Why not use Open Office?

I have students and staff members ask often "Why don't you recommend using Open Office from http://www.openoffice.org/?

The answer is not that easy but let me attempt an explanation.

Open Office is a great suite of programs and they are awesome for personal use.  Often you cannot send Open Office documents in an email and expect the recipient to be able to access it if they themselves do not have Open Office.

You do have the option of saving files in a different format.  While this works a lot of the time I have seen students lose their top grade of an A and end up with a C because their paper wasn't formatted correctly.  However when the student opens the original document on their computer the formatting is retained. Just remember not to share the documents if you do use Open Office.

If you decide to ignore this warning. Always make sure you can open the file from the website (not from your computer)  and see if the formatting is saved.

We in Technical Support do not usually support Open Office and will only do so on a limited (experience only) basis.