Compare and Contrast Essay on Google Slides and LibreOffice: Benefits and Features

Introduction

Google slides is an online presentation software that enables users to create and format presentations while LibreOffice is an open-source office tool with features that enables users to create and format their work. The advantage with google slides is that it is affordable and easy to custom. Users can export or import their work without a hassle. LibreOffice, on the other hand, is advantageous because it can be run on any platform. Also, it can be downloaded on any machine and it enables the user to save the pdfs without struggling. The only demerit with google slides is that it does not enable users to put in page numbers on their work. LibreOffice at the same time has many disadvantages; it is expensive for business users because it is slower and it uses a lot of memory (Schiffers, Grosskopf & Lange, 2013). Moreover, it cannot do many obscure things that Microsoft office can do and also it has no technical support.

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A situation or setting can lead to a user picking one software over the other, for example, for serious business purposes, LibreOffice can be too expensive due to the fact that it is a bit slower and it munches a lot of memory. In any business, time is money therefore, it will be meaningless for users to spend millions of dollars just because of how LibreOffice renders its services. In-office work, there are thousands of document files, which need to be worked on; many of these historical documents are stored in office formats thus using LibreOffice can result in a new range of problems. A serious business will prefer google slides software for the fact that it provides a variety of services online. According to research done by Securely, google slides can enable a business to pay itself unlike LibreOffice (n.d). Businesspersons therefore, will prefer a credible business alternative for an office suite, which also helps them to grow in their journey.

When I was an audience member for a presentation, I noticed one aspect of the presenter's use of LibreOffice. The presentation software was slower due to the fact that it used the Java environment that had a large application. During the presentation, data entry into a newly created calculation spreadsheet was very shillyshally. In fact, it took a number of seconds for each newly created cell to accept data. Furthermore, the data entered took a couple of seconds before it appeared on the cells. I also noticed that when the presenter moved a new cell, the old cell was left black and then took some seconds before reappearing. Most of the calculations, which should be instant took a lot of time to appear once the presenter entered instructions. However, such a problem did not occur when the presenter used an older existing spreadsheet. One could think it is computer problems but when I did my survey, I noticed that ten students were also experiencing the same problems; this is because they were using LibreOffice software. To them, the problem is not only confined with newly created documents but even the spreadsheets that they had created many years ago. Once they add new data, it takes a couple of seconds to appear. They have even tried to save their documents with different names but the problem is persistent. Schiffers et al. (2013) reported that what makes LibreOffice run slower is the Java Runtime Environment, which uses a lot of memory.

References

Schiffers, J., Grosskopf, R., & Lange, J. (2013). Libre Office 4.0 The document foundation Base handbook managing your data. Retrieved from: https://lib.hpu.edu.vn/bitstream/handle/123456789/21035/32_Libre_Office.pdf?sequence=1

Securely, H. B. I. C. Cover Story An Approach for Robust Electronic Trading Platform 7 Cover Story Business Challenges of Multi-Channel. Retrieved from: http://csi-india.org/communications/CSIC%20July%202013.pdf