AMU Military

Availability of Microsoft Office and Open Source Alternatives

by Bradley Hood
Contributor, In Military Education

Throughout my time at AMU I have used several different computers as my primary means of doing schoolwork, and have always had to make do on the limited budget of a student working on the side. While I may have been a member of the reserves, I am sure those of you reading this who have been a reservist know that this income barely covered the cost of keeping uniforms up to date, buying fuel for the sometimes length commute to drill, and so on. Many systems come with a trial of Microsoft Office, and every computer has a full word processor, although much more limited than Microsoft Word. It goes without saying that Microsoft Word, and its associated .doc file type, is the standard in the academic and sometimes in the business world as well. I have found that possessing Microsoft Word, Excel and Powerpoint along with a program capable of handling Abode’s .pdf to be extremely useful. However, after my first school computer died, I lost my access to the excellent edition of Microsoft Office I had installed. For those of you who find yourself in this situation, there are options – Since I lost access to Microsoft Office I have been using the free open source program called Apache OpenOffice. It has all the capabilities of the Microsoft Office Suite, and can save and edit files in the traditional Microsoft file type, although it default saves to an organic file type of its own.

However, I wrote this article specifically in response to a deal I saw through my subscription to military.com. Right now it is possible to acquire Microsoft Office for $9.95 as an active duty service member. Perhaps I am out of touch with Microsoft prices, but I have never heard of Office costing so little. To get this price, go to this link:http://www.microsofthup.com/hupus/home.aspx and enter your active duty email address.

The advantage of Microsoft Office over free software like OpenOffice is that you never have to worry about issues in using the file across different software. For example, during a Maneuver Warfare class at AMU, my OpenOffice powerpoints were not properly displaying images for my professor on Microsoft Powerpoint, although I had saved in the correct format and could see the images fine on my end. Additionally, my professors at Norwich often urge me to go ahead and purchase Microsoft Office to prevent any issues like this – it is easy to use once you learn it, and allows academics a standard to work with.

Unfortunately, I am unable to use this deal because of my current IRR status, despite waiting for my active duty orders – I do not have a military email address. I am also not endorsing Microsoft Office exclusively, and I am very fond of OpenOffice. However, for those of you with a military email address, I urge you to take advantage of this opportunity; it will make your life easier in school.

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