OpenOffice is a desktop productivity suite which includes a word processor as well as spreadsheet, drawing, and presentation software. OpenOffice works on Microsoft Windows®, Linux, Apple Macintosh®, and Solaris® computers and is completely free to everyone. OpenOffice can read and write Microsoft Office® documents, including Microsoft Word documents and Excel spreadsheets.
OpenOffice is the free version of a program originally created by Sun Microsystems, Inc. It was written in part to avoid the large annual expense of Microsoft Office license fees. Since Microsoft Office is commonly used throughout the business and educational community, OpenOffice was written to be 100% compatible with Microsoft's software. You can read and write Microsoft Word documents with OpenOffice; you can read and write Excel spreadsheet documents with OpenOffice; you can read and write Powerpoint presentations with OpenOffice. All of these capabilities are available for free, without advertising or gimicks.
The only disadvantage to OpenOffice is that you are not using it right now. Installing and learning OpenOffice is easy, but it does take some effort and willingness to try a new program. This document contains basic documentation for installing and using OpenOffice. By following the various procedures below, you can install and learn to use OpenOffice in less than an hour. You can also find guides to OpenOffice at your local bookstore and on the Internet. Just like any software suite, there is a lot to learn! The basic operations, however, can be quickly and easily learned by any computer user.