The Open Office Experiment

It's been way too long my friends.  I have a lot of catching up to do.  Now that CPE season is over and next year's budget is in hand, it's time to blog again. 
 
The last few years during the winter blahs I've written a 1 or 2 hour course to present at state society conference breakout session and/or webcast for the following year .  Last year was the "Building a Better Reporting Template" and the year before that was "Data Mining - The Art of Extracting and Applying Data in Excel".  This year I'm considering something really different.
 
 "Introducing the Open Office Spreadsheet on the Linux Operating System - No Frills Computing"
 
I know a few individuals that use Open Office (OO).  They are typically, small business owners that use basic functions and reporting techniques, and use OO because it is free.  That's worth repeating.  OO is free!  But what are the issues associated with using OO?  Are there compatibility issues with using Excel files?  After all, Excel still dominates the spreadsheet world, and one will have to send and receive files to and from Excel users.  Also, are there functionality issues?  Are there features I use in Excel that aren't available in OO?  These and other questions will be addressed and answered as I convert to OO for the next few weeks.
 
I do this with some reservation.  I've polled a few audiences for OO interest and the response has been less than enthusiastic.  These people however, already have and use Excel, so why would they be interested in OO?  Perhaps I'm posing the OO question to the wrong audience.  Also, will I have to change my moniker from Captain Excel to the OO Czar? 
 
Well, I have to include at least one Excel bit in every blog, so here's the tip for the day.

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