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Is Word necessary for law school? My understanding is that most exams (all exams?) will be typed directly into an exam taking program. Do you typically need Word for Legal Writing and Research? During undergrad I'd always type assignments into Open Office and if needed I'd just go to the library and convert it into a Word document. Will this work for law school?

TheFutureLawyer wrote:Is Word necessary for law school? My understanding is that most exams (all exams?) will be typed directly into an exam taking program. Do you typically need Word for Legal Writing and Research? During undergrad I'd always type assignments into Open Office and if needed I'd just go to the library and convert it into a Word document. Will this work for law school?

Are you trying to save money, or do you simply prefer OpenOffice? Many schools seem to sell Office at a substantial discount - say for $10 meaning cost is probably not going to be part of the equation.

You might want to read this thread: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=726517

I don't know how much has changed in the past couple of years.

Word can do your table of contents and footnotes and such for you. I don't know if OO can. Our LRW class, it was simply assumed you had Word.

But you can pick up Office with a student discount for like $80. It's not that expensive.

kalvano wrote:Word can do your table of contents and footnotes and such for you. I don't know if OO can. Our LRW class, it was simply assumed you had Word.

But you can pick up Office with a student discount for like $80. It's not that expensive.

Sometimes even cheaper -- as much as I'm an open-source, open office guy -- you need Word. Plus, you need to learn all that stupid formatting shit for when you (hopefully) go get a j0rb.

TheFutureLawyer wrote:Is Word necessary for law school? My understanding is that most exams (all exams?) will be typed directly into an exam taking program. Do you typically need Word for Legal Writing and Research? During undergrad I'd always type assignments into Open Office and if needed I'd just go to the library and convert it into a Word document. Will this work for law school?

Brah if you're dropping down tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars for an education, you might as well spend the ~$80 and get Word. I tried surviving off of Open Office during undergrad, and it was too much of a hassle. Granted, my school gave word for $8 dollars, but I'm sure you can find it for cheaper than $80.

PKSebben wrote:

kalvano wrote:Word can do your table of contents and footnotes and such for you. I don't know if OO can. Our LRW class, it was simply assumed you had Word.

But you can pick up Office with a student discount for like $80. It's not that expensive.

Sometimes even cheaper -- as much as I'm an open-source, open office guy -- you need Word. Plus, you need to learn all that stupid formatting shit for when you (hopefully) go get a j0rb.

Yeah I saw I could get it for $80, just wasn't sure how necessary it was.

To albanach: what school sells office (or do you mean just word?) for $10?

Open Office is done now. All the programmers left for LibreOffice.

Why Word or OpenOffice or even LibreOffice? Real programmers use LaTex

deadpoetnsp wrote:Why Word or OpenOffice or even LibreOffice? Real programmers use LaTex

Latex is ridiculously awesome. Wish I had learned to use it at an early age.

deadpoetnsp wrote:Why Word or OpenOffice or even LibreOffice? Real programmers use LaTex

During all of my required CS times, I refused to learn LaTex and instead chose to use the functions in Office. One of my bigger mistakes in recent memory.

TheFutureLawyer wrote:

PKSebben wrote:

kalvano wrote:Word can do your table of contents and footnotes and such for you. I don't know if OO can. Our LRW class, it was simply assumed you had Word.

But you can pick up Office with a student discount for like $80. It's not that expensive.

Sometimes even cheaper -- as much as I'm an open-source, open office guy -- you need Word. Plus, you need to learn all that stupid formatting shit for when you (hopefully) go get a j0rb.

Yeah I saw I could get it for $80, just wasn't sure how necessary it was.

To albanach: what school sells office (or do you mean just word?) for $10?

Don't skimp, get Office. Onenote alone is worth $80.

kalvano wrote:Don't skimp, get Office. Onenote alone is worth $80.

On the topic of Onenote, this poster thinks 2010 is far superior to 2007:

http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 2&t=127496

I already have 2007, is the consensus that upgrading to 2010 would be worth the money? 80 dollars is a pittance if it will raise my grade a single notch in a single class.

Also, it looks... kinda complicated. Do I need to learn how to use it before I show up? Generally I've always taken notes by hand - I find the process of writing it down then trying to decipher them later really aids in my retention. Given what everyone says about exams hewing closely to the content of the lectures however, it seems like a more structured approach (like Onenote) might be required?

TheFutureLawyer wrote:
To albanach: what school sells office (or do you mean just word?) for $10?

UVA for one, though apparently it's $15

http://itc-web.itc.virginia.edu/softwar ... _nojs.html

I'd expect at least some other schools to have similar deals and Google seems to confirm this:

http://www.sru.edu/academics/iats/Suppo ... wsers.aspx
http://www.baylor.edu/lariat/news.php?a ... tory=57467

Duke has it and most other software you'd need for the low price of $0.

ahduth wrote:

kalvano wrote:Don't skimp, get Office. Onenote alone is worth $80.

On the topic of Onenote, this poster thinks 2010 is far superior to 2007:

http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 2&t=127496

I already have 2007, is the consensus that upgrading to 2010 would be worth the money? 80 dollars is a pittance if it will raise my grade a single notch in a single class.

As far as I know, the main difference in 2010 versus 2007 (according to Microsoft) is cloud connectivity. I don't think the actual program changed much.

ahduth wrote:Also, it looks... kinda complicated. Do I need to learn how to use it before I show up? Generally I've always taken notes by hand - I find the process of writing it down then trying to decipher them later really aids in my retention. Given what everyone says about exams hewing closely to the content of the lectures however, it seems like a more structured approach (like Onenote) might be required?

No. Onenote looks hard, but is astonishingly easy once you start using it. I was skeptical at first, but it makes Word seem like the fat kid on the block who always gets picked last for sports. It took me about 30 minutes to learn it. The included tutorials are super helpful.

What is wrong with just getting a copy of Word?

Seriously, if you want to save pennies, consider cutting out hookers or beer. You're going to need Word for a variety of tasks. Open Office is bug addled, crash prone, and it has ceaseless compatibility issues that are inscrutable to the average computer user.

Just get Word. If you have no ethics, get on the Internet, do a google search ending in "torrent," and you'll find everything you need. If you have friends and a fear of the FBI, borrow a CD and install it on your computer. If you have ethics, get the $10 copy another poster talked about.