Last week I extolled the virtues of using Mozilla as an internet browser. I’d like now to recommend another Open Source alternative to using Micro$oft. Open Office is a great office suite that does most of what Microsoft Office does. It will read and write Word Documents and Excel Spreadsheets. It also has a Powerpoint-like slide show program. Unlike Word, it has a built-in feature that allows you to save your files as PDF files, which can be opened with Adobe Acrobat Reader. The easiest way to do this on Word is to buy Adobe Acrobat for several hundred dollars.
The down side: I can’t seem to get it to work well on Mac OSX. Bummer, since this is where I need it most. I have Microsoft Office installed on my work computer, but it only allows so many people to be using it at once, and usually someone else is using it, preventing me from using it.
The best thing about Open Office is, like Mozilla, it’s free. You can download it here.