Open Office vs Microsoft Office

[timuralp]

Also, if the recipient needs to be able to modify the file, one could save the document as an .rtf (albeit rtf does not have as many formatting options).

[jendoly]

"Cluster machines" with Open Office? Now I'm wondering whether you and I have the same alma mater, or whether the use of "cluster" to mean a computer lab is more common than I realized.

Possibly! Both my undergrad and grad institutions refer to computer labs as clusters. As a little game: at my undergrad, there's one in the basement of the terrible concrete brutalist engineering building, and one in the pretty brick one. at my grad, they are all referred to by the name of a goddess. (;

[starmaker]

I think your grad is my undergrad (is the goddess Greek? do the cluster machines run Ubuntu?). Your undergrad is clearly NOT my undergrad, as it apparently only has one concrete engineering building, and has a building that could be described as "pretty brick".

[jendoly]

Yes, the goddess is Greek, and none of the printer names make any sort of relevant sense to each other... but the computers actually work, mostly, compared to the crappy cluster machines I'd grown accustomed to in undergrad. well, the ubuntu ones do, not the windows ones...

but awwww, the chapel has pretty brick! my undergrad chapel had even prettier brick stone though (;

[Golden Monkey]

Yeah, I only turn in pdfs too. It eliminates all kinds of problems.

[starmaker]

Yes, the goddess is Greek, and none of the printer names make any sort of relevant sense to each other... but the computers actually work, mostly, compared to the crappy cluster machines I'd grown accustomed to in undergrad. well, the ubuntu ones do, not the windows ones...

but awwww, the chapel has pretty brick! my undergrad chapel had even prettier brick stone though (;

Oh yeah, good point, I forgot about the chapel. It's gorgeous inside, too. And why are you using the Windows cluster machines when there are normal ones all over the place? I don't even remember what clusters besides the one in the 5th floor of the student center have Windows boxes.

Anyway, to stop derailing the thread, I use LibreOffice now at work, and it seems to do all right most of the time. Apparently you can even make nice graphics in it, though I haven't learned much of this capability yet.

For a written document, like a paper, you can use LaTeX (and pdf it), but it's got a significant learning curve. It makes your papers look nice, though.

[rising_star]

What are the key differences between LibreOffice and OpenOffice? Is LibreOffice compatible with citation software like Zotero or Mendeley?

[timuralp]

I have not tested this firsthand, but it appears there are plugins for both for LibreOffice. The fork should be pretty much similar (almost identical?) to OpenOffice to start with, but I would think there will be more divergence over time with OpenOffice becoming defunct.

[indalomena]

I only ever use LaTeX now -- which, I gather, is unusual for a humanities student. But I didn't find it a challenge to learn (I knew HTML already so the concept was not alien to me) and the results are just beautiful. Before that I was using Open Office, which I got along with just fine. I never use Microsoft unless on college computers -- I was brought up in an open source household and so, forking out piles of money when you can achieve similar results for free makes me cringe a little

[long_time_lurker]

For what it's worth, this PC Magazine article predicts a resurgence for OpenOffice. IBM has thrown its weight behind it.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2388582,00.asp

[ktel]

I made a LaTeX document to display some of my research findings yesterday, and am so satisfied with the program. I am definitely going to learn how to use it, I think it will be incredibly useful for all future papers.