How many of us use Microsoft Office or another commercial office application, yet only write simple documents or produce basic calculations, through the spreadsheet? Do you use a commercial office application purely on the basis that you worry about compatibility issues? Generally there are fewer issues that you'd expect, primarily on the basis that most of us only use the basic features within our office apps.

OpenOffice 2.1 is a free alternative that ships with a document editor (Writer), spreadsheet (Calc), presentation application (Impress), amongst other modules. It's also updated regularly and will enable you to open and save Microsoft Office compatible documents. You can open a Word document within OpenOffice Writer. Download and see for yourself.

12 Dec 2006