On Wed, 14 Oct 2009 17:45:49 -0700 (PDT) Helene Bigler <[email protected]> dijo:
> Dear Support Team: > I am absolutely petrified to change from Word / Excel on Vista to your open > office. However, even though I purchased my computer with Windows Word / > Excel already installed about a year ago, it seems it has decided my > 'license' is no good and unless I spend some $300 + I can't use it without > going thru a rigmarole of tabs, pop-ups and other assorted garbage to access > it! > Thus.....YOU were recommended to me. > Can I keep all the files I already have on this now non-licensed Word? > Will downloading you simply 'transfer' my information to you? HELP! I don't > want to loose anything - I am petrified! > If I go into remove files to remove Windows Word/Excel will I do. . . what? > Damage my files? Loose info? ???? > I can type, but I am not totally literate in computereze. Helene, OpenOffice.org is an office package that offers more or less the same functionality as Microsoft Office. I say "more or less" because OOo has a few features that MS Office lacks, and vice-versa. Having said that, the buttons are in different places. There will be a bit of a learning curve as you figure out how to do things that you did in MS Office. Sometimes entire concepts are different. You will need to be patient as you learn the OOo way. OOo can open all MS Office files, so you don't need to convert your old files. You can even set up OOo to use the MS Office file format as its default instead of its own open, non-proprietary format. However, because MS does not make their file formats open, the OOo developers have had to reverse engineer the compatibility modules. The result is that OOo can open any MS Office file, but occasionally there are some slight formatting differences. Expect to have to spend a couple minutes reformatting MS Office files when you import them into OOo. The more complex the features used in the MS Office file, the more tweaking will be required. The biggest issue that users of OOo have is sharing files with users of MS Office. If you send a file to a colleague you'll likely have to send it in MS Office format. Because the import/export modules are not 100% perfect, your colleague may not see precisely the same formatting as you do. Some people find this intolerable, others realize that the world is not a perfect place. We're all different and our computing needs are different. You can install OOo and use it alongside MS Office. OOo is free, so you have nothing to lose. Just download it, install it, and take it for a spin. I can guarantee you one thing: You will never be presented with a threat that it will no longer work because its license has expired. And welcome to the users e-list for OOo. This is the best place to ask questions and get help. Literally tens of thousands of users worldwide read this list daily. Ask any question and someone will soon pop up with an answer. -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected]
