[ubuntu-studio-users] Is Libre an acceptable substitute for MS office for college student? (long; sorry.)

[Pete Wright]

I know what the answer to that question should be, but I am old enough to
know how ignorant I am (plenty), so this is a legitimate serious question,
not troll-bait.

My 16-year-old high school junior is in a State of Washington program
(Running Start) that lets students start college early, which she is doing,
carrying a full load of college courses plus a couple of high school
classes.

She is bright and reasonably computer literate, but she has been writing
for years and when the rest of the computer environment doesn't let her
work as fast as a word processor does, she gets frustrated. She also has
some health issues, so just letting her sink or swim on her own is not the
best option; hence my effort to help her.

The most recent bump she has hit is a biology assignment to make graphs out
of data; the examples (samples) are provided as txt files and the
instructions are to use Excel. Our first attempts to do the job with Libre
calc and/or base failed.  Her instructor, via email, just says "use the
computers at school if you don't have Excel."

We don't own MS Office and because of her health and living more than am
hour away from campus, using the school's computers are not often a good
option.

So, should she be able to do in LIbre what she would be able to do in MS
Office? (I am assuming the college does not make much use of the fanciest
bells and whistles that probably differentiate the two suites.)

I can and do teach kids and adults how to use Gimp and Libre Writer instead
of their high-priced counterparts, but when it comes to spreadsheets and
such I barely know a range from an operator, so your responses can be basic
to the point of primitive without danger of insulting me.

I am interested in broad general answers to the broad question in the
subject line, but would like to hear finer-grained answers about the
graph-generation issue, as well.

I tried a few years back to organize a local organization to persuade our
schools to use Open Source software instead of proprietary stuff, but the
teachers were all either Apple-only or totally computer illiterate. When
the others gave up, I did too, and the effort fizzled. But I remain
dedicated to using and proselytizing Open Source; just not very good at it.

Helplessly yours, Pete
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