To some people - and they are not the majority - if someone as much as mentions writing out a letter on a PC, they automatically think of Microsoft Word.
Why do we stick to a particular application suite and not another? Lack of choice might be one of the reasons. When buying a PC in Malta, we are very rarely given a choice of what software to get installed. Is it a question of money? Probably so.
Operating systems such as MS Windows come in the range of €100-€250, and MS Office Suites can cost you up to €500 for the 2007 Professional Edition. No wonder suppliers aren't often heard recommending free, so-called "open source" alternatives. And do you blame them? Microsoft claims a turnover of around $20 billion (circa €15 billion) on MS Office alone, plus an additional $12 billion (circa €9 billion) on MS Windows.
The morale behind this simple story is that some people (not all, but certainly a good percentage) tend to stick to one kind of application suite because they are unaware that there is an alternative. And the amazing piece of news is they are unaware that the alternative is free. Yes. That's right. In today's Web 2.0, ever-changing technological world, one can find an open source or free alternative to a variety of commercial applications. Granted, they might not do all the fancy stuff that commercial packages offer; however for the average PC user, they usually prove to be not only sufficient but suitably adequate for their needs.
Taking the example of the one software package that most people use - a word processor - for some people, using a word processor is tantamount to using MS Word. However, I am using Google Apps to type this article. I got into a habit of using it because I use a different PC for work than the one I use at home. Google Apps is what is typically known as "cloud computing" - that is, all the files are stored on a server online (however, it also has the facility to download the file in .doc or .pdf format). Other packages can be fully downloaded and installed on your PC, such as IBM Lotus Symphony (created by IBM in a bid to save themselves millions of dollars in commercial software licences) and OpenOffice, the standard office suite created by Sun Microsystems (now forming part of Oracle group). Both packages are free to download and use on as many PCs as one requires.
The first time I used Open Office was at home, around two years ago, when we needed to find a cheap but yet efficient alternative to MS Office. It had a similar set of applications offered by commercial packages and we thought that it would very well suit our needs.
Upon downloading OpenOffice (which downloaded and installed itself remarkably speedily) we discovered it was made up of the following applications: Writer - for word processing/text files; Calc - spreadsheet application; Impress - for creating multimedia presentations; Draw - paint application; used both for simple drawings and more complex, diagrams; Base - database application; and Math - for creating and editing mathematical formulae. Basically, - a pretty standard office suite which we proceeded to explore.
We first started by trying out the two programs we were most likely to use - Writer (for word processing) and Impress (for presentations). At first glance, I admit, both applications seemed dull in comparison to MS Office; try to imagine the interface of Office 6 back in the 1990s, and you will get the picture. However, upon exploring the programs, we discovered we could do almost everything we were able to do with Office 2007... perhaps it was slightly less intuitive and it took a little effort to revert back to the "way we were"; however, the end results were very similar.
Take, for example, Impress. Upon loading, it presents you with a presentation wizard window (sounds familiar?) and prompts you to choose from an empty presentation, a template or to open an existing presentation. While working at your presentation, the more familiar icons will jump in front of your eyes... layouts... custom animation... slide transitions... they are all there for the finding, if you look close enough. One can also import PowerPoint Presentations into Impress (including .pptx files), however some of the finer Office 2007 are lost upon import (transitions and custom animations stayed put 99 per cent of the times).
The same can be said of Writer. One can do almost anything with Writer that one would do with MS Word, from typing out a simple letter to creating a mail merge. Once again, the icons seem a bit dated but they are all there. Also, one is able to import MS Word files, including .docx files, directly into Writer.
There are, of course, some difficulties which are worth mentioning. Some problems are automatically phased out with every new release (we are currently running version 3.2, which did solve pending issues, such as the support of Opentype fonts and better .docx import). Most notably, Writer's Grammar check pales considerably next to its MS Word counterpart and has to be downloaded separately.
Nor does Writer let you create animated text. I found that Impress still suffers when dealing with embedded flash files, and this can be a problem when converting MS Power Point files to Impress format. In the case of Calc (MS Excel counterpart) there are still difficulties regarding pivot tables and pivot charts comparabilities. In its favour, Calc offers a more sophisticated function wizard (better than in MS Excel 2007), that lets the user navigate through nested formulas. Naturally I cannot go into detail about all the applications in this article. However, I am sure everyone is getting the gist of what I am trying to say.
Ms Debattista is an e-learning support teacher.