Tell me about openoffice..

[MrsMuddle]

I have a new netbook and it doesn't come with the office suite on it. I'm currently trying to fit in an ECDL around work and everything else, and although I can go to a local college and use their PCs, I'd prefer to do the work from my bed at home.

The ECDL is based around MS Office Powerpoint, MS Office Excel etc etc.

I can't afford to download Office this month or next (and if I stop working on the ECDL for two months, I'll lose the impetus.)

Someone suggested downloading openoffice, but it is directly comparable to MS Office - ie, would the course notes be valid and make sense?

Yes you would be able to read them, edit etc. and even save again as Word/Excel files. Fonts etc. would be the same.

I have used both and personally find it a bit difficult to get used to the 'small' differences, but that's more to do with the fact that the menus aren't exactly the same. So when you are used to doing something in Word, it's not necessarily in quite the same place in OpenOffice.

Kind of like when you switch mobile phones to a different brand - buttons are in a different place, but you get used to it!

I've been using it for a while now. Like Minnie says, the small differences are a bit annoying - like various commands being in the "wrong" menu, but you do get used to it. Have only found this with the word program though, the spreadsheet one is absolutely fine.

Thanks very much for the advice.

I've got no excuse now to put off starting my excel module.