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Lately, people started to think that cheaper is better, especially on the internet, where lots and lots of new applications rise like the sun. Sure, it’s not the same as when you go to the supermarket and buy cheap oranges; they might not be as good as the expensive ones. Things don’t stand like that on the internet. Free antivirus programs, free audio and video players, free live TV. Everything tends to become free. And OpenOffice is also a part of this tendency.

But things are not so easy. Microsoft, the American giant, is their rival, as they supply the world the well-known Microsoft Office since, pay attention, 1989 on Macintosh and 1990 on Windows. OpenOffice was released in 2002, with the aim to reduce Microsoft’s market dominance. They offer a free, open source alternative to the Office suite, and people tend to use OpenOffice.org also because this can run without fast enough with fewer RAM memory.

Everybody knows how Microsoft Office works and what applications offers, so I will focus my review on OpenOffice. Their brand name is, actually, OpenOffice.org, because OpenOffice is already registered by a Dutch company and also used by Orange UK.

OpenOffice.org offers six components: Writer, Calc, Impress, Draw, Base and Math. They also offer lots of extensions. They use the same color palette as the original Office: blue for Writer, green for Calc, orange for Impress and red for Base.

OpenOffice.org Writer: This is like Microsoft Word and offers almost the same features, like spelling and grammar checker, header, footer etc. The files can also be exported as .pdf files and can be also attached to an e-mail.

OpenOffice.org Calc: The green color is a spreadsheet which provides a number of features not present in Excel, including a system which automatically defines series for graphing, based on the layout of the user’s data. As the Writer, it can also export spreadsheets to the .pdf format.

OpenOffice.org Impress: It’s similar to Power Point, it can export files as .swf (Flash) and .pdf, and has the ability to read .ppt extensions (Microsoft Power Point). Unfortunately it lacks the ready-made presentations designs, but other than the defaults can be found on the internet.

OpenOffice.org Base: This is similar to Microsoft Access, a database management program. It allows the creation and manipulation of databases, and the building of forms and reports to provide easy access to data for end-users. Base became part of the suite starting with version 2.0

OpenOffice.org Draw: It is not similar to Paint, as many would think, but to Microsoft Vision, an application that is not present in the Office suite. It’s a vector graphics editor and diagramming tool, comparable to CorelDraw. It features versatile "connectors" between shapes, which are available in a range of line styles and facilitate building drawings such as flowcharts. The work can also export as .pdf format.

OpenOffice.org Math: It’s similar to Microsoft Equation Editor, which was introduced in Word some time ago. It’s a tool for creating and editing mathematical formulas, which allows the files to be exported in .pdf format.

Those are the main features OpenOffice.org offers, and as you can find most of the stuff Office has in this open source, I can’t understand why it shouldn’t be at least allowed a try. Take a shot with OpenOffice.org by downloading it from here, you might save some pocket money while also enjoying a good suite of applications for home or office.