Make Open Office from OpenOffice.org Portable

A number of our hubbers have written great articles on some of the features of Open Office but I have discovered an excellent way of ensuring you can take the power of Open Office wherever you go. As part of my work I frequently have to split my time between the office, home and other locations and I was spending more and more time moving files and having to install various applications at each new location.

My time is quite precious so I began to search for a way of cutting this administration time which could have been better spent on my various (and unfortunately numerous) projects. The key to making Open Office portable is through the genius of Portableapps.com. They create special installations of key software packages that can then be run from a USB stick and what is more they do this completely FREE which for me is always a fantastic benefit. All you need to do is download their platform and install it onto your flash memory stick.

This platform gives you a “Start Menu” that allows you to then download any of their special installers which are identified by their .paf file extension. Once you have the platform installed you can simply download the portable app and from the Portable App menu simply select the installer and let it run. It really is a simple process so if you are a PC novice you still shouldn’t have any trouble.

The advantages of this type of setup are clear from the outset. In a work environment you are often blocked from using certain programs because you do not have the rights to perform the installs. Now you can have any program you need installed and ready and all you need to do is plug in your USB stick. That said if you are doing this in a work environment you still need to be careful about viruses and other malware that you could be picking up on your home PC and transporting with you. Your employer or friends aren’t going to be happy if you infect their systems no matter how efficient you are!

Open Office was a key program for me as I have been using MediaWiki to create an intranet for the company I work for and Open Office has an extension that allows you export document files in Wiki markup so now I don’t even have to bother about specially formatting documents. I can just create the document I need and then run the export saving me even more time. I hope that you will find this a useful way to save time like I have!