Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

MS Home & Student 2010 vs. Free Open Office 2011

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • MS Home & Student 2010 vs. Free Open Office 2011

    Would appreciate any input on the Pro's & Cons of this software for use @ WMA & aboard ship.
    I found this review of the free Open Office which seemed interesting.



    Thanks

  • #2
    I use Open Office and have never had a problem. If the college runs MS Office (which they usually do) Open Office gives you the option to save in a Mircrosoft format (such as .doc), which can then be opened on MS Word/Powerpoint etc. I would never spend money again on MS Office when Open Office is such a good free alternative.

    Comment


    • #3
      One issue you may have is being able to save stuff in a format that can be opened on college/ship computeres to gain access to printers. also if you email a document it is generally sexpected that it will open in office and if it doesnt you will generally get a nice reply back saying that they cant open it. At some point you will need to do a presentation at college so theres powerpoint aswell

      I use office and on this ship have to save stuff into the 97-03 format to get it to open on the computers when i want to print anything which then mucks the formatting which is a pain.

      open office is good, and avoids the stupid thing where ms move stuff around every so often just to keep you on your toes, but the reason why microsoft is the leader is not becasue its a fantastic program but that everyone used it making moving stuff around a hell of a lot easier,
      you can take it with a pinch of salt, but i prefer it with a nip of whisky

      Comment


      • #4
        Slightly off topic, but for those of us with macs we can save / print as PDF by default which will open anywhere :-)Since I'm guessing your a mac user, I started using iworks when I switched to mac, and its just as good as ms office at a fraction of the price - you can also save keynote presentations in a format PowerPoint understands - although you miss lots of the niceness when you convert it to PowerPoint.
        ?Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn?t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.?

        ? Mark Twain
        myBlog | @alistairuk | flickr | youtube Views and opinions expressed are those of myself and not representative of any employer or other associated party.

        Comment


        • #5
          It is one of the things that office have finally caught up on that you can now publish a pdf directly. which always seemed odd that they had avoided trying to consume what is one of the few other widly useable formats
          you can take it with a pinch of salt, but i prefer it with a nip of whisky

          Comment


          • #6
            I can concur with alistairuk, as a Mac user I have never had any problems with Windows users and there funny software!

            Comment


            • #7
              Originally posted by jackc View Post
              I can concur with alistairuk, as a Mac user I have never had any problems with Windows users and there funny software!
              I'm currently looking at a deal offered by Currys/PCWorld for a Samsung and they are offering MS Home Student 2010
              for ?60.00 but it is only a licence for one PC so presumably I will only be able to use it on my Laptop.
              I'm also checking out this website www.softwareforstudents.co.uk Seems too good to be true, MS Office Pro Plus
              RRP ?429.99 for ?37.89 ! Am still checking out reviews, don't know about this one''

              Comment


              • #8
                Originally posted by Islander View Post
                MS Office Pro Plus
                RRP ?429.99 for ?37.89 !''
                Yeah… that does sound a bit too good, I'd not risk it.

                Out of curiosity, does anyone know if we get the Apple 'Back To School' discount? I'm thinking of buying a MacBook for heading down and the discount for students is quite substantial.

                Comment


                • #9
                  Open Office is fine as No1 daughter found out after rebuilding her laptop and loosing the Liscence Card for M$ Office (later found where dad told her it would be!)

                  can be tricky with formating when moving to M$ for handing in, but said it was more than fine

                  Yeah the discount for stoodents is legit BUT you need a .ac e-mail address for them to mail the file to and I arent sure if it expires when you stop being a stooodent, but do you need pro?
                  Trust me I'm a Chief.

                  Views expressed by me are mine and mine alone.
                  Yes I work for the big blue canoe company.
                  No I do not report things from here to them as they are quite able to come and read this stuff for themselves.


                  Twitter:- @DeeChief

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    most of the colleges provide you with an email address once your on their computer network, it would be worth asking the college first just to make sure and then wait on getting it till you start, certainly wont need it for a week or two,

                    Personally i try to spend about ?300 quid on a laptop and just replace it every two years, if it breaks in the first year then its a warranty issue and if it breaks after that, it was close to being replaced anyway, and i can decide on wether or not i wnat a nice new shiny one
                    you can take it with a pinch of salt, but i prefer it with a nip of whisky

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Originally posted by jackc View Post
                      Yeah? that does sound a bit too good, I'd not risk it. Out of curiosity, does anyone know if we get the Apple 'Back To School' discount? I'm thinking of buying a MacBook for heading down and the discount for students is quite substantial.
                      With a student ID card (Warsash issue you with these) you qualify for 10% discount in the apple stores - if you don't want to go to a store, they'll give you the discount but you need to phone their education store number (it's on the side of the apple web site) - they also accept your acceptance letter from the college :-)
                      ?Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn?t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.?

                      ? Mark Twain
                      myBlog | @alistairuk | flickr | youtube Views and opinions expressed are those of myself and not representative of any employer or other associated party.

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Thanks, that's what I was looking for.

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Software for students is 100% Kosher. I have purchased lots from them....I agree that it does look a bit deodgy though!!

                          Comment

                          Working...
                          X