Free alternative to Microsoft Office: Openoffice.org

geejaygee

Sorry if this has been posted before, but while setting up a new laptop for my mum, I came across this. It's a free suite that has a link to Sun systems which includes an equivalent to Word, Powerpoint and Excel. In fact, for a lot of things (apart from changing the screen size, which you have to do by clicking on a magnifying glass) I found it better than word. No annoying 'auto correct' for bullet points, letters etc. that resets every time you re-boot the program.

The other reason it's good is the fact that you can save your documents as Word files (.doc), and it can do this as default. Heartily recommended.

It's not a sample, it's the whole program. It's free and it's LEGAL.

https://www.openoffice.org

cheapsally

Good post geejaygee.
I have used openoffice in past and found it better then Microsoft's office.
I think it was free for public but not for businesses.
I will also recommend Mozilla thunderbird as email client instead outlook as it is much nicer to use.:)

http://www.mozilla.com/thunderbird/

ollyshaw

Its GNU Lesser General Public License, open source software.

So you can do what ever you want with it, you can legally download it and sell it to people, no probs as long as you display the licence.

Also you can modify the code to your hearts content.

Ubuntu is a whole OS based on open source software,

https://www.ubuntu.com

Olly

ollyshaw

Other GNU software that is great (you can google the names)

Jedit
Eclipse
Thunderbird
Firefox
JabRef
GIMP
Cygwin

Olly

even_steven

OpenOffice is great, as are the Mozilla utils. It would be nice to have either a permanent thread or article on the main site about how to kit out your PC with all the software you'll ever need, for free.

I'm not sure about the open-sourceness, but other great free software would include:

ZoneAlarm - firewall
AVG Free Version - antivirus
Audacity - music editing
FileZilla - ftp
Foobar2000 - music player
MPlayer - video player

Is there anything that you can get a program to do that you can't get a free program to do? Anyone up for creating the ultimate list?

membargo

Not sure if this is news to anyone - I am new to the Forums.

It is possible to get a range of free software that is saved to a USB drive which you can then use on any PC without leaving a trace of your activity! Options include Firefox portable, a word processor, virus checker. Google portable firefox.

bud-miser

Have been using it for years. Excellent.