Link: OpenOffice.org
One of the first things I hear people complain about after just purchasing a new Windows PC, is the fact that it didn’t come with Microsoft Office. Then you tell them how much that costs, haha. This is why I thought it would be useful to talk about OpenOffice.org.
OpenOffice.org Writer
Open Office is a great open source alternative to Microsoft Office. Once you see how good the software is you’ll be suprised it’s actually completely free, and available for download from OpenOffice.org. OpenOffice.org is released under the LGPL license. This means you may use it for any purpose – domestic, commercial, educational, public administration. You may install it on as many computers as you like.
OpenOffice.org Writer Calc
Even though it is free, Open Office is a very robust, well developed package that has a very similar feature set to Microsofts offering. It includes word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, databases and more. OpenOffice.org can also read and edit Microsoft formats. If you are not tied to Microsoft, then I highly suggest giving this download a try you might save yourself some money. If your company currently licenses software for a lot of client machines that don’t really utilize the license, this could save you a ton of money on licensing.
Applications:
Writer has everything you would expect from a modern, fully equipped word processor or desktop publisher.
Calc is the spreadsheet you’ve always wanted.
Impress is a truly outstanding tool for creating effective multimedia presentations.
Draw anything from a quick sketch to a complex plan.
Base enables you to manipulate database data seamlessly within OpenOffice.org 3.