OPEN OFFICE And other things too!

What is OPEN OFFICE? Open Office is software that “mimics” some components of Microsoft Office Suite Due to copyright laws, mimic does not mean “exact copy” It is “shareware” – that is, can be downloaded and used at no cost.

Some Components? Microsoft Office Suite has more components than most people are aware of. Common components are often “bundled” – the packages you see on the shelf. Bundles change from time to time – and sometimes contain “cut down” versions Some components have never [to date at least] been bundled.

Microsoft Office Suite Components: Word – Word Processing Excel – Spreadsheet Outlook – Personal Information Manager/E- Mail PowerPoint – Presentations Publisher – Design Brochures, Labels, greeting Cards etc.

Microsoft Office Suite Components: Access – Data Base Manager Infopath – Forms Design OneNote – Note-Taking FrontPage/SharePoint – Web Design – SharePoint is the newest version. Project – Project Management Visio – Diagrams & Flowcharts

Microsoft Office Suite Components: Accounting – Business Finances Communicator – Real Time Conferencing Document Imaging – Editing scanned documents Document Scanning – Scanning & Optical Character Recognition Groove – Peer to Peer collaboration

Microsoft Office Suite Components: Picture Manager – think Picasa

Open Office Equivalents: WORD = WRITER EXCEL = CALC POWERPOINT = IMPRESS ACCESS = BASE PUBLISHER = DRAW + MATH ADD-ON FOR FORMULAE

Microsoft Office Cost To get all Open Office components – Ultimate Edition - $ Accounting Express 2007 Access 2007 Excel 2007 InfoPath 2007 Groove 2007 OneNote 2007 Outlook 2007 with Business Contact Manager Powerpoint 2007 Publisher 2007 Word 2007

Microsoft Office Cost Standard Edition - $ Word Excel PowerPoint Outlook

Microsoft Office Cost Home & Student Edition - $ Word Excel PowerPoint OneNote Some features of each application are reduced in this edition Some features of each application are reduced in this edition

Installing Open Office

Limitations Will still not get SpellCheck in Outlook Express – this function uses the dictionary from Word No client

BUT: Mozilla Thunderbird client will work and has a dictionary add-on – both are FREE Mozilla Lightning is a FREE calendaring program