On Mon, 16 Oct 2006 08:52:52 +0100
"johnmchenry" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> dijo:

> I have just installed your open office and will be using writer most of the 
> time....the work i do i want to load on to a three and half floppy disc could 
> then i will take it to college and open it up on the college computers which 
> use microsoft WORD could you please tell me how to save my work so it will 
> open Ok on the college computers    

John,

The computer labs at my university have about 3/4 Windows XP machines
and 1/4 Macintoshes. All the Windows machines use Windows XP, and they
have the full Microsoft Office Suite *and* the latest OpenOffice.org.
If I stick to standard fonts I can just open my OpenOffice.org
documents directly. If I need specialized fonts (I'm a linguistics
major) I can save the fonts in my personal folder (I'm allowed 500 MB)
and tell OpenOffice.org where to find them by adding the path to my
personal profile settings for OpenOffice on the university's server.

The point I want to make is that first you should verify that your
college's computers do not already have OpenOffice.org installed. If
they do not, ask the help desk people if they can do so. (After all,
it's free.) If you absolutely can't use OpenOffice on your college's
computers, then save your writer files as RTF or DOC files. If you
merely want to print them, you can export as PDF. PDF is a better
solution because it embeds fonts and maintains the formatting much more
reliably than saving as RTF or DOC format. However, editing PDF files
is probably not possible on the college computers. I say "probably" not
possible because I can do so here, but I am a graduate student and
there is one computer lab that is exclusively for graduate students and
the computers there have Adobe Acrobat.

If you need to share your documents with other students and professors,
again, RTF or DOC format allows them to edit the files; PDF probably
means they cannot edit, but the fonts and formatting will be preserved
more reliably. Some of my professors are happy to have me hand in
homework by e-mailing them a PDF file.

I might also suggest investing $20-$30 in a thumb drive. This are tiny
flash drives that you can stick in the USB port on the college's
computers. I got a 1 GB thumb drive at the university bookstore for
$49; I think the 256 MB ones are under $15. They're much faster and
more reliable than floppies, plus they hold vastly more data. Another
alternative to floppies is to e-mail the files to yourself from home,
then log into your e-mail account at college and retrieve the files.
Floppies are also a problem here because the Windows machines have a
waiting line but there are always Macs available, but the Macs don't
have floppy drives.

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