Apache OpenOffice 4.0.1 [Open Source Download]

The spell checker on Office Word quit working......again. Has done it before but was tired of messing with it. Went on Amazon to see what kind of deals could find on the latest version of Microsoft Office, am running 2007 version at present. Saw Apache Open Office for $00.00. Great price!! Read the reviews and sounded good to me. Well worth checking it out. Downloaded it and then downloaded the latest version 4.1.0. Downloads were fast and problem free with no issues installing them. Have only checked out the word processor so far but it seems to be able to do anything Office Word can do. It does have a word count feature, can import pics into document which I love to do, and can import Office Word files. Which is important to me because I like to review my previous letter before answering a letter. Gave this a 5 star without fully checking it out because if it only does half of what Office does it is well worth the price. However, am thinking that it will do as good a job as Office for my needs. About time Microsoft had some real competition.

While Open Office is freeware at the present time, it has a strong pedigree. It began life in 1985 in Germany, and became an office suite called StarOffice that was used on computers including Zilog, Amstrad, and Commodore 64. In 1999, Sun Microsystems, a highly respected hardware and software company, acquired StarOffice suite, and in 2000 open-sourced it, making it available as freeware, under the name OpenOffice.org, presumably as a rebuke to Microsoft. Subsequently the project continued with help from Sun employees and volunteers. It continues these days as a project of the non-profit Apache Software Foundation. [1] I rate this product superior to Microsoft Office in several important areas. First, Open Office will run under all the MS Windows versions, 95, 98, 2000, 2003, XP, Vista, 7, and 8, as well as on Mac OS, with several Unix versions, and will presumably run under future versions of Windows, so that the user will not run into the situation of finding that software they have thoroughly mastered is being made obsolescent, and that they are going to have to waste time learning a "new" office suite. Second, Microsoft has the unpleasant practice of changing the user interface with each new version of Office, presumably in an effort to persuade users that a retread with a few new features is "new". Open Office, on the other hand, retains a much more stable interface as it evolves. This means that the time you invest in learning Open Office is not going to be thrown out the window because of planned obsolescence. Third, last but by no means least, Open Office is available free of charge. [2] Above I have listed three areas where I think Apache Open Office is better than Microsoft Office. I am now going to list areas where I think Apache Open Office is comparable to Microsoft Office (i.e. not better, not worse). Reliablity and stability: About the same. I have yet to lose any files. Quality of help files: About the same. Ease of use: If you mastered Microsoft Office, Apache Open Office should be easy to learn. However, newbies to office software might find it more difficult than Microsoft Office. [3] Cons Open Office offers conversion into native Open Office formats only of Microsoft Office files (including Word and Excel) and does not offer conversion of formats such as Word Perfect, WordStar, Wang, and XYWrite. However there may be competent third party file converters. Presumably for patent and copyright reasons, some menus are a bit convoluted. /---------------------- Overall, I think Apache Open Office is a strong and well designed office suite.

Great alternative for word and excel.

Originally, I had given this product 5 stars. I'm sorry that I have to change that. I am using Win 7. Initially, for a casual user, it performed well. Nothing fancy, just met my needs. After not using it for a while, I went back in to write a quick letter. It was frozen. I could not access previous docs or open a new window to use it. IF this would have not been a free product, I would have had a meltdown. Thank goodness I had nothing of great importance in the files. I just deleted this last night. There was no way (except to install again) that it was going to budge. Back to looking for an affordable, recoverable and reliable word processing program. Had to gong this one. I do not recommend this software as a permanent word processing program. For me it was a bust.

I was happy to get this free and available from Amazon. My son the programmer has told me about this product for several years. Initially I thought it would work fine for me, but it got to be a hassle. It's very similar to all the Windows Office programs I'm used to. it opened all my old files. (When I bought a new computer I could not find my old Office disk) Documents (Word) was pretty straight forward. However spreadsheets (Excel) were different enough that they were hard to use. The on-line help is really poor and difficult to use. While I applaud the group doing this, I finally broke down and ordered a used Windows 2003 disk used on here. Never done that before, but it worked fine.

This reminds me of back in the DOS days I bought a scheduling program named Early Bird for almost nothing and it was so good I sent them another 20 for the documentation even though it was so easy to use I did not need it. A similar program today that is not even so good would probably cost thousands. Just one problem with it now and this is I don't have DOS nor a dot matrix printer.

For anyone who writes a lot of material, I am here to tell you that this a very affordable life saving back up program to have on your computer. A number of months ago, my main word processing program stopped working correctly. Tried to re install it and tried to fix it in other ways and nothing worked. Considered purchasing a new and similar office program from the same company but for me right that is not an easily affordable solution; it was a fairly advanced and expensive computer program and I still did not fully know why it wouldn't let edit or save any of my work. I was very frustrated as it seemed all my writing creativity came to a screeching halt. I used the basic Wordpad program for a bit but that was not meeting my needs. After some research, I found this program, did some reading on it, and found it here at Amazon so I downloaded it. Whew! Saved by the Apacha Open Office program as I could once again start writing, editing and saving, all of my work. I did get the other word processing/office program to work again but I am very glad to have the Apache Open Office as a back up for the future. The only reason I gave it 4 instead of 5 stars is because it doesn't have a word count feature on it or at least I haven't found that yet. If you are writing a magazine article or term paper or something along those lines you need to keep track of your word count.Submitting an accurate word count figure with your article, story or paper is often required. It is not as advanced as some of the other word processing or office programs out there but it still a very valuable program to have on hand! Furthermore it includes other great and useful features beyond word processing including: spreadsheet, presentation, drawing, database. I haven't dived into all of these yet but so far I am very pleased to have it.

My husband bought me a new HP Laptop today that came with Windows 8.1. I needed the laptop because my iPad will not let me do the things I need to do for my online college courses. I was very disappointed in Windows 8.1. I was expecting to have Word Processor on the device (if it is there I cannot find it at all!) Anywho, I needed something to write my essays and such. I started searching eBay for Microsoft Office discs then was BLOWN AWAY by the ridiculous prices for them!!!! eBay also offered OpenOffice disc for about $4.99 free shipping. I went to google to find reviews then found that I could download it absolutely FREE!!! That was AWESOME! So far it works great! It has all the features I needed! I am so glad I ran across this! Even if it did have flaws I would still give 5 stars because it saved me about $100! THANKS!