The long story is infuriating to me and probably boring for you, so the short story is that about a month ago, I got a new hard drive, essentially a new computer. And while it’s working great, I have had to make some adjustments. I don’t have all the old software.
I used to have Microsoft Office XP Professional on my home computer, thanks to an agreement with Microsoft and schools. Apparently that agreement is no longer, so I cannot get the free software now. I can’t afford it (though maybe I could deduct the cost as an unreimbursed business expense on my taxes), but either way, I decided to go with OpenOffice. One reason is clear–I need the software, but also, I wanted to try it out, to see what it is like. I would like to know what I’m talking about if I recommend it to our school district or to students. So far, OpenOffice is great.
But, I found out this morning as I double clicked on an OpenOffice document, that I can’t open them at school. (I think I can save them as Word docs, so I will have to remember that in the future). Still, the transfer of files is not as easy as it used to be.
In brainstorming ways to transfer files, I thought, well, I can save as pdf (which OO does), but then I can’t edit those files. I thought I could upload to Google docs, and open and print at school, but Google docs is blocked at school (???), so while that’s a great idea, it’s not feasible right now.
I will adapt and the “problem” won’t really be a problem. I’m writing because for the first time I feel the divide that many of my students have felt over the years. They’ve saved their work and want to continue revising or to print at school and when they try to open, all they get is gobbledygook. Their version of Word is old, or they have Works, or they have a Mac, or whatever it is–they don’t have the newest, snazzy Microsoft product.
My techie friend thinks Macs and PCs are nearly indistinguishable now, a trend he predicts will continue. Is software going to follow? I don’t know. But right now, platforms are still different and one word processor program does not always play nicely with another.
3 responses so far ↓
1
Taran Rampersad
// Feb 1, 2008 at 11:58 am
Your best bet is to save in Microsoft’s format. Unless there is a lot of formatting, it should work fine – though the Microsoft format is much larger.
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2
Amerloc
// Feb 2, 2008 at 7:45 am
Just started using OpenOffice myself (for pretty much the same reason you have). And yes, you can save as a Word.doc, which should solve your portability problem.
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3
Will H.
// Feb 11, 2008 at 9:41 am
There is an open source add on to MS-Word that will allow it to open and save in Open Document Format (what OpenOffice uses). You can find it here: http://odf-converter.sourceforge.net/ However, I’m guessing you probably can’t install software on the computer in question, or you just would have put OpenOffice on it. It would be great for the school to install and support options like this add on, as I’m sure many students don’t have access to MS-Word at home, but could get OpenOffice.
Another option is to get a USB flash drive and run PortableApps ( http://portableapps.com/ ) or something similar on it. But your network may have the USB ports locked down somewhat too. PortableApps allows you to install and run OpenOffice from a USB flash drive.
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