Figart Consulting

I recently had technical issues with my netbook, had to reimage it and did not have time to hunt up an optical drive to reinstall Office 2007, my usual productivity suite.

So, for a couple of weeks, I used OpenOffice and Google Docs instead. Now, I was familiar with both programs. By the nature of my work, it’s useful to be familiar with as many computer applications as possible.

Open Office’s interface is more or less like Office 2003 or lower. You have a menu bar, and a customizable toolbar with buttons. Unless you memorize the steps you need to do something rather than read menus and popups, you’re simply not going to have any trouble. For minor differences, the help files are clear. I’ve already accessed them about three times writing this and always found my answer pretty quickly.

Writer works well and plays okay with documents created in Word. Calc can handle the most complex spreadsheets I work with in Excel, and the Impress presentation application could handle the presentation I created in PowerPoint for an SEO talk I give, though would require some minor cosmetic tweaking were I to use it to give the presentation. I have no idea how Base and Access play with each other. I have little occasion to use database software other than when I am teaching.

Microsoft Office or Open Office: What Do I Use When I Have the Choice?

I prefer Office 2007. Here’s why. I’m used to it[1]. Once I got used to it, I did find that I liked the intuitiveness of the ribbon interface. It’s as simple as that. There’s nothing I do in an Office program that OpenOffice can’t. (Well, other than study to teach Office 2007, mind!) If you’re looking into a productivity suite and are short on cash, I can’t urge you enough to check out OpenOffice. The features are great and the price can’t be beat.

What about Google Docs?

I’ve used Google Docs professionally. No, seriously. I’ve had clients who wanted me to write the documents in Google Docs and share them. I also use it when I’m collaborating with other authors. It’s not as robust a word processor as either Open Office Writer or Microsoft Word, but it gets the job done for basic tasks.

Its spreadsheet capabilities are pretty limited, though. If you’re doing charting, use named ranges or perform complex 3-D calculations, you really want to use either Calc or Excel.

As far as its presentation capabilities? Eh… Animations don’t seem to work on it[2], but other than that, it’ll play static slides okay. Some might consider this a feature rather than a bug, and I don’t blame them. There are people who overdo the animations!

Still, the takeaway for all of this is that you’re not limited to buying a very expensive productivity suite for most of your computing needs. Sure, I like and use Office 2007, but you really don’t have to.

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[1] And I teach most of its applications, so it’s a suite I know very well, indeed!

[2] At least, how to add animation is not immediately obvious and is not susceptible of a right click!