Office Suite

Otter

Nothing to see here
Here's something some might consider if you want a free suite of office tools. I've received this guys newsletter for bout 6 yrs and if he gives a good review of something, its usually right on. (www.langalist.com)

2) Best-Ever FREE Office Suite Upgraded

We've discussed "Open Office" before; it's perhaps the best free office suite there is, duplicating all the essential functions (and many of the bells and whistles) of Microsoft Office, but totally for free. (http://www.openoffice.org/product/ )

As before, the new version includes a full-blown word processor,
spreadsheet, drawing package, presentation tool, and database, as well as the ability to import and export to many Microsoft Office file types. But the new 1.1 version of Open Office also includes the ability to export directly to PDF and Flash formats, interoperability with StarOffice, and lots more: See
http://www.openoffice.org/dev_docs/features/1.1/index.html

Best of all, it's still entirely an Open Source project and product:
There are no fees, no weird license restrictions, no product activation or mandatory registration, no "install on one PC only" limits: You can grab a copy, install it as often as you like on as many PCs as you like, and it still costs you absolutely nothing.

There are versions available for Windows (98/ME/NT/2000/XP), Linux (x86 & PowerPC), and Solaris Operating System (SPARC platform edition) in English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Chinese (simplified & traditional), Korean and Japanese.

Installation is simple, especially on Win98 and ME: Just click and
follow the on-screen prompts. You can also install it that way on Win2K and XP, but because those are multiuser OSes--- even if there's only one user on the PC--- you'll get a better setup and may save a ton of space by using the multiuser install on those OSes. This involves just one extra step, and is fully explained in the "Quick-Start Guide, Windows in a Multiple User Environment" at http://www.openoffice.org/dev_docs/instructions.html . Again, you don't have to install it that way on 2K and XP, but it's probably best if you do.

Note that Open Office is not a clone of Microsoft Office: While the core tasks are very similar (you can be basically productive in minutes), the look-and-feel is different. As you move to non-basic functions and operations, you may encounter a bit of a learning curve as you figure out where the menu items are and how various tasks might differ from what you're used to. But it's not that hard to get up to speed, and the Help system is pretty good.

I use Open Office on a number of my PCs here; and it's my primary Office environment on my laptop. When my remaining Microsoft Office setups become outdated, I'll think long and hard before spending hundreds of dollars to upgrade the Microsoft way. Open Office is *that* good. Simply outstanding!
 

tater

New Member
A serious post?

Otter :confused:

I actually read the whole thing looking for a joke :cussing:

You even said "office tools" with a straight face :shrug:
 
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