Running MS Office along side Open Office

[cookie_monster]

Anyone doing this and what issues do you find with deployment, file associations, training and general compatability?

Thanks.

[CyberNerd]

we are doing this, no real problems. They are both pretty compatible.
We took the becta advice and adopted .odf (using the sun compatibility pack for MSOffice). I understand that newer MSoffice versions support it natively now.

It's handy as we can now advise staff/students to install OOo at less cost and to improve compatibility.

[cookie_monster]

we are doing this, no real problems. They are both pretty compatible.
We took the becta advice and adopted .odf (using the sun compatibility pack for MSOffice). I understand that newer MSoffice versions support it natively now.

It's handy as we can now advise staff/students to install OOo at less cost and to improve compatibility.

I looked into the sun compatibility pack for MSOffice a while back but had issues, i'll take another look if it's improved. I assume that doesn't work for Access as per usuall?

Do you use the ADM templates for Group Policy to manage Open Office or do you use profiles?

It's handy as we can now advise staff/students to install OOo at less cost and to improve compatibility.

I'd really love to do that. I'm trying to ween them off of Publisher onto Scribus as well.

[dalsoth]

We have OpenOffice installed as an alternative and a nice way to create PDF files. We let MS Office do its thing and just stick OO on the machines for the kids to try. We also suggest they download it for home use because it is free. Ubuntu too, as we usually request some free copies for students from Canonical and distribute them to those that take an interest or come to us with problems about home computers.

[CyberNerd]

I looked into the sun compatibility pack for MSOffice a while back but had issues, i'll take another look if it's improved. I assume that doesn't work for Access as per usuall?

Do you use the ADM templates for Group Policy to manage Open Office or do you use profiles?

no go for access (but OOo databases are better anyway, mysql) and publisher sucks.
No-one seems too bothered about using powerpoint vs Impress, Word vs Writer - Teachers care more about the brand name than the kids do; open up a word document, search google says teacher. If kids bring in docx, pptx they default open in OOo.
A neat trick is to install the sun pack, and use a reg key to save everything to .odt - then have .odt default open to OOo. After a few complaints things settle up and you just say that OOo 3.1 is the 'latest version' lmao


default profiles work well for us.