My Free / Open Source Experiment

A quick update on my attempt to only use free or open source software. It is going pretty well. Had a lot of input about graphics programs (yeah, Gimp is pretty cool). But I have started to hit a couple of problems. Google Docs has been excellent for creating documents to share online, but when you attempt to move them to dead trees (as in printing them out) you can run into trouble. For example, I made a handout in Google Docs then went to print it out. Instead of going straight from Google Docs to the printer, you have to export the document as a PDF first. Then you can print it out. But what if you want to insert page breaks? Since the Google Doc document only exists in a browser window, page breaks don't matter there. And the PDF isn't editable when it gets to your local machine so you can't insert page breaks there. About the only way I have found to adjust for pages is to keep checking the Google Docs print preview after adding blank lines to the document. Kind of clugy. Google readily admits that printing isn't a strong suit of their software. And they would rather us save the trees by working online all the time. But that isn't terribly practical yet.
So the lesson here is that some of the rather basic features we take for granted in commercial software might not work in free software. In fact, free software might even structure the task (like printing documents) differently than pay software. The problem is we have all been weaned on commercial software so we have bought into their paradigm for computer work -- it might be difficult to break old habits. But it ain't enough to make me give up -- yet.