Keep your Software Costs Low with Open Office Software
As a small business owner I am constantly pursuing the “bottom line” ;.It’s a straightforward formula, really. Just increase sales while decreasing expenses, right? Easier said than done I’m afraid. The truth is that most production costs like fuel, rent, internet access, insurance, etc, continue to increase and don’t show signs of slowing any time soon. Meaning I’ve got to be downright cagey in conserving every dime I could, where I can.
So, when I upgraded to a new computer I went most abundant in performance for the cheapest cost. That meant no frills, especially where software is concerned. Manufacturers want a supply and a knee to pre-install software bundles on your machine. Even when you’re a little more technologically savvy and purchase and install software yourself, Microsoft Office Standard is like four hundred bucks, and you still have anti-virus and other vital software to spend for. What’s an entrepreneur to accomplish?
I’m fortunate enough to learn some people who work in the tech sector and are a lot more knowledgeable than myself about them of personal computing. free office for students When I told among my tech-head friends I was buying a less costly software solution he told me to look at Open Office software.
He sent me to this site where they’ve an Open Office software suite available for download, bundled with a totally free anti-virus suite! I tried it out and I’ve been very impressed using what I got for my dollar. The open office programs have yet features as their Microsoft counterparts, as well as a couple of advantages unique to Open Office.
The bundle includes a phrase processor, a spreadsheet program, a database, an application for creating multi-media presentations, and a drawing program.
I haven’t got to spend a lot of time with the presentation program, Impress, nonetheless it interfaces nicely and seems to be able to create anything I will need for a good sales presentation. Draw, the graphics program, is fantastic and creates artwork in bitmap, GIF, JPEG, and a few other formats I’ve never even heard of. Most critical if you ask me though have now been the phrase processor, called Write, and the spreadsheet, Calc.
Write has all of the features, there’s nothing missing. It even offers its own helpful options like auto correct and auto complete, and it can cause documents in open document format, a report format manufactured by an industry consortium to be the newest standard in compatibility. In addition it may read and edit my old Word documents, as well as create new ones. It may also create .pdf files.
Calc shares exactly the same virtues as its word processing counterpart, with the abilities to learn and write existing Excel docs. That is huge for me because the vast majority of my payroll, invoicing, and expense tracking are kept on customized spreadsheets I built myself, and the capability to keep the information I’ve and continue my book keeping without starting over is crucial. I also love the natural language formula feature. It allows the creation of formulas using actual words like “sales-costs” ;.It’s really slick and saves me a ton of time.
Now if you’ve done your homework or have a background in computers you understand that Open Office software is open source code software, meaning essentially that it’s free. Why buy software which can be gotten for nothing? Well the answer is based on the additional features, bonus software and support provided in this Open Office suite. At under $50 dollars for your Open Office software bundle, the anti-virus suite alone makes it worth the cost. Also included is one whole year of free technical support, that will be important for the less technically inclined, such as for example me.
