Microsoft’s collection of software that includes Word, Excel, and Powerpoint has become the de facto standard for office suites. But it’s pretty expensive stuff.
If you’re a cost-conscious soloprenuer, you’ll be happy to know that there’s a great (and free) alternative to buying those products.
Open Office offers a suite of six programs that will allow you to perform most of the usual applications needed in a small business. These include:
Writer (to create text documents)
Calc (to create spreadsheets)
Base (complete data base management system)
Draw (a full-featured graphics program)
Impress (to create presentations) and
Math (to create equations and formulas)
If you’re familiar with the way that the popular office suites work (and even if you’re not), you can probably be up and running quickly with Open Office.
If you have questions, they have an extensive support site.
There’s also a collection of awesome video-based documentation that actually
shows you what to do.
Open Office gives you the capability to open files created by Microsoft programs and save your files in
formats that can be opened by them. What this means is that, for example, you can open a Word document or Excel spreadsheet that someone sends you without having to have the Microsoft software on your computer.
And you’ll be able to save your documents and spreadsheets in a way that your clients, colleagues, and virtual assistant who don’t have Open Office can still read them.
Go try it. What have you got to lose?
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