“The OpenOffice suite has come a long way since its birth as
Star Office. It is no longer a self-contained monolith, but a nice
normal Linux-style modular application that lets you choose the
bits you want, and there are hundreds of bits to choose from. The
main components are Writer, Calc (spreadsheet), Impress (slide
show), Base (database), Math (equation editor), and Draw. It
supports dozens of languages both in your own documents and the
Help pages. Officially it runs on Linux, Solaris, Mac OS X, and
FreeBSD. It runs on nearly all Microsoft Windowses, from 98 to
Vista, and I used to have a working installation on an antique
Windows 95 box.“But OpenOffice doesn’t always get the credit it deserves, and
instead gets criticized for not being a perfect free-beer clone of
Microsoft Office. That is not the point of OpenOffice, though its
file conversion abilities are excellent, and certainly superior to
MS Office’s, which would rather poke its eyes out than
interoperate. OpenOffice stands on its own as a powerhouse
cross-platform office suite with its own sophisticated
capabilities. If it doesn’t do what you want, check out the
Extensions page and see if your dream feature is there. That page
also links to information for anyone who wants to write their own
extensions…”