When you get a new computer you often get a free trial of an office software suite such as Microsoft’s Office. That’s a suite of tools like a word processor, spreadsheet program, slideshow maker, and database program. Once your trial is up, though, or if you just decide you want to buy an office software suite, you have to cough up some money to buy the programs, and it’s not going to be cheap. I checked out a couple of my regular tech shopping spots today and at Staples.ca the price of Microsoft Office 2007, Standard edition is $496.95 (the Ultimate edition is $899.94). At Futureshop.ca, just the word processor Word is $309.99 Yikes! But here’s the good news. Here’s the amazing news. You can get a complete suite of such software, including a word processor, for absolutely free. It’s called OpenOffice.org.
Now, as with a lot of free things, there are certain limitations you must accept, like that the word processing program, Writer, can open Microsoft Office 2007 files but can’t save them in the Office 2007 format. So, if you do a lot of collaboration on files with others who use MS Office then it might not be for you. But for most tech-reluctants, who just want to be able to type up a letter now and then, or maybe make a simple spreadsheet, OpenOffice.org is a fantastic, and free option.
