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OpenOffice.org
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openoffice.org
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Brief Description
OpenOffice.org is a multiplatform and multilingual office suite and an open-source project. Compatible with all other major office suites, the product is free to download, use, and distribute.
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Wiki description
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About OpenOffice
OpenOffice (also known as OOo or OO.o) is the most popular open source office suite (over 100 million downloads) with 14% of the large enterprise market and 19% of the small to mid-size business market. Founded by Sun Microsystems in 2000, OpenOffice was released in on May 2nd, 2002.
OpenOffice is actively supported by a large number of contributors and developers (see http://www.oooforum.org/ ) and by large corporations such as Sun Microsystems, IBM, Google and CollabNet.
System Requirements
The minimum system requirements for OpenOffice are
- 128 Mb RAM
- 200-800 Mb of disk space, depending on the Operating System
- 800 x 600 or higher resolution
- JDK/JRE version 1.3.1. for features of OpenOffice that require Java
License
The OpenOffice source code is licensed under the LGPL (GNU Lesser General Public License) while all the info on the official website (http://www.openoffice.org) is under the PDL (Public Document License)
Structure
OpenOffice.org consists of 6 applications, similar to Microsoft Office's structure:
- Writer - a word processor packed with lots of features like AutoCorrect, AutoComplete, AutoFormat,
- Calc - spreadsheets applications with tools for calculating, analyzing and presenting data in numerical reports
- Impress - tool for creating multimedia presentations, similar to Microsoft's PowerPoint
- Draw - software application for designing everything from 3D illustrations to diagrams
- Base - similar to Microsoft's Access, Base is used for creating and modifying databases (reports, tables, queries and forms);
- Math - tool for creating and managing math equations
Compatibility Issues
OpenOffice runs on a wide range of operating systems (Mac OS X, Linux, Windows, Solaris etc) in more than 100 languages.
All the OpenOffice applications can read and export files compatible with most of the word processors on the market, like StarOffice and Lotus. The default OO.o format is ODF.
Microsoft Office users can use an additional free plugin (Sun ODF Plugin 1.0) available in English to read, edit and save ODF files. The plugin works with Microsoft Office 2003, Microsoft Office XP and Microsoft Office 2000.
Latest version
OpenOffice.org 2.3 is the latest official release of OpenOffice; version 2.3 was released on September 17th, 2007 and includes fixes to recently discovered security vulnerabilities.
Portable Version
OpenOffice.org Portable (http://portableapps.com/apps/office/openoffice_portable ) is a complete, free and open source office suite packaged as a portable application. It includes portable versions of Writer, Calc, Impress, Draw and Base. It takes about 185 MB once installed and was last updated on the 5th of July 2007.
Events
OOoCon 2007 - Barcelona, Spain, 19th-21st.September 2007
