Tips to help users migrate to OpenOffice

“The office suite. Ah the importance you hold over the PC user.
You help our business to flow, you help us to draft our papers and
novels, and you help us communicate. But what of those users who
previously were using Microsoft Office or any other office suite?
How does one gain any sort of efficiency or familiarity with
another office suite – especially when there is so little time to
do so? It’s really not so difficult. After all, the features
are, for the most part, all there.

“In this article I am going to present a few tips to help you
help others migrate to the open source office suite. In the end,
your users will enjoy a full-featured office suite that will cost
$0.00 per seat to use (CAL about that?).

“1. Change the default file type

“For most users the default “save as” file types in
OpenOffice will cause more trouble than not. They will create a
document and then, when their co-workers/instructors/friends/etc
recieve that .odt file, have no idea that Microsoft Office
won’t be able to play nicely with their work. Although I
prefer the open document format, I generally switch all default
file types to the Microsoft equivalent. This is done in Tools >
Options > Load/Save > General. Make sure you go through the
drop-down and change all the necessary default formats so that when
your user saves that precious document, it will open in other
office suites.

“2. Avoid the ribbon”

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