Developed over twenty years, OpenOffice contains comprises five productivity applications: Writer (word processing), Calc (spreadsheets), Impress (presentations), Draw (drawing) and Base (databases).
There are lots of tools in the OpenOffice suite that will look familiar to Microsoft Word users. Common features such as drawing tables and shapes, creating charts and text boxes are all found on OpenOffice - everything you need to create good-looking documents with no trouble at all.
The interface looks like something you would see in the last instalment of Microsoft Office, which means that you won't see anything too fancy. Tools are easy to find, in familiar locations and work the same, so there is almost no re-learning here.
The most stable to all the free productivity applications, the program ran with almost no problems at all, albeit being a little slow at times. OpenOffice also offers good, comprehensive online support should you have any problems.
Available as downloaded program, OpenOffice recognises and is able to read most Microsoft Office files and save files in formats readable by other like programs. But the compatibility is not a hundred percent though, and some files do not load completely, or might be riddled with unrecognised characters.
Name: OpenOffice
Platforms: Windows, Mac, GNU/Linux, Sun Solaris
Applications: Writer (word processing), Calc (spreadsheets), Impress (presentations), Draw (drawing) and Base (databases)
