OpenOffice is a application suite that is available as an alternative to Microsoft Office.  It is currently available for Microsoft Windows (95, 98, ME, 2000, Vista), Sun Solaris, Linux, MAC OS X and other operating systems. The OpenOffice.org project is primarily sponsored by Sun Microsystems, other major contributors include Red Hat, IBM and Google. OpenOffice can be downloaded and used entirely for free.

OpenOffice.org mission statement

"To create, as a community, the leading international office suite that will run on all major platforms and provide access to all functionality and data through open-component based APIs and an XML-based file format"

Open Office includes several modules some of the modules are as follows.

  Writer is a word processor that is similar to Microsoft Word and WordPerfect.  Writer has the ability to write and open documents in different formats including .doc, .docx, RTS and .xhtml.  It has the ability to export documents as .pdfs.

Cal is for spreadsheets that is is similar to Microsoft Excel and Lotus 1-2-3.  Cal has the ability to write and open spreadsheets in different formats including CSV, html, DBF, DIF, SLK, ,XLS and more. Also has the ability to write spreadsheets directly in .pdf format.

Impress is a presentation program that is similar to Microsoft Power Point.  Presentations can be exported in different formats including Adobe Flash (.swf), Portable Document Format (.pdf) and Microsoft Power Point (.ppt).

Math is a tool used for creating mathematical formulas similar to Microsoft Equation Editor or MathType.  

 OpenOffice.org