On Wed, Feb 13, 2008 11:49:00 AM -0500, ENIGMA CYCLES LLC wrote:

> Hello, I am Erik McMillan with Enigma Cycles and we are in the
> process of starting a charity for underprivilged High School
> students that plan to further their education but are unable to
> afford a computer.

Erik,

I maintain a page of organizations which refurbish computers for
similar purposes at http://digifreedom.net/node/92. Please let me know
privately if and when you have a web page I could link to. With
respect to your questions:

> What would be required from us to install Open Office on these
> computers?

Nothing. OpenOffice can be legally downloaded and installed for free
on as many computers you wish, for all purposes: private, study,
business, everything. You are also encouraged to give away copies on
CDs.

> How difficult is it to program Open Office to communicate with other
> Office systems such as Microsoft?

There are some things, like complex tables and macros, which aren't
guaranteed to work or keep the original formatting when you move files
back and forth from OpenOffice to Microsoft Office.

This sais, the only thing you have to "program" may be to configure
OpenOffice to save by default in the Microsoft file formats. This is
already explained both in the user documentation and online, for
example at:

http://fosswire.com/2007/09/06/openofficeorg-tip-change-the-default-save-format/
http://www.tutorialsforopenoffice.org/tutorial/Microsoft_Office_And_OpenOffice.html
http://www.oooforum.org/forum/viewtopic.phtml?t=27273

Doing so would be quite a bad idea, however. It is much better to keep
OpenOffice's default file format, that is the international
OpenDocument standard, the default, and save in Microsoft formats only
when you are really forced to send file to other people who don't
accept anything else yet.

To learn why you may want to get rid of Microsoft file formats as soon
as possible, you may want to read:

http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/8616
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/9594#mpart8
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/8727
http://digifreedom.net/node/106

Oh, and remember that March 26th, 2008, is Document Freedom Day:

        http://digifreedom.net/node/105

Hope this helps,
                                Marco
-- 
Your own civil rights and the quality of your life heavily depend on how
software is used *around* you:            http://digifreedom.net/node/84

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