Are you tired of upgrading your Microsoft Word software every couple of years? I know I am. Recently, I inherited a computer with Windows 7 operating system. Right away, I realized most of my XP software would not work with Windows 7. Not wanting to shell out the big bucks for Microsoft Office (again), I installed Open Office, the free productivity suite I reviewed on this blog some time ago here. It worked fine for a while, but I kept getting an update message. When I tried to update, it always failed.
Enter Thomas Smith’s article, “Free Tools for Us Writing Fools,” in the June issue of Christian Communicator. Smith mentioned a new productivity suite called LibreOffice. It’s a spin-off from Open Office. Without getting into the details on how that happened, let me just say that the LibreOffice folks are determined to provide a quality product at a great price—free.
LibreOffice (LO) is much like Open Office (OO) if you’ve had any experience with that. And, they’re both similar to Microsoft Word. There is a bit of a learning curve because the menus are not the same. You can save files in MS Word format in either OO or LO so you should not have any problem submitting your work in Word format when required. Also included, you’ll find spreadsheet, presentation, draw and database programs, all compatible with Microsoft products.
Download LibreOffice at http://www.libreoffice.org/. Installation instructions are at this link.
Note: If you already have Open Office on your computer, you will need to uninstall it or take the Open Office Quickstarter out of startup before you try to install LibreOffice. See below for links to instructions.
Readers: If you have used LibreOffice, we’d like to know what you think of it. Please let us know by commenting on this post. If you have any trouble with the comment process, please e-mail me at akinemily(at)gmail.com.
More Information:
- LibreOffice Review
- Windows XP: Remove Quickstarter from startup
- Windows 7: Remove Quickstarter from startup (go all the way to the bottom of this page for command list).
Disclaimer: The above instructions worked for me. I make no guarantees about whether they will work for you.