[Web4lib] OpenOffice

[Carol Bean]

We have OO on staff computers at our branch, as well as different versions
of MS Office.  I use OO almost exclusively.  Jimm is right on about the
formatting difficulties between the two.  I found the easiest way to handle
it is to save as RTF, then open it in Office.  The translation from Office
to OO is usually much easier than the other way around.

Carol Bean

Computer Center Manager
North County Regional Library
Palm Beach County Library System
Palm Beach Gardens, Florida

On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 12:51 PM, jimm wetherbee <jimm at wingate.edu> wrote:

> Jane Frasier wrote:
>
> > Is anyone using this on staff computers? We are poised to buy licenses
> > of MS Office 2007 and someone in our organization suggested using this
> > instead.
> >
> Our library lab (as the campus in general) uses Office 2007 and most of
> the staff here hates it. I use OO on my office computer and am quite happy
> with it (but will have to add Office 2007 to my computer eventually just so
> I can answer patron's questions better).  Word Processing and Spreadsheet
> are (IMHO) the strongest part of the OO suite.  It really depends how
> invested you are in the Microsoft suite.  For instance, we are on Voyager
> and so must use Access in one of the modules.  You may also find that some
> of the formatting will not translate well from Office 2003 to OO.  The
> latter can range to slightly annoying to downright painful.  I am also
> unsure how well OO translates Microsoft's new *x format.
> Since it's free, there should be no harm in downloading it and seeing for
> yourself.
>
> --jimm
>
> --
> Jimm Wetherbee                 | jimm at wingate.edu
> Information Systems Librarian  | Voice: 704-233-8092
> E.K. Smith Library             | Fax:   704-233-8254
> Wingate University             | http://library.wingate.edu/staff/jmw/
> Wingate, NC 28174              | lux et fides<http://lists.webjunction.org/web4lib/>
>


-- 
Carol Bean
beanworks at gmail.com