Freeware Focus – OpenOffice.org

Possibly the king of freeware for Windows, OpenOffice.org offers a fully-featured alternative to other suites (particularly Microsoft Office, with which it is compatible.) With OpenOffice.org, one can engage in word processing as well as work with spreadsheets, databases, slideshow presentations, and even drawings. This suite is completely free- the only cost for installing and updating this program is the bandwidth used for the downloads.

I personally have been using OpenOffice.org for years, and have encountered no issues while writing papers and making presentations. I've only dabbled in drawing, but from what I've seen OpenOffice.org's Draw component is a competent vector graphic editor. I haven't had any extensive use of spreadsheets, though I have used it occasionally, and I have never used the database software.

Comparability with Microsoft Office is very strong. Word documents and spreadsheets are almost fully compatible. I've only encountered a handful of issues when taking documents over, and they were all minor. Presentations are largely compatible but may have some minor graphic issues, particularly when dealing with pptx files. As of OpenOffice.org 3.0, the suite can read (but not write) Office 2007 formats. It can, however, open those and then save them in legacy Office formats.

Overall, this suite is an excellent piece of freeware. It's an easy way to stay current with security and features, without the need to constantly buy new upgrades for your office programs. It's well worth a download, and may even be good enough to completely replace your regular suite. I highly recommend it.

Interested? Get it at OpenOffice.org! If you're still not convinced this is useful, check out the video I've embedded in this article. It's an extensive presentation regarding the suite's capabilities that I found on Youtube. Credit for the video goes to its poster, echojet-- I just linked it here so that readers can learn about OOo in detail.