Open Source Office Applications

There are a lot of very useful open source software products available for the Windows platform. You do not need to spend hundreds of dollars to get your work accomplished. These programs are free to use and free to alter.

Open Office has just about everything an office might need in the way of software. It contains a word processor (this post is being typed in Open Office), a spreadsheet, presentation maker, vector drawing program, and a database. It is provided under the LGPL (Lesser General Public License). You can download it free or order CD-ROMs. Open Office support the file formats of the big office suite. It feels a different from the big office product but it will do, except email, all that the competition can do and it will not leave a gaping hole in your budget. 

Open Office does not have an email client but there are some good ones available. If you need a calendar and all the bells and whistles of the big one you might want to try Evolution Email from the Gnome Project. It has spam filters, a good search feature, calendar and multiple account support. It is highly resistant to viruses. 

Another great email client is Thunderbird from Mozilla. It is safe, secure and fast. If you need a feature that does not come in the install package there are many plugins that extend the program. You can tag messages and save searches.

If you do not need a full office suite but just want a light-weight word processor you should look at AbiWord. It is also free to use, free to alter and is released under the GNU General Public License. Plugins and tools are available for importing and exporting various file types.

If you need a good spreadsheet Gnumeric is definitely worth a look. It is free, fast and accurate; it is released under the GNU General Public License. Files from other spreadsheet programs can be imported. It is available for all major operating systems.   

A lot of the fun of open source software is looking at all the programs that are available. In my next post on open source I'll look at some photo editing software. Until then, you can browse Sourceforge, Freshmeat and The Open Disc.