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

[Hazan Pérez]

Hey Pete, To answer your question, Yes, Libreoffice is a very good 
alternative to MS Office, and I agree with you that the graphics that 
Calc produces are not easy to handle, or simply different from Excel. 
It depends on the case, but the graphs, most surely, can be created too 
with Calc. The workflow is different from MS Office. If you need more 
help I think I could help you.

Other thing you could try is Kingsoft Office, otherwise known as WPS 
Office, which is pretty much a Chinese clone of MS Office, I think it's 
workflow is very similar to that or MS Office (I'm not very sure 
though, haven't really used it). If she needs to deliver an .xls or 
.xlsx file as a result maybe Kingsoft is a better choice (not the best 
though since Kingsoft isn't FOSS), but it would be good for her grades. 
Other thing I advise is to try and do it in both LibreOffice and in 
Kingsoft, and deliver the best one.

Hope that what I said helps you.

El mié 06 nov 2013 16:22:49 COT, Pete Wright escribió:
> 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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--

Hazan Pérez C.
Twisto Creative