It’s no secret I love OpenOffice.org. It’s no secret that there’s a new 2.4 release and a beta for the 3.0 release out. Perhaps less well known is that you can run Windows and use OpenOffice.org. (The 3.0 version, with full release due in September, should benefit long-suffering Mac users.)
The Rev. Angela Mather knew her colleague J.W. at the nearby Asbury-Judson Larger Parish is a Linux freak — first out of cost necessity, later on principle — and this was her concern. For now, she wanted a tool, not a cause. But it turns out the office suite an easy download from www.OpenOffice.org. With a high-speed connection, the download and using all the default settings (best for most people) it takes about a half hour.
High-speed connections are rare in Wolastoq County, so J.W. gave Angela a copy of OpenOffice.org on CD-ROM, which she could then copy or share freely. Or, as J.W. put it, “to share the love.”
J.W. offered this additional bit of advice: once you’re in OpenOffice.org, go to Tools > Options and fill in the User Data, which are the fields that you see when that window pops up. “That will help with automating office practices later.”
The biggest “selling point” for my church and day job is that Open Office will export as PDF. Especially at church, since congregants use all manners, types, and vintages of home computers – PDF seems to be the most widely usable file format for non-edit documents.
An excellent point. You can also export from an OpenOffice.org (OO.o) Writer document to the format used by MediaWiki, which powers Wikipedia and many other collaborative projects.