that time, giving people access to MS Office via Citrix but leaving only
Open Office on their laptops. Students picked up Open Office very
quickly. The biggest resistance was difficulty with graphs in Calc (the
Excel equivalent).
We only have a few people using the latest version of Open Office. It
is a major improvement! I am quite happy with it. However, the OOXML
file format from MS Office 2007 still gives me trouble with highly
formatted documents. If it gives Office 2003 troubles, it will give
Open Office 3 problems as well. I am not a fan of the OOXML file
format. I like the interface of Office 2007 but really don't like the
file format.
The interface of Office 2003 and Open Office are very similar. The
feature set, including mail merge and graphs has gotten much better.
I'm afraid I don't have enough Macs to speak to that transition,
specifically.
Good luck in your research, Steve!
Take care,
Alex
Alex Inman
Director of Technology
Whitfield School
St. Louis, MO
314.434.5141
-----Original Message-----
From: A forum for independent school educators
[mailto:ISED-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU] On Behalf Of Steve Taffee
Sent: Tuesday, November 18, 2008 10:35 AM
To: ISED-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Subject: Tips for Transitioning to Open Office
I'd like to hear from schools who have successfully transitioned from MS
Office to Open Office for faculty and staff to determine if there are
particular "gotchas" that one should be prepared to deal with. I am
interested in both Windows and Macintosh
experiences. On the Mac side, NeoOffice is a viable alternative for us,
though I must say the recent release of Open Office for Mac looks very
good, too.
So far, the biggest problems seem to be with Word documents with
scientific and mathematical formulas, and Mac Excel documents that use
the list feature.
On the student side, where the typical Office-like application needs are
more modest, we are experimenting with Google Docs with great success.
However, I am not convinced that Google Docs alone will be sufficient
for our adult community. iWorks - a
great bargain for schools - may be the Mac desktop application of choice
for students.
Thanks in advance for your help...
s
-----
Treat each piece of paper as precious and reduce waste - don't print
electronic documents.
-----
Steve Taffee 650.470.7725 (office)
Director of Technology 415.613.6684 (mobile)
Castilleja School 650.326.8036 (fax)
1310 Bryant Street steve_taffee@castilleja.org =20
Palo Alto, CA 94301 www.castilleja.org |
taffee.edublogs.org
Women Learning, Women Leading
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