Microsoft Visio is a professional diagramming software from Microsoft which makes it very easy to explore and visualize complex information and processes quickly. As an IT professional, I find it very easy and satisfying to visualize process flows, network architecture and program workflows. Microsoft Visio is not only limited to the IT field but can also be used with other fields like business, engineering and construction (maps and roads). One downside of Microsoft Visio that is common in almost all Microsoft products is that it is not affordable by a home user. The home user does not need to have very complex diagramming needs so we research and bring the most feature rich and free alternatives to Microsoft Visio.
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5 Best Free Alternatives To Microsoft Visio
Best Alternatives To Microsoft PowerPoint (Online And Offline)
Microsoft PowerPoint is certainly the best and the most used presentation software used on earth today. Presentation can be a great resource to share ideas, collaborate or showcase your work to the respective audience or gathering. I have been making presentations throughout my life, starting from school time where we had to present our work and prepare a presentation for it. At that time, Microsoft PowerPoint was the only solution we had and we never looked into any alternatives. However, the world has changed and we always look for software which can do our work cost and time effectively. I have a collected some of the presentation software that can be very useful for various purposes. The software are categorized into online and offline. The online software need no installation. They will open in a browser and you can easily make presentations using them. The offline software will be installed on your computer and will work even without Internet.
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Quick Tip: How to Replace Your OpenOffice With LibreOffice In Ubuntu
After much testing, the final version of LibreOffice is now released for public consumption. For those who are looking to replace your OpenOffice with LibreOffice in Ubuntu, here is how you can do it.
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LibreOffice – The Likely Future of OpenOffice
For those of you who don’t follow tech news, here’s a brief summary: OpenOffice, supported by Sun, has long been known as a excellent free alternative to MS Office. When Oracle bought Sun, many feared that Oracle’s control might not necessarily be a good thing for the project. Some members of the OpenOffice team decided to create The Document Foundation as a central place for the work to continue in an open community fashion, and even invited Oracle along in the hopes that “we can all just get along”. Well Oracle declined, and the result is that The Document Foundation will soon release LibreOffice, a community-based fork of OpenOffice which has already received backing from the likes of Canonical, Red Hat, and Google. While the final release is not yet available, we can get our hands on the release candidate which should tell us what kind of changes we’re in for.
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Busy Docs Syncs Local Documents With Google Docs
A lot of municipalities and companies both big and small are migrating to Google for email and document management. There are lots of pros and cons for migrating to the cloud. What no one seems to really talk about is the effort it takes to move all of the documents.
Busy Docs is a service that makes the move easier. Allowing you to edit documents locally and have the sync with your cloud storage will help ease your mind and still allow you to edit and house local copies.
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OpenOffice Base – A Simple And Useful Database Management Tool
When most people think OpenOffice, they think of word processing or spreadsheets. What many people do not realize is that OpenOffice also includes Base, a database system roughly equivalent to MS Access. Many businesses and individuals use these systems to allow even non-technical people to enter, store, retrieve and organize their data. Using Base, you can follow simple steps to create an easy, user-friendly way for people to store and retrieve information using custom-designed forms and reports.
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How to Install OpenOffice.org 3.2 in Ubuntu 9.10
Few free software projects have had as large of an impact as OpenOffice.org. It is used by millions of users all over the world and is the primary competition to Microsoft Office in the desktop market. The latest version of OpenOffice.org (3.2) adds a number of notable features worth trying. Among them are:
- Faster startup times (a 46% increase)
- Better open and proprietary file format support
- Better Asian language support
- Numerous Calc (spreadsheet) improvements
- and many others.
The upcoming release of Ubuntu (10.04 “Lucid Lynx”) will include OpenOffice.org 3.2 by default, and the release is on April 29 — just around the corner. But if you happen to be a little impatient or just want to give it a try, there are packages available directly from the OpenOffice.org website that work well with Ubuntu 9.10.
To install, just follow these steps:
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How to Layout a Book with OpenOffice.org: Part 3
In this final part of our series on laying out a book with OpenOffice.org, you will learn how to position illustrations in your book, how to use paragraph styles, and how to export in different formats. What you will take away from this is one method that has worked for me and many other people. At the end of this post, I will provide links for further study on the subject.
Illustrations
To insert an image in OpenOffice Writer, simply click “Insert->Picture->From File“. Then, select the image that you want, and click OK.
By default, the text will wrap around your picture. If you do not want this or want a different type of wrapping, right click on the picture and choose the appropriate wrap method from the wrap menu.
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How to Layout a Book with OpenOffice.org: Part 2
In the first part of this series, I explained how to prepare an OpenOffice.org document for book layout. In this second part, I am going to highlight some key points raised by some of our readers and also how to properly align page numbers and format paragraphs.
There are a couple of things you should consider before proceeding:
1. If you are submitting your book to a publisher, they normally do not expect you to format the book or do any typesetting. That is their job. They just want the raw manuscript. In some cases, they may even insist that you use a particular generic font and not change default margins. Make sure you read their submission guidelines.
2. One of our readers mentioned that he usually formats his books after he finishes writing. This is undoubtedly the best method in most cases. What we created in Part 1 was a basic template that you can use without any further formatting needed before you start writing. Furthermore, if you are working for the publisher or are the publisher, the author might be someone else. In that case, you will take his or her text and prepare it.
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How to Layout a Book with OpenOffice.org: Part 1
It is all in your head: the plot, the characters, the locations, and even the scenes, but for some reason, staring at the blank page and blinking cursor makes you freeze. You like the idea of writing a book but cannot imagine actually completing it. If that feeling sounds familiar, then this might be the right article for you. Even if you have written a book and have it all ready to go, you may intend to self-publish it, start your own publishing company, send it to an editor, or just layout your book so you can see how it looks.
There is a long list of reasons why you might need to prepare an OpenOffice.org document in book form, and once you have learned how to do it, you will have a useful skill that you or people you know may need in the future. You can use this method for both print publications and e-books.
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