have compatibility with Word Perfect files.
Over the last few years, a couple of free office suites have emerged – Open Office and Libre Office. Both have compatibility with Microsoft except for Outlook (which is only available on Microsoft Office Pro packages). Both are simpler to use than either Microsoft of the newer versions of Word Perfect, and both have less bells and whistles than Microsoft’s new versions, but for many people the bells and whistles are things they don’t care about or never use.
In the battle between these “freebies”, Libre Office has been leading for the last few years, though Open Office remains a very viable, free and easy to use set of programs. Libre Office is a little more encouraging in asking you to donate to the people who create it and it is worth donating to. There are a lot of people working on this “open source” set of programs and even small donations from users make progress quicker and more likely to keep the program current and compatible with other office suites.
I admit I still use Microsoft’s products in my professional work most of the time, but as they move more and more towards a ‘subscription’ model where they ask you to pay them every month for the privilege of using their software, the more I am using Libre Office and planning to do even more in that direction in the future. I can save anything I do there in Word or Excel format and people can bring it up on their Microsoft based software with no problem. Word Perfect users have to go through a two-step process, first saving their documents in Microsoft format and then loading it into Libre Office if they want to bypass the cost of Microsoft’s products. If you are migrating your files, you only have to do it once and the file will be in your new format afterwards, but it is a bit of a hassle.
If you want to try or get either of these programs, you can go to https://www.openoffice.org/ or https://www.libreoffice.org/ . Either one will likely serve you well and are reliable and easy to use. I read where a city government in one foreign country is moving to Open Office for all their employees at a savings of around 360,000 Euros. That’s nothing to sneeze at.
The nice thing is you can try these out and discard them if you don’t like them. Make sure you download them from the sites listed here though. Getting them from some other site may include malware or other problems -and always remember to back up anything on your computer that is important to you.
Shaun McCausland has worked in the computer industry for over 33 years, 26 years of it locally with Bits ‘N’ Bytes and Musicomp and currently works as a computer consultant. If you have questions you can reach him at 435-668-7118 or shaun@musicomp.net.