Is There An Alternative To Microsoft Office?
I’m not necessarily a Microsoft-basher. I’ve been a regular user of their office suite throughout my working life, but when I began counting the pennies, I found myself wondering whether there was a cheaper, legal, alternative to Office with its regular updates and capricious interpretation of backwards compatibility.
That’s when I stumbled across OpenOffice.org (you have to add the “.org” as “OpenOffice” was already trademarked!). OOo, as it is sometimes known, is a totally free, open source, suite of office applications that is compatible with the programs you already know and that provides all the functionality you are used to with zero cost and zero licensing fees.
- Writer – a word processor like Microsoft Word or WordPerfect
- Calc – Spreadsheet program like Excel or Lotus 1-2-3
- Impress – for presentations like PowerPoint. Impress allows you to export your presentation as an swf fil so that it can run on any flash player.
- Base – Database Management like Microsoft Access
- Draw – for editing vector graphic like Microsoft Visio or an early iteration of CorelDRAW.
Version 3.0 was released in October 2008 and while OOo may never achieve the market share of Microsoft Office it has already been adopted as the official office software by Singapore’s Ministry of Defence and India’s Supreme Court.
Would you consider switching to a free alternative for your office needs?
Comments
I already have.
I have dropped Microsoft Office and never looked back.
I already did. Skeptical at first, a believer now!!
Used it for a few years and always tell people about the "alternative"
I use it at home, and am gradually learning how to use it as well as I learned Office. My company is considering using it as well, but is having a problem with having to convert the Access database and may have to start from scratch. (That may not be a bad idea, since the previous database was crude, and requires a lot of manipulation to get simple data from it.) I do prefer version 2 over version 3, but that may just be a familiarity issue I have to deal with.
I've used open office for a while. I fully support open source.
I already have.