In the early ’90s, WordPerfect and Lotus 1-2-3 were the dominant word processor and spreadsheet, respectively. There were several good presentation packages available and dBase dominated among databases. Although Microsoft didn’t lead in any of the office productivity categories at the time, it was the only company with strong contenders in every category. Microsoft decided to sell its office productivity applications as a bundle and at a lower price than if they were purchased separately. Office was a success immediately and has been the leading office suite ever since. It is easy, sometimes, to lose sight of the fact that there are lower-priced alternatives that may do a better job for you.

MS Office has always had competition. Its traditional competitors have disappeared (Lotus SmartSuite) or become niche products (Corel WordPerfect Office X4 which evolved from Novell Office). At the core of the Corel suite is WordPerfect, which is revered in some quarters for its “reveal codes” approach to editing. WordPerfect is still considered by many to be the best word processor for controlling very long documents.

However, the leading competitors currently are of a different breed. They are either free (OpenOffice.org), online (Google Docs, Zoho), or a mixture (Thinkfree Online is free but Thinkfree isn’t). All of these are Microsoft-compatible and easy to use, regardless of whether you are familiar with Office or not.

OpenOffice.org has tens of millions of users around the world and for good reason. OOo is free and open source and very compatible with MS Office, both in terms of file formats and user interface. The way to start using OOo is to download it from www.openoffice.org in the appropriate version. There are versions for Windows, Linux, Mac OS, and Solaris. Unlike MS Office, the latest version of OOo runs on every version of Windows produced, starting with Windows 98. A single download is all you need to install OOo legally on every computer in your business or home office. Being freed of the obligation to pay for and manage licenses is a tremendous advantage.

OOo consists of the basic productivity applications: a word processor (Writer), a spreadsheet (Calc), a tool for creating multimedia presentations (Impress), a database application to access, create, and manipulate databases (Base), and a tool to create sketches, drawings, and diagrams such as flowcharts, organization charts, as well as two and three dimensional objects of great complexity (Draw).

All of the applications in OOo are powerful and have feature sets comparable to their counterparts in MS Office. File formats up to Office 2007 are no problem, with the exception of some new formats such as docx introduced in Word 2007. The current version of OOo is 2.4. Version 3 will be released later this year and among its many new features will be the capability of reading and writing docx and other formats introduced in Office 2007.

The applications in OOo aren’t straight clones. They all have significant features missing from Office. A visit to www.openoffice.org will reveal if there’s a feature or two that will make a difference for you.

If you decide to begin using OOo with your MS Office files, there’s an issue to be aware of. If your Office files such as documents and spreadsheets contain macros, you will have to recreate or edit them in OOo because the two suites cannot run each other’s macros automatically.

OOo is excellent software but it isn’t for everyone. Users who value portability and ease of collaboration often appreciate the benefits of an online suite. Google Docs is the most widely-used online suite of office productivity applications. It is free, although there is a business version that offers better support and more online storage space for files. It has a word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation package. It is easy to learn and use, it is compatible with the important file formats, and it is constantly improving. There is never any need to install new software. Google takes care of that on their servers so that you are always using the latest version. For more on online office suites check out “Your Office, Anywhere” in this issue.