Open Office Software

OpenOffice, more correctly known as OpenOffice.org, is a free office application suite available for many computer operating systems. It supports the ISO/IEC standard OpenDocument Format (ODF) for data interchange as its default file format, and, what might interest you more, it also supports Microsoft Office file formats.

OpenOffice.org was originally derived from StarOffice, an office suite acquired by Sun Microsystems in August 1999. Shortly afterwards Sun released the suite’s source code in an attempt to fight against Microsoft domination of the “office” software market. Please note that while the suite is often called OpenOffice, that term belongs to another company.

Take a look at Open Office software.

Every six months Sun plans a new features release and three months later issues bug fixes. This product has reached such a level of compatibility with Microsoft Office that it can open some older version or damaged Microsoft Office files that newer versions of Microsoft Office can open. OpenOffice.org runs on Windows, Linux, and some Unix-based operating systems and to a lesser extent the Mac OS.

This software consists of numerous office applications that were designed to work together seamlessly. These components are similar to the major Microsoft Office components. Writer is a word processor that resembles Microsoft Word and WordPerfect. It can export PDF files such as found in Adobe Reader and can create and edit web pages. Calc is a spreadsheet similar to Microsoft Excel or Lotus 1-2-3. It includes some graphics features absent from Excel. Calc can write spreadsheets in PDF format. Impress is presentation program similar to Microsoft PowerPoint. It can export presentations to Adobe Flash (SWF) files that may be displayed on computers running Flash players. Impress can export PDF files.

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Base is a database management program similar to Microsoft Access. Base allows the creation and manipulation of databases, and the building of forms and reports to provide easy access to data for end-users. As with Access, Base may be used as a front-end to a number of different database systems, including Access databases (JET), ODBC data sources, and MySQL. Draw is a vector graphics editor and diagramming tool, similar to Microsoft Visio. Math is a tool for creating and editing mathematical formulae, similar to the Microsoft Equation Editor. Once again you can export PDF files. The OpenOffice.org Basic is similar to the Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) language used to create macros that extend the office suite applications.

As time goes on many problems associated with OpenOffice.org are being solved such as relative slowness and the reliance on non-free Java software. More and more people are getting used to it. If you want to save money and increase functionality, your office should take a look at this suite of office applications.