As a small business owner I’m constantly pursuing the “bottom line” ;.It’s an easy formula, really. Just increase sales while decreasing expenses, right? Easier said than done I’m afraid. The truth is that many production costs like fuel, rent, internet access, insurance, etc, continue to increase and don’t show signs of slowing any moment soon. Which means I’ve surely got to be downright cagey in conserving every dime I could, where I can.
So, when I upgraded to a new computer I went with performance for the lowest cost. That meant no frills, especially where software is concerned office for education . Manufacturers want a supply and a knee to pre-install software bundles on your machine. Even if you’re a little more technologically savvy and purchase and install software yourself, Microsoft Office Standard is much 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 know some people who work in the tech sector and are a lot more knowledgeable than myself about them of personal computing. When I told certainly one of my tech-head friends I was buying a less expensive software solution he told me to see Open Office software.
He sent me to the site where they’ve an Open Office software suite available for download, bundled with a free anti-virus suite! I used 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, in addition to several advantages unique to Open Office.
The bundle includes a phrase processor, a spreadsheet program, a database, a program for creating multi-media presentations, and a drawing program.
I haven’t got to spend a lot of time with the presentation program, Impress, but it interfaces nicely and seems to be able to create anything I will be needing for a great 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 important in my experience though have now been the term processor, called Write, and the spreadsheet, Calc.
Write has all of the features, there’s nothing missing. It also has its own helpful options like auto correct and auto complete, and it can create documents in open document format, a document format manufactured by an industry consortium to be the new standard in compatibility. Furthermore it could read and edit my old Word documents, in addition to create new ones. Additionally, it may create .pdf files.
Calc shares the same virtues as its word processing counterpart, with the abilities to read and write existing Excel docs. This is huge for me personally because the majority of my payroll, invoicing, and expense tracking are continued custom made spreadsheets I built myself, and the capability to keep the info 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 lot 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. So just why buy software that can be gotten for nothing? Well the solution is based on the excess features, bonus software and support provided in this Open Office suite. At under $50 dollars for the entire Open Office software bundle, the anti-virus suite alone causes it to be worth the cost. Also included is one whole year of free tech support team, that will be important for the less technically inclined, such as for instance me.