Open Office

Open Office was originally a refinement of StarOffice from Sun. Today the Apache Software Foundation continues to develop it. It is a free, non-licensed alternative to Microsoft Office.

The word processing in Open Office, Writer, is very reminiscent of older Microsoft Word versions. Writer can also convert text files to simple PDFs.

In addition to a program for word processing, there are the following:

• Math, a program for editing mathematical equations and formulas
• A drawing program (Draw)
• A presentation program (Impress)
• An application for spreadsheets (Calc)

Open Office uses its own file formats, but also understands Microsoft formats. For users who frequently edit files on different computers, saving in Microsoft formats is recommended.

The German website of Open Office is www.de.openoffice.org. The self-extracting EXE files are easy to download; registration is not required.