Even though the adoption of OpenOffice is barely a year old, District 219’s Technology Committee for School Improvement (TCSI) is currently experimenting with new software that will most likely be installed for the next school year.
The new software, LibreOffice, was created as a follow-up to OpenOffice. A key feature of the new software is that documents from other softwares like Microsoft Office can be opened up and edited in LibreOffice.
The program is also updated regularly, and, most importantly, is free. There are no costs to maintain LibreOffice like there were with Microsoft Office, which is why OpenOffice was installed this school year.
“LibreOffice is stable, free, open, and best of all, supported,” said Guy Ballard, District 219’s Chief Technology Officer. “Those who are already using LibreOffice are reporting that they see no real difference in the look and feel of the product.”
Some teachers have been piloting LibreOffice for the past few weeks in order to compare it to OpenOffice. However, there have also been teachers who’ve been completely unaware that they were using a different program. English teacher Kristen Jackson, who uses PowerPoints for her Images class, didn’t notice the difference.
“I noticed that the name [of the program] was different, but I didn’t realize that it was a new program,” she said.
Some student reactions so far have been neutral.
“If it’s pretty much the same program, then it’s not a big deal,” said senior Despina Hobitakis. “Besides, I use GoogleDocs more than OpenOffice anyway.”
TCSI plans to install the latest version LibreOffice to District 219 computers over the summer.
Amanda Muir • Mar 6, 2012 at 10:38 PM
I am currently testing Libre Office and I can personally say that it is better than Open Office for several reasons. Like Ali said, it can convert Microsoft Office files with ease and never screams at you that the file is incompatible. I have also noticed that Libre Office seems to have less bugs than Open Office. I have yet to experience my Libre Office crashing unlike Open Office that crashed on me at least 4 or 5 times. However, Libre Office can never replace Microsoft Office. That has already been established. But if I had to chose between using Open Office or using Libre Office, Libre Office is the better option.