open source office software on public PCs?

[Mitchell, Michael]

LAPL and several others are going to Google Apps according to an article in Feb. 1 Library Journal, p. 16.

Michael Mitchell
Technical Services Librarian
Brazosport College
Lake Jackson, TX
Michael.mitchell at brazosport.edu



-----Original Message-----
From: Web technologies in libraries [mailto:WEB4LIB at LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of Computerlab Picton
Sent: Thursday, March 22, 2012 3:20 PM
To: WEB4LIB at LISTSERV.ND.EDU
Subject: Re: [WEB4LIB] open source office software on public PCs?

On Thu, Mar 22, 2012 at 3:44 PM, Carol Hassler <Carol.Hassler at wicourts.gov> wrote:
> Is anybody providing open source productivity software on their public 
> computers? For example, Libre Office or Open Office?

We are a small, 6 branch rural library system. about 110 computers. We have been using OpenOffice and now LibreOffice for patron and staff computers for about 3 years.

Although suitable for simple tasks, we were running into major interoperability issues, such as:
- Patron tries to print off resume with a lot of formatting done in MS Word, does not print correctly from LibreOffice
- Patron creates a document, saves in .DOC format (we have it set to do that by default) and complains that the person they sent it to says the formatting is broken
- Staff gets spreadsheet from another enterprise created in MS Excel, does work correctly in LibreOffice
- A complex PowerPoint presentation is totally messed up when opened in LibreOffice

This year we found money in the budget for the service charges to put "donated" Tech Soup sourced MS Office on patron computers, and purchased MS Office for key staff computers. Still have LibreOffice installed for people that like it better.

I personally use LibreOffice for all my work word processing, spreadsheets and presentations. I work around any compatibility issues, and anything I have to send out I publish as PDF. But for users expecting it to replace MS Office, we found it not up to the task.


Eric Pierce
B.Tech., MCP, A+, Server+, Network+, Internet+, Linux+, CTT+ IT Coordinator County of Prince Edward Public Library and Archives www.peclibrary.org
Phone: (613) 476-5962
Fax: (613) 476-3325

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2012-03-22

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