OpenOffice.org Free Office Software – Version 2
The free office suite OpenOffice.org has now reached version 2. This release standardises on the new opendocument format and adds even better support for reading and writing Microsofts proprietary document formats.
The office suite is fully functional including:
- Wordprocessor: Writer
- Spreadsheet: Calc
- Equation Editor: Math
- Presentations: Impress
- Vector Drawing Program: Draw
- Database: Base
Some of the equivelants are not included in rival suites unless you buy the more expensive versions. E.g. if you have the home version of Microsoft Office, then you won’t have powerpoint to give the presentations with, but if you downloaded OpenOffice.org then you could use the Impress software to view other peoples, or create your own presentations.
Downloading this free software could save you hundreds of pounds per computer in software licenses.
The suite even includes features that won’t be in rival packages until future releases. Microsoft has announced that it intends to include a PDF export feature in Office, but this has been a standard feature of OpenOffice.org for some time.
I’ve downloaded the Linux and Windows versions and both are working well so far, although I’ve not really had time to use them a lot, I’ve been running the beta version for some time.
If you download using the bittorrent peer to peer application then you can help share the load from the servers. A legal and very useful use of peer to peer software.
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