Question

While this course is based on the Microsoft Office Suite, there are other comparable options available for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations and more. Read through the article linked below. Pick two alternatives listed, do a little more research and compare and contrast your choices with the Microsoft Office suite. Discuss pros and cons, any experience you may have with your chosen alternatives and describe your general impression. Be sure to include your references.

Answer 1

LibreOffice

LibreOffice is like Word 2003. Use LibreOffice if you are comfortable with conventional PC UIs.

LibreOffice is free. Use LibreOffice if you don’t want to pay by the month for MSWord.

The advantages I can think of LibreOffice are:

• It's free (as in speech) which means you can change it and rebuild it should you desire.
• It's free (as in beer)
• It's cross-platform in that it's written in Java, so it'll run on pretty much any platform
• Since it and its file formats are open you will still have access to the source in years to come and won't be stuck with not being able to open old legacy documents, like MS Office et al have demonstrated in the past
• It defaults to using open standards, rather than Microsoft's "open" standards which aren't really that open
• It'll save PDFs without hassle
• You can download it to your computer without having to give up any personal information
• It's not a gazillion gigabytes to download
• You can install it on as many machines as you like
• You can give a copy to your friends

The disadvantages:

• It doesn't do a lot of the more obscure things you can do in MS Office (if you don't know what they are, it's not surprising, most users are unlikely to notice)
• It doesn't come with technical support as part of whatever package you buy
• It doesn't 100% handle MS' proprietary formats, or indeed their fake "open" formats (which can contain binary information which isn't in the spec)
• The table handling in the word processor is worse than the one in MS Word, although since that's pretty awful anyway I don't see this as a problem. If you're using funky tables in your document, you probably shouldn't be using a word processor in the first place
• It's a bit slower, and uses up a lot of memory, because Java.
• I think change tracking in MS Office is more advanced, or perhaps it isn't even available in LO, I'm not sure.

Google Docs

Google Docs has been ruling the waves for the past decade or so. It transfigured the way we operate on Word documents and made sharing out content easier via links. But everything has its pros and cons and here’s a list.

Advantages:

1. Accessibility: With Google Docs you can access your shared documents regardless of where you are or what device you’re using because everything is saved on Google’s servers. So as long as you have internet access, you don’t have to worry about transferring your documents on pen drives or your phones in order to access them.
2. Free: Google Docs is free. You can create unlimited documents and you don’t even have to spare a penny!
3. Flexibility: There is import and export flexibility. Google Docs imports or exports whatever file type you want. So it won’t limit you to using just Word or PDF.
4. Collaboration - Work with others concurrently. Changes made go live instantly. No more wondering who has the latest version of the file.
5. Control - The document owner retains control of the file.
6. Secure - Since files are stored in the cloud, access via PC, Chromebook or Android. In the event of device loss, access using another device.
7. Restore - Restore to an earlier version if desired. Great for recovering from mistakes.
8. Table of Contents - Probably one of the easiest to use. Great for navigating within large files.
9. Bookmarks/ Hyperlinks - Create links for cross-referencing.
10. Compatibility - Access using a browser so no need to install software. Download as MS Word, PDF, TXT or even ePUB is desired.
11. Lots of Storage
12. Free - Google Docs is free.

Disadvantages:

1. The presentation program is weak: Personally, I feel like the templates/layouts, themes, etc are all pretty basic.
2. Internet Access: You need to have internet everywhere in order to have access to your documents which could be a big limitation for some.
3. It is cloud computing & there is no physical location of the documents shared.

4. Security is the major concern to a financial adviser and many companies may prefer the idea of data stored on site where they are in control of it.

5. It has a lack of quality.

6. If anyone use Google Docs for work, Search will know which company they work for and which industry they work in.