<p>Hey I'm interested in downloading openoffice to save some money by not buying ms office. Can a college student use this exclusively? Can it open word or PowerPoint files and vise versa can ms office open up openoffice file?</p>
<p>Open office is no longer supported, check out libre office. Its basically the same office suit with new developers.
Try a free account on these online alternatives (they are better than libre office)</p>
<p>for word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations
[Live</a> Documents - Office for the Internet Generation.](<a href=“http://live-documents.com/]Live”>http://live-documents.com/)
<a href=“Adobe Acrobat”>Adobe Acrobat;
[More</a> Than 4 Million Users Work Online With Zoho](<a href=“http://www.zoho.com/]More”>http://www.zoho.com/)</p>
<p>Better for presentations
[Prezi</a> - The Zooming Presentation Editor](<a href=“http://www.prezi.com%5DPrezi”>http://www.prezi.com)
[Online</a> Presentation Software | Free PowerPoint Online | Web Presentation | SlideRocket.](<a href=“http://www.sliderocket.com%5DOnline”>http://www.sliderocket.com)</p>
<p>Check with your college bookstore or computer store. You may be able to buy MS Office very cheap.</p>
<p>If not, there are sites that sell student versions of MS Office for a low price if you can prove you are enrolled or accepted to college.</p>
<p>Window Live (formally known as Hotmail) has office and powerpoint online for hotmail/live users that basically functions as office but free and online, and you can save the files to your computer if you need to email your prof or a group member/classmate. Google docs is pretty good, too. </p>
<p>I would still download open office just in case your internet craps out on you on campus, but you’ll have to copy/paste into office online/google docs later.</p>
<p>libre office</p>
<p>Google docs works very well, and the ability to collaborate in real-time on the same document is something that not even ms office has.</p>
<p>Open Office can open Powerpoint files and Powerpoint can open Open Office Files. For most majors, Open Office will be good enough.</p>
<p>Google Docs is great for writing papers as you do not have to worry about transferring files if you want to work on a different computer, and you are not screwed if your computer crashed. Online collaboration is a nice bonus. However, Google Docs is not useful for presentations as it is missing a lot of features and it is really slow, even on a computer with 4GB of RAM running Firefox 4.</p>