Using Open Source, Part 3: OpenOffice Draw & Impress
by Doug Anger
This week's column is the third in a short series of articles on using Open Source software. The previous two are available online under the Columns section of http://compass.lssu.edu/. This week, we continue with the OpenOffice suite by reviewing the spreadsheet application Calc.
For those of you who missed the previous two weeks, OpenOffice.org is a free suite of office programs consisting of five main programs: a word processor (Writer), a spreadsheet (Calc), a presentation program (Impress), a drawing program (Draw), and a database program (Base). OpenOffice will run on Windows, Linux, and the X11 environment on Mac OS X. This week, we continue our discussion about open source software by taking a look at OpenOffice Draw and Impress.
About OpenOffice Draw
OpenOffice Draw supports basic vector graphics, including shapes, lines, and FontWork, which is eerily similar to Microsoft's WordArt. Draw comes pre-loaded with a large number of shapes for building flow charts and other diagrams.
Draw has no equivalent in the Microsoft Office suite, but is similar to the drawing function of Apple's AppleWorks and ClarisWorks of old. Documents created in Draw cannot be exported cleanly to any Microsoft format. Draw can export to Adobe PDF, Macromedia Flash, HTML, and numerous image formats for sharing. Be warned, however, that documents exported to these formats cannot be re-imported without losing data. If you will ever need to edit the document again, keep the original.
About OpenOffice Impress
OpenOffice Impress allows you to create presentations similar to the way Microsoft PowerPoint or Apple Keynote do. It has the same basic drawing capabilities as Draw and additional functionality to manage slides, notes for the presenter, and handouts for your audience.
In addition to its own OpenDocument Presentation format, Impress can also open and save Microsoft PowerPoint files. It can export your presentations to Adobe PDF, Macromedia Flash, and HTML. Exporting to HTML has many more options than PowerPoint offers, allowing you to fine-tune the appearance of your presentation and even create a Webcast. In addition, exported presentations created with Impress can be viewed in any modern web browser, not just Internet Explorer.
Impress is the one component of OpenOffice that I and others in the technology community that I have talked with have had a lot of problems with. Simple presentations are handled well enough, but video playback does not always work during the presentation and images with transparency do not always display properly. Always test your presentations before showing them to an audience, regardless of what software you use.
Should You Switch?
Readers who have read the last two columns as well as this one now have a basic overview of OpenOffice. (I have excluded the database application Base simply because I don't think the majority of college students are likely to use it.)
OpenOffice is free. However, it comes with no warranty and no help line. If you can't figure something out on your own, your options are most likely limited to the built-in help system (which is decent), searching the Internet, and phoning a friend.
If you decide to switch (from Microsoft Office at least), converting files to Impress's format won't be necessary because Impress can directly open PowerPoint documents. However, if you save all your files in OpenOffice format and decide to switch back to PowerPoint, expect to spend some time opening them all and saving them as PowerPoint files manually.
If you decide to try OpenOffice, you can get it by going to http://www.openoffice.org/, clicking on the get openoffice.org button, and following the instructions for your platform.

Our series on open source software will continue next week.
