[SOLVED] Is Calc Good For Learning Excel?

[abrogard]

We have open office on our computers at home.

Now my wife comes home from her work and says they want her to learn excel for the purposes of doing certain tasks at work.

Like she's not meant to become an Excel expert, just able to do whatever those tasks are. Data entry I'd guess.

Is Calc sufficiently alike with Excel that she can use it at home to learn or would I be well advised to get Excel for her?

[Zizi64]

Is Calc Good For Learning Excel?

Yes, it is.

Notes:
- The Apache OpenOffice Calc and the LibreOffice Calc are not Excel clones. They are very similar softwares, but they are not same.
- The LO Calc has littlebit higher compatibility with the Excel cell functions, and with the macros.
- The default (native) file format of the AOO and LO Calc is the International Standard ODF file format: .ods. The AOO and LO can save to the obsolote, never standardized .xls file forma, but there is not (never was and never will be 100% compatibility between the different file formats. Therefore you always need to use the native fileformats.
- The LO can save into the newer fileformat of the Excel: .xlsx, but the AOO can not.

[RoryOF]

Yes, if the learner is prepared to accept that there are some syntax differences for even simple daily operations, No, if not.

[John_Ha]

See [Tutorial] Differences between Writer and MS Word files for why you should always work in and save files as .odt. It applies to spreadsheets too.

[jrkrideau]

We have open office on our computers at home.

Now my wife comes home from her work and says they want her to learn excel for the purposes of doing certain tasks at work.

Like she's not meant to become an Excel expert, just able to do whatever those tasks are. Data entry I'd guess.

Is Calc sufficiently alike with Excel that she can use it at home to learn or would I be well advised to get Excel for her?

For basic work Excel and Calc do things in almost exactly the same same way.
So yes.

I started in spreadsheets with an early version of Excel and moved to Calc with no problem. I hardly noticed the difference.

When you start doing really complicated things, then you have to carefully check for differences but that does not sound like a problem here.

My usual advice for learning basic Calc is pick up a really basic spreadsheet "how to" book for any spreadsheet from the local library or used book store and you are good to go.

[John_Ha]

Is Calc sufficiently alike with Excel that she can use it at home to learn or would I be well advised to get Excel for her?

The analogy is "Can I learn to drive in a Ford car when I want to drive a Toyota car?"

Yes, the do the same things, but some things will be different. On the Ford the indicators are on the left - on the Toyota they are on the right. The Ford is an automatic - the Toyota has a gearstick. The Ford has fog lights - the Toyota does not. You always need to be aware of the differences.