Lemmonaid

OpenOffice.org

Right at the beginning I need to say that OpenOffice.org, the free office application pack similar to MS Office, is far from perfection. So if you need to edit and create complicated, feature rich MS Office documents, you need to buy one of its versions. But for everybody creating simple tables, charts, writing CVs, office and other letters, simply said for ordinary casual users and small companies, the OpenOffice.org is a perfect choice. The biggest advantage of this software is its (partial) compatibility with MS Office file formats.

The package of OpenOffice.org applications contains Writer – the word processor, Calc – spreadsheet similar to MS Excel, Impress for creating presentations, Base for database management, a vector graphics editor Draw and a tool to create mathematical formulas called Math.  Natively OOo works with open document formats (.odt – text file, .ods – spreadsheet file, .odp – presentations, .odb – databases, .svg – vector graphics) but as I said, it can read and edit most of the MS Office file formats – both pre-Office 2007 (like .doc or .xls) and current ones (.docx, .xlsx). So be careful when saving your document and sending it to your colleague or friend. Default saving format is surely open document format, which I would suggest to use all the time, but when resending the document, save it also in .doc, .xls or any other MS Office file type.

Very good feature of OpenOffice.org is the possibility to extend its functionality with add-ons and plug-ins and possibility to export to PDF file format. In terms of looks it stays behind the current versions of MS Office and its ribbon interface and keeps the standard toolbar one which, on the other hand, can be just advantageous for many users.

Because OOo is open-source software, it is completely free to download (from OpenOffice.org website) and use and is available in several languages for several different operating systems.

Don’t overlook! – If you want to get the newest version of MS Office (the 2010 release) for free, you can still download a beta test version from Microsoft website. Unfortunately I don’t know for how long this version is available, neither for how long you can use it, but for now I wouldn’t wait a second to download it.

Foxit Reader

As I’ve mentioned PDF file format already, every office and every computer user needs some application to open such files. Probably there is Adobe Reader preinstalled on your computer but in case you are not satisfied with its speed (not sure what is the situation with Adobe Reader’s speed these days, but previous versions were disasters…) or for any other reason, there is a great little replacement called Foxit Reader. Its current version can be downloaded for free from www.foxitsoftware.com.

PDF Creator

If you’ve ever wondered how to create a PDF files without buying Adobe Acrobat, I have a good news for you. There are many free applications that work like virtual printers outputting any file sent to print in PDF format. Yes, you will be able to “print” any document into PDF. I’ve tried many of such PDF printers, but definitely the best one in terms of document quality to output file size ratio is PDF Creator. A definite must, so download the current version from PDFForge website.

Calendar application

Every office needs some kind of organizer application. In Microsoft Office suite this position occupies MS Outlook with integrated calendar. If you want to have similar integration, use a calendar extension for Thunderbird email client called Lightning which I’ve described in previous article. In case of need of separate calendar program, I suggest to use Mozilla Sunbird which is available for different platforms and in different languages and is completely free of charge.

Scribus

Finally we’ve managed to get to DeskTop Publishing (DTP) software represented in this list by open-source application called Scribus. This tool lets you create brochures, posters, newsletters, newspapers, leaflets and books, so has similar usage as its paid counterparts like Adobe InDesign, Microsoft Publisher or QuarkXPress. Scribus supports CMYK and ICC color management, several image formats, TrueType and OpenType fonts, PDF file format and prints using internal PostScript driver. Unfortunately, it can’t open files created in mentioned commercial competitors and saves documents in SLA format. Advantage of this program is multiplatformity and multilingual support.

Download Scribus to try it out!