My hard drive failed two weeks ago. I’ve since revived my computer with a new drive, but I’m still trying to make up for all the data and programs I lost. In my desperation, I have been driven to revisit Open Office.
My Microsoft Office package disappeared with the old hard drive. A note here: I’m still trying to get it replaced, but I need something to tide me over. The University uses Open Office on all its main computer labs, and I’ve spent the last three years trying to avoid it. Nothing handles huge slugs of data like Excel. And nothing is more infuriating than attempting to use Excel shortcuts and functions in Open Office, where they are either different or non-existent.
However, desperation breeds open-mindedness, so I downloaded the latest Open Office suite this afternoon. This edition looks even more like its Microsoft peer, and so far, has done everything I asked. Perhaps this shows my age (or limited tech abilities), but I used to struggle to edit graphs in the old Open Office. I couldn’t find the statistics functions I needed. And I couldn’t get any of my Open Office documents to arrange themselves rationally on A4 paper for printing.
All of these processes are much more intuitive (and Excel-like) now. Open Office Calc happily undertakes t-tests and chi-squared tests. It cheerfully sums columns and cross-references cells. It makes lists, for goodness sake, and it does it all for free.
This summer I’m working on a statistics project for Physics, so I’ll get plenty of opportunities to find Calc’s faults. Perhaps my enthusiasm will wane. So far, my Open Office substitute seems amiable enough, so I will give it the benefit of the doubt. For now, I don’t have any other choice.