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Free Software Takes on Microsoft Office -- OpenOffice Suite's New Version Fixes Problems

Posted on: Tuesday, 10 May 2005, 09:00 CDT

NEW YORK - It's weird how things can come back to bite you.

Microsoft Corp. killed off the competition for office software suites and became a de facto monopoly in the area, with what result?

The competition is back and, this time, it's free.

The latest version of the free OpenOffice suite promises to be a strong competitor to Microsoft Office.

It's still in the "beta," or unfinished, stage, but it's already a good alternative for people who aren't heavy users.

And you can't argue with the price.

The software is the fruit of a collaboration between Sun Microsystems and volunteer programmers around the world.

Sun bought a German company in 1999 to get office software to bundle with its computers but figured that it wasn't going to make big bucks selling the software to a wider market because of Microsoft's grip.

So it released portions of the code to the public.

It probably didn't hurt that archrival Microsoft just hates the idea of free software.

The first version of OpenOffice, released in 2002, attempted to imitate Office as closely as possible but fell short.

It didn't open all Word documents properly, its spreadsheets could not be as big as Excel's and it completely lacked a database program to match Access. It wasn't a success.

The beta of version 2 - available at www.openoffice.org - fixes many of those problems.

It opens Word, WordPerfect and Excel files flawlessly.

Saved files open fine on Microsoft programs. It also adds a database program that's similar to Access.

Another new and nifty feature, not found in Office, gives you the option of saving a file as a PDF, the ubiquitous document format.

To do the same in Office you need to install Adobe Acrobat or one of its knockoffs.

Just as in the previous version, most controls will be familiar to those who have used Office.

An example: the menu headings in Write, OpenOffice's word processor, are identical to those in Word except that "Tools" and "Table," which are next to one another, have switched places.

Open the programs side by side and you will be hard pressed to tell which is which.

OpenOffice also contains an analog to Microsoft's PowerPoint presentation application, a drawing program and an app for writing mathematical formulas.

The chief drawback of OpenOffice is that it still lacks an equivalent to Microsoft's excellent Outlook e-mail and calendar program.

It isn't a fatal flaw.

If you're fine with a simple e-mail program, you can download the free Thunderbird program from www.mozilla.org. If you need more features, just buy Microsoft Outlook for $109.

That's still a lot cheaper than buying the entire Standard Edition Office suite for $399.

OpenOffice relies on Sun's Java software, which does not come pre- installed on all Windows PCs (it's available for free from http:// java.sun.com).

The beta version of OpenOffice is available for Windows 98 or later versions and for the Solaris and Linux operating systems.

There is no beta for Macintosh computers but the older version of OpenOffice is available for Macs running OS X.

Source: Commercial Appeal, The

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