Do you need an extra license for Microsoft [tag]Office[/tag]? Or are you just tired of paying for a license for both your desktop and your laptop. Or are you just plain tired of paying the high price that these products cost?
If any of the above applies to you, you need to have a look at [tag]OpenOffice[/tag] 2.2. This [tag]Open Source[/tag] program has most of the features that you and I use on a daily basis. It has modules for [tag]word processing[/tag] (called Writer), [tag]spreadsheet[/tag] (Calc), [tag]presentation[/tag] (Impress) and even includes a [tag]database[/tag] program (Base) that you’d have to pay extra for from Redmond.
OpenOffice runs on [tag]Windows[/tag], [tag]Linux[/tag] and [tag]Mac OSX[/tag]. If you are using a Mac, you will have to install the X-11.app X-Window application that is included on your system install disks in order to use it. This is because the current Mac port of OpenOffice is designed to run on the UNIX underpinnings of the Mac OS, not on the Aqua interface, but an Aqua version is in the works.
OpenOffice can open and save to the most popular file formats used by MS Office as well as to it’s own proprietary file formats so you will find it easy to exchange documents between all the users in your office.
I have tried all of the OpenOffice modules on both Mac OSX and Windows and have been quite impressed with their performance. OpenOffice is Open Source software and as such is free to use. There is documentation and support available at OpenOffice.org.
To download OpenOffice, go to the download page at OpenOffice.org.
If you have any comments on OpenOffice, good or bad, use the “Leave a Reply” box on the web page for this post.
