Wanted to switch to OpenOffice but were worried about tutorials and support? There are several sources of information on how to use OpenOffice. One is the longstanding web site that organizes OpenOffice tutorials, and the other is a collection of 11 videos released by Newsforge. Here's the announcement and a link to the videos:

NewsForge is presenting -- absolutely free of charge -- 11 OpenOffice.org training videos as part of this article. They're excerpts from the video CD that comes with NewsForge Editor-in-Chief Robin 'Roblimo' Miller's upcoming book, Point & Click OpenOffice.org!, which will be available in December from all major booksellers. But we wanted you to have access to these videos now instead of waiting until the book is available, so here they are.

They're released under a Creative Commons license, and will play in any operating system, in any Web browser that has the Flash plugin (version 6 or higher) installed. They were made primarily for Windows users, with the Windows version of OpenOffice.org, but things work pretty much the same in Linux, so they're just as valuable for Linux users. (Our favorite derivative of OpenOffice.org for Mac, NeoOffice, lags behind the "main" version, but even so, you'll find that things work pretty much the same way.)

Do not worry if you are not a word processing, spreadsheet, graphics or slideshow expert. These videos walk you through basic OpenOffice.org functions one step at a time. And each video has a little player control bar beneath it you can use to pause, stop, fast-forward or rewind the video. If you miss a step, no problem; just back up and look at it again. No one is timing or grading you. Take as long as you need to learn each step -- and feel free to follow along in your own copy of OpenOffice.org and experiment as much as you like. It's a robust program. You won't break it if you make a mistake.

No more excuses! Make the switch to OpenOffice and free yourself from expensive upgrades to proprietary software like MS Office. In case you hadn't heard, OpenOffice 2 also includes a database program...

Posted by Miguel Guhlin at | +Del.icio.us |
Categories: OpenLearning