Open Office (Writer, Calc, Impress, etc.)

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Open Office is a fully featured office suite which is compatible with all other major office suites, such as Microsoft Office. It is available for GNU/Linux distributions, Microsoft Windows and Apple MacOSX.

Website: www.openoffice.org

(GIF) Open Office 2.0 includes five major components:

The “Writer” word processor: use it for anything from writing a quick letter to producing an entire book with embedded illustrations, cross-references, tables of contents, indexes, bibliographies... It includes many tools, such as a real-time spell checker and auto-format tools.

“Calc” is a powerful spreadsheet that has all the tools you need to calculate, analyse, summarise, and present your data in numerical reports or graphics. It includes a fully-integrated help system that makes entering complex formulas a breeze.

“Impress” is the fastest, most powerful way to create effective multimedia presentations. Includes special effects, animation and high-impact drawing tools.

“Draw” will produce everything from simple diagrams to dynamic 3D illustrations and special effects.

“Base” enables you to manipulate database data seamlessly within Open Office. Create and modify tables, forms, queries, and reports, either using your own database or Base’s own built-in HSQL database engine.

Note: Open Office is often refered to as “OpenOffice.org” or “OOo”.

Features

  The first office suite to comply with the OASIS OpenDocument format.
  Fully compatible with all major office suites (Microsoft Office, Corel Word Perfect, etc.). For example, you can open and save your documents in “.doc” or “.xls” format.
  Easily exports documents in PDF format.
  Available in British English, including the spell checker, the thesaurus and the documentation.
  No commercial licences to worry about.

About the OASIS OpenDocument format

  OASIS is the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards. Members of its board of directors include representatives from Sun Microsystems, Microsoft, SAP, Nokia and IBM.
  OpenDocument is a set of document formats for storing desktop applications, including word processors, spreadsheets and presentation software.
  OASIS submitted the OpenDocument standard to the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) in October 2005.

OASIS has over 300 contributors, including:
  UK e-Government Unit Cabinet Office
  UK HM Revenue & Customs
  UK Ministry of Defence Technical Information

Why is such a format so important? Here are a two interesting quotes:

This means user’s data is stored in a vendor-independent, OASIS approved format, so they will be guaranteed access to their data from any compliant software package, and will never be locked out of their files if they decide to change their software in future.

— John McCreesh (OpenOffice.org Marketing Project leader)

Governments throughout the world [are] mandating that their files, their nation’s intellectual property, be archived using OpenDocument.

— Louis Suarez-Potts (OpenOffice.org community manager)

Who is adopting the OpenDocument format?

  The commonwealth of Massachusetts (USA) has mandated that state agencies in the executive branch migrate to OpenDocument-compliant applications by Jan. 1, 2007, a change that will affect about 50,000 desktop PCs.
  Norway, Denmark and Japan are also considering adopting the format.
  In response, Microsoft rumored that the next version of its Office suite (Office 12) will support the OpenDocument format. But how much will it cost to upgrade?

East of England FOSS in the VCS

Using free and open source software in the UK voluntary and community sector

Open Office (Writer, Calc, Impress, etc.)

Features

About the OASIS OpenDocument format

Further reading