Some Lagniappe for You
By Tiny Ruisch
la·gniappe (lnyp, ln-yp)The pr
n. Chiefly Southern Louisiana & Mississippi
1. A small gift presented by a store owner to a customer with the customer’s purchase.
2. An extra or unexpected gift or benefit. Also called regionally boot.
As I write this article, you can purchase Microsoft Office from Amazon for $202.99 If you have a student ID, it is only $123.49. There is another method for saving yourself some cash.
OpenOffice can be downloaded and used entirely free of any license fees. OpenOffice is released under the Lesser General Public License. This means you may use it for any purpose – domestic, commercial, educational, public administration. You may install it on as many computers as you like. You may make copies and give them away to family, friends, students, employees – anyone you like. (If you check their website, you’ll find out that I didn’t write this fancy paragraph all by myself).
OpenOffice has five modules. Writer is a full feature text document editor that many technical writers say is better than Word. Calc is a spreadsheet program that can completely replace Excel. Impress is the OpenOffice alternative to Power Point. Base is a data base module. Draw is a graphics package.
I’ve got to tell the truth. I regularly use only Writer and Calc. I’ve got all of the other modules installed in case I have to open a Microsoft Office file. All of the components of OpenOffice can load and save Office files.
If you do a Google search to compare OpenOffice and Microsoft Office, you will find that many of the sites rate OpenOffice the best choice for personal use and Microsoft Office as best for business use. This is because with Microsoft, you get technical support if needed.
OpenOffice support is done via an extensive online help the forums on the website. You can also download a user guide. There is an online forum for asking and answering questions. Additionally, several users have created tutorials that demonstrate the ease of using OpenOffice. If you want to spend some cash, there have been several books written on how to use the software.
For more information, check the OpenOffice website. You can download OpenOffice here. Try it. I think you’ll be convinced. Like all of the programs featured in my Lagniappe articles, the price of the program is zero. If you like it, just tell everyone that you’ve got a SWLAPCUG extra, a bonus perk, a small gift, a present from the club: a little lagniappe.