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Apache OpenOffice

Document, spreadsheet, presentation and publishing suite used by millions

6.0

432 Votes

  • Category Office Suites
  • Program license Free
  • Version 4.1.14
  • Size 140.78 MB
  • Works under: Windows 8
  • Program available in English
  • Program by Openoffice

What is Open Office?

OpenOffice is an open source productivity suite, covering word processing, spreadsheets, databases, presentations, and graphics. It is one of the most well-known open source alternatives to Microsoft Word.

The software suite's develop is not just function, but ease of use and quality control within a cost-free platform.

Always changing to meet and exceed industry demands while innovating at the same time, OpenOffice is a great way to cut cost overhead in a business, or simply avoid being tethered to a major company.

Who Develops OpenOffice?

The core of OpenOffice began as StarOffice. StarOffice was a proprietary software suite, developed by a Germany company named Star Division until 1999.

The company was absorbed by Sun Microsystems--best known for the Java programming language--and the StarOffice project was released as open source code in July of 2000.

After multiple acquisitions including Oracle and the Apache Software Foundation. A fork of OpenOffice called LibreOffice was released by The Document Foundation (TDF) in 2011.

About OpenOffice Compatibility

OpenOffice stands on its own as an office productivity suite, but major players in the software market often hold onto their dominance because of user preference.

In the case of OpenOffice, most users in the past were used to Microsoft Word documents and Microsoft Excel spreadsheets. Files saved in OpenOffice would look different, much to the confusion and frustration of recipients.

Modern OpenOffice and related projects have resolved such issues by giving users the ability to save files in the format of other office software. This process has changed over time, but the ability to strip formatting for easy conversion has solved most conversion struggles.

It's also notable that because of increasing user preference--and increasing user distaste for some corporations--major software suites have made it easier to save documents for OpenOffice as well.

Pros and Cons

Pros

  • High quality, free software.
  • Saving in multiple formats.
  • Lightweight software.

Cons

  • High concept software in a low understanding world.
  • Partial corporate control.

Final Thoughts

This is open source, free software. There is an option to donate, but donation is nothing more than thanks for the contributors.

Office software in general will have features to save in other formats. OpenOffice extends this feature for proprietary formats from competitors who may not return the same courtesy.

Every major project has to grow in file size a bit, although new discoveries can cut the size again later. Still, Open Source is quite a small software package with fast speeds compared to major competitors.

The flaw of most open source software is that it's usually designed for users with technical knowledge and the willingness to read documentation.

Office productivity customers are part of a massive market that covers all walks of life. Some barely want to learn their existing software, let alone learn another system that works slightly different.

As a user, being willing to read this review is a sign of going far enough to learn. If you're a business owner or technology leader for a group, keep in mind that your current and future users might make problems for you if OpenOffice isn't setup to do things their way automatically.

While OpenOffice is open source software, it's still under the control and trademark of a corporation that could, at some point, stop providing management and resources for its community.

Open source doesn't mean mean full freedom and control over a project's future. With the core open source community, this is often a concern when discussing how relevant their effort will be in a year or over a decade later.

For users, this concern is less relevant.

Top 6 Apache OpenOffice Alternatives

Microsoft Word 2016  2016

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Office Online

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Microsoft PowerPoint  2021

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Microsoft Outlook  2021

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Microsoft Excel  2021

Classic Microsoft Office program that allows users to create and edit spreadsheets

Microsoft Word  2021

Allows users to type, modify and save documents