27. A FREE alternative to Microsoft Office

Microsoft Office in its various forms and editions is undoubtedly the most comprehensive and widely sold office suite on the planet. I first came upon it in 1994, version 4 I believe, and have worked through its various enhancements since then.

I personally believe that it has grown out of control, and has become an enormous beast which, to some people, is difficult to use and navigate. Its functionality is far greater than 95% of any users will ever need. In my opinion it is time for Microsoft to publish a “Lite” version of the main components so that it may be used by everyday people for the normal functions of a word processor or spreadsheet. Even I as a power user employ only a few more functions than those available in early versions of WordPerfect or Visicalc (to name just two of the original office-type programs).

This leads nicely into my recommendation of an office suite which has all the functionality which one needs, is easily downloaded and installed, follows largely the menu driven look and feel of earlier programs, is compatible with Microsoft Office (so you can send and read documents etc. from either application), and is absolutely free.

I speak of Open Office. Many of you will already be using this suite but for those who haven’t tried it I would suggest that you invest the time in the small download, only 123MB, and installation. After that you will be able to use a full office suite containing a word processor, a spreadsheet, presentation software (very like PowerPoint), a database program, and a drawing package. Unlike MS Office, the entire package is integrated so when you update, you update the lot and you will not be out of date with any of the features.

Open Office has been in use and under constant improvement for over twenty years and there have been some twenty million downloads to date.

When using the features to create documents etc., the only thing you have to remember is to save them as Microsoft documents if you wish your Microsoft friends to use them. Other than that you can save them as PDF documents (used throughout the world on all platforms) if you wish everybody to be able to simply read them in their own software. Apart from that you simply save them in their own formats for your own use, only reverting to the previous suggestions if you need to send documents to Microsoft users.

Go to http://www.openoffice.org/product/index.html to read all about Open Office.

Go to http://www.openoffice.org/download/index.html to download the latest version.

You will not be sorry and it will save you money, time, and a lot of frustration.

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