img443/6994/logonewgx2.gifA month ago I gave my computer at church a clean sweep. It was getting “buggy” and was at least a year overdue for a fresh start. I decided when I was making this fresh start to ditch Microsoft Office and switch to Open Office.

Open Office is Sun Microsystem’s “open source” office suite. Within it are all the major office suite functions: Word Processing, Spreadsheets, Presentation, Data Base, and a Drawing package.

Having used it for a month now I can say that there is not a function of the Microsoft package that can not be done as easily with the Open office package. The only thing I have missed is the grammar checker, but it is possible to add it.

Now, you may be asking, what will I do with all my old Microsoft Documents? (Word, Excell, Power Point, etc) Open Office can save and work on the traditional formats. So in other words, you can open up that old sermon saved as a .doc file, update it, and preach it again in another setting still saving it as a .doc file.

Open Office does take a while to get used to with respect to keyboard commands and the location of options under the menus but again, all the functions are there and quite easy to use once you get used to it.

It Open Office better than Microsoft Office? I don’t think so. (Thought it is not very far behind at all!) But here is why I am going to have all the computers in my church switch over…Open Office is FREE! I think that churches have better things to spend their money on than office suites when that function can be done just as well with no money involved.

The Microsoft Office Professional 2007 FULL VERSIONis running a whopping $374.99 at Amazon.com. My church has 13 computers in use by full and part time staff. By running Open Office and Thunderbird (see below) we can save over $4800 dollars over a several year period.

Can anyone think of things more valuable to spend money on than software that can be replaced for free? I thought so.

The only piece that is missing you will probably miss is Outlook. But, Thunderbird is a superior product for e-mail and you can add a very good calendar to Thunderbird in another free ad-on called Lightening. Plus, I hope you will move towards doing your calender online anyway. (In February 2008 smartpastor.com will be doing a series on
e-productivity for Pastors. Subscribe to my feed so you will not miss that series.)

Let me know your experience.