Using
Free Open Source Software. (by
FC)
Like most, you will probably not
have heard of “Open Source Software” or about the availability of
these top grade programs for the office, design studios and home that
cost absolutely nothing. They are not widely known simply because no
one markets them. Who will spend their millions on products they do
not own and that yield zero return? Which computer store will give
away free software in competition against the ones they sell? These
gems are finally coming out of their obscurity thanks to some
governments and large corporations switching over to them.
In this series of articles about open source
software, we will be
introducing readers to the realm of true community spirit in software
development and deployment.
Great IT minds around the globe are
co-operating in thousands of
software projects and making them freely available to the rest of us
for download and use without restriction and for free. Some of these
projects are developed by Universities and governments while others
are backed by corporations, the most prominent being IBM and Sun
Microsystems, and the rest by small groups of individuals.
One single point alone should convince
anyone about the quality of
Open Source software – PEER REVIEW. This is what open source is
about. The whole development is wide open to the rest of the world
(including proprietary software developers of course) for scrutiny
all along the way. Users and other programmers download and test the
software right from the very early beta stages and provide feedback
and bug reports and, no doubt, suggestions for fixes and
improvements.
Another very important point which most
users are unaware of is
the problem of interoperability. With the ever increasing dependency
on digitised communication and storage, there is a real need for
standardising file formats. The open source community is in the
forefront of the drive towards that goal.
This extract from the translation of the
Danish Parliament’s
decision (for implementation from 1st January 2008) explains it very
nicely:
“.... it is a political task to ensure that
the use of
information technology by public authorities ensures the democratic
rights of all citizen to be able to freely receive digital
information from public authorities and to be able to freely send
digital information to them. These political goals can only be met if
the public sector demands that software, that is used in the public
sector and for communication with the public sector, is based on open
standards.”
http://itpol.dk/sager/offpol/b103_eng
A prominent dissenter of that view is
Microsoft. Their Office 2007
suite re-enforces their anti competition stance.
Readers have to be aware that storing their
data in proprietary
file formats locks them in to these companies' whims and future
decisions. Some years down the track if you should decide to switch
systems or if the company decides to abandon the software and move to
better things, you may not be able to access those files without very
costly conversions.
Examples of the more widely used open source
software (in fact you
are already tapping into them in your daily internet use) are Apache
web server, Mysql and PostGreSql databases and Linux operating
system.
The purpose of this series is to introduce
the reader to some of
my own favourites which I am sure will also appeal to many. After
all, many millions are already using them, with many more joining
daily.
We start off with the largest project of
them all -
OpenOffice.org.
OpenOffice is an extremely powerful suite of
programs similar to
Microsoft Office. It offers a high level of compatibility with MS
Office in word processing, spreadsheet and slide presentation. In
addition, it offers a very good graphics program with amazing 3D
capabilities. Not only does it include a database program, it also
offers connectivity to high-end databases as well.
OpenOffice started life in Germany as
StarOffice. Sun Microsystems
took it over and gave the code to the community to develop further.
The community’s version is appropriately named OpenOffice and
within a few short years has gained a massive world-wide following
especially in governments, schools and larger corporations.
For instance, the Indian Government
distributed 7 million copies
in 2005 and Singapore’s Ministry of Defence has made the switch to
OpenOffice. Even in Microsoft’s homeland, City and County Councils
and schools have migrated.
Why has there been such a successful take-up
of this suite? It
being free is only part of the story. There are after all other free
software around.
It is its high professional quality that has
propelled it to such
a broad base of users.
Our company has been using this suite since
the early StarOffice
days of 5 or so years ago and can attest to its quality. Its feel is
a little different from Microsoft’s, not surprising, as it’s
heritage is not American. I prefer it, finding it more intuitive and
user friendlier. This is of course a matter of taste - just as no two
makes of cars have the same feel.
A huge plus for this package is its ability
to directly produce
pdf files with just a click of the button - without the additional
outlay for Acrobat Distiller. It opens and saves to a wide variety of
file types including Microsoft Word.
If you are into writing books, you will love
the Writer, the word
processor module. It is exceptionally fast even when handling massive
books. You can easily move chapters, re-locating them or adding or
deleting them and the program automatically renumbers the chapters
and re-paginates the entire book. This makes light work of assembling
collaborative writing.
Creating and maintaining web pages is really
easy using Writer,
and the program generates very good HTML code for more expert fine
tuning if desired. To make changes to the page, for example replacing
images or updating information, simply open the original Writer
document, modify as in normal word processing and save again as HTML,
and the job is done. Of course some knowledge of browser behavior and
how to control formatting therein is helpful.
Dictionaries and thesauruses are available
for installation from
the internet and there is a large community of users and experts out
there on the net ready to assist and share their knowledge and
experiences.
On opening the program, the screen looks
very much like most other
word processors and works in the main just like the one you are
currently using.
As you can see from the screen grab above,
the
usual buttons and selectors for type and formatting control are all
there and in practically the same location as in other word
processors. I particularly like the ease and logical manner in which
we can create, apply and update styles to paragraphs, pages and
graphics. The figure below shows only part of the very large
range of preset styles available. You can easily add new ones to the
list or edit any of the styles to suit your work.
 |
A partial list of preset paragraph
styles. It is easy to create or modify styles.
|
|
Moving to the second buton (top row) gives
us the presets for character styles. The remaining three buttons in the
group are for frame, page and list styles respectively. The drop down
menu on the right allows you to easily create a new style or edit the
style of whatever element that is selected in the document.
|
It is the ease with which we can do things
with this program that
impresses. Setting up mirror pages, headers and footers and
positioning of page numbers take no time at all to apply and modify.
You should be able to lay out professional looking books or
newsletters quite effortlessly.
Templates take away the chore of setting up
margins, styles etc.
each time you want to do something, be it writing a memo or a fax or a
slide presentation. They also give a neat uniform look to your
documents and correspondences. Again, OpenOffice shines in this
department.
I like the way the drop down menus display
every available choice
with the un-selectable ones greyed out. This takes the guesswork out
of looking for the less-used items. An example is the Insert menu
item (shown below) which allows you to insert just about
anything.
 |
All in all a most impressive program. It is
a not doing it justice
to call it only a word processor as it is so very competent in
desktop publishing and web design as well.
You've got to try it – it's free after all.
As with taking on
something new, there will be some discomfort due to past habits and
familiarities. The pain is akin to that suffered when a new coach
changes your grip in tennis or golf!
Download the program from www.openoffice.org
or pick up a free CD
from FC Productions at 108 Lilyfield Road, Lilyfield. Please call
9810 1988 before pickup to allow time for burning the latest version.
Francis Chuah
graduated from England as an FCA and has been
involved in software development and training since he headed the
computerisation of the first Malaysian bank in the late 70’s.
Has had a wide
range of work and life
experiences. Was awarded a
flying scholarship from the RAF but after getting his wings, found
Accountancy and computers to be more exciting!
He is a director
of FC Productions and the
architect of this
magazine.
adexpress@fcproductions.com.au
