English 421Y: Technical Writing Online

My research lead me to find an article by Computerworld. This article focuses on some of the differences between Open Office and Microsoft Office. I discovered that Open Office does not have the “Ribbon” that Microsoft Office has. This isn’t a large concern however since the “Ribbon” that they are referring to is they design of Microsoft Office 2007. Since we are focusing on a schools using open source, there is a high chance that schools aren’t using Microsoft 2007. This means that the “Ribbon” isn’t a large concern.

One of the other problems that I discovered with using Open Office instead of Microsoft Office is that Open Office does not support .docx formats. This could become a problem as saving in the Microsoft Office .docx format becomes more common. There may be hope however as some form of support for Microsoft Office’s .docx format may come in the future. There is full support for Microsoft Office 2003. This means all the files created in Microsoft Office 2003 and before can be opened in Open Office. Open Office is rather dull looking when compared to Microsoft Office 2007. This is a minor concern however as the primary reason for using either office problem is to get work done, not to have a pretty interface.