OpenOffice Suite is an open-source alternative to Microsoft Office that includes applications like Writer, Calc, Impress, and Base that are comparable to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Access respectively. OpenOffice is free to download and use, supports older hardware better than current Microsoft Office, and can read and write Microsoft file formats. While OpenOffice applications have improved, Microsoft Office still has more advanced and polished features in some areas like grammar checking and support for macros.
2. SIMILARITIES Word Processor Microsoft Word : OpenOfiice Writer Spread Sheet Microsoft Excel : OpenOffice Calc Email and calender Outlook : Thunder bird and Sunbird by Mozilla.Need to be installed seperately. Powerpoint : Impress Access : Openoffice Base
3. Delusional Utopian Hippies vs. Cynical Corporate Greedheads Open Source Applications are often free. Updates to theses applications are also free. Open Source code is also free, like speech. Open-Source Tends to Use Open Standards. OpenOffice.org can also read and write Microsoft files like Word's .doc and Excel's .xls Commercial Licensed Software Has a Company Behind the Code. In the past, this has resulted in a less polished interface and weaker documentation, but these elements have been substantially improved in OpenOffice.org 2.0.
4. System Support: Typical or Criminally Old Computers For most computers both OpenOffice and Microsoft Windows will work fine.While OpenOffice is said to be a bit slower, particularly in opening up complex documents in Microsoft's proprietary formats, the difference is negligible. OpenOffice offers better support for older computers than the latest version of Microsoft Office. Office 2003 says its minimum spec is a Pentium 450 MHz with 256 MB of RAM, while OpenOffice lists a Pentium 166 MHz processor with 128 MB of RAM. OpenOffice.org, Thunderbird, and Sunbird are all available as portable applications, while Microsoft Office 2003 is not.
5. Word Processors Writer features and benefits that Word 2003 doesn't have: Creating PDFs. Simplicity. HTML Production. Writer Macros. File Size. Word 2003 features and benefits that Writer doesn't have: Grammar checking. Support of Word Macros. Advanced Features. Animated Text.
6. Spreadsheets Excel 2003 features and benefits that Calc doesn't have: Support of Excel Macros and Pivot Tables. Support of Excel Charts and Graphs. Calc features and benefits that Excel 2003 doesn't have: Creating PDFs. Interface Details.