microsoft?

macman

This is all speculation, since the OP still hasn't confirmed which Microsoft program her daughter actually needs...

Mr_Toad

esuhl wrote: »

Development of OpenOffice has been at a standstill since Oracle took over and p***ed off all the devs.

LibreOffice is the fork that rose out of the ashes, so to speak, and is probably a better bet.

It was actually Libre Office I was talking about. I haven't used Open Office since development stopped.

Mr_Toad

macman wrote: »

This is all speculation, since the OP still hasn't confirmed which Microsoft program her daughter actually needs...

But what's that likely to be other than the usual Office applications?

I doubt that it's be Access or Publisher, far more likely to be Word and/or Excel.

prowla

If it's MS Office and the college is in the HUP then you can get it for £9.95, and I think it's a 2-computer licence.

macman

Mr_Toad wrote: »

But what's that likely to be other than the usual Office applications?

I doubt that it's be Access or Publisher, far more likely to be Word and/or Excel.

Indeed, most likely to be Word/Excel. But if the OP wants advice, then they should provide the basic info.

Mondez

This is not correct, LibreOffice handles complex formatting perfectly fine. What isn't handled well is MS Office rendering that formatting correctly, a fault with MS Office, not LibreOffice. Similarly LibreOffice can't always correctly render MS Office formatting. I would have complained had I had marks deducted for "incorrect formatting" unless the guidance given for grading specifically said the formatting must be correct when viewed in MS Office version whatever (since MS Office versions often render formatting of other versions of MS Office incorrectly too).

Mr_Toad wrote: »

This question keeps coming up and it always triggers the Open Office response and while you can save in Word format Open Office does not handle anything other than basic formatting very well at all.

I'm a big believer in Open Office and Linux and its variants, however, there are things you need to check.

• Do the Uni expect assignments to be submitted with any special formatting?
• Do they expect MS Word documents or do the encourage or accept open source, i.e. Open Office?

I put Open Office on my daughters laptop for Uni but they expected a certain format, marks lost if not presented correctly, and Open Office just couldn't do it.



It was far easier to buy the student version of MS Office and make all the problems go away.


In contrast my son's Uni course expected Linux and used Open Office for everything.

prowla

Mondez wrote: »

This is not correct, LibreOffice handles complex formatting perfectly fine. What isn't handled well is MS Office rendering that formatting correctly, a fault with MS Office, not LibreOffice. Similarly LibreOffice can't always correctly render MS Office formatting. I would have complained had I had marks deducted for "incorrect formatting" unless the guidance given for grading specifically said the formatting must be correct when viewed in MS Office version whatever (since MS Office versions often render formatting of other versions of MS Office incorrectly too).

I guess it depends upon whether you are doing a degree in MS Office formatting, or just using it as a tool to present your work; if the assessor can't read it properly then you can't get the points.

Mr_Toad

Mondez wrote: »

This is not correct, LibreOffice handles complex formatting perfectly fine. What isn't handled well is MS Office rendering that formatting correctly, a fault with MS Office, not LibreOffice. Similarly LibreOffice can't always correctly render MS Office formatting. I would have complained had I had marks deducted for "incorrect formatting" unless the guidance given for grading specifically said the formatting must be correct when viewed in MS Office version whatever (since MS Office versions often render formatting of other versions of MS Office incorrectly too).

And it's the same the other way round, complex formatting done in MS Office documents does not always display well in Libre Office.

Whatever the problem and whichever package you choose to blame makes no difference, they are not as compatible as people like to tell you.

As prowler says, if it isn't how the assessor, or any other recipient for that matter, wants it then you loose marks. Try arguing with your tutor that it's his software at fault and see how far you get.


I'm a big fan of Libre Office and open source but when dealing with anyone who isn't a user I simply use MS Office, I bought it for my Macs for that very reason.

However much we like Libre Office the simple fact is that most people, businesses and institutions use MS Office and unless you're in a position to make them use Libre Office you're wasting your time.