 OpenOffice.org
 You don't have to be content with just the viewer for Microsoft Word or PowerPoint or Excel. With this suite of office tools, you can create your own presentations or documents and save them so someone with PowerPoint or Word can open them seamlessly. They never need to know you created it with something that didn't cost any more than your download time.
OpenOffice has everything you need, all in one nice, neat and FREE (did I say FREE??) package.
WRITER ... is more than just a word processor. Use it to do everything from simple documents to newsletters, brochures and even books. You can even create and publish web pages!
CALC ... A full featured spreadsheet, complete with built-in charting tools for 2D and 3D charts. Don't have Excel?
NO PROBLEM!
IMPRESS ... A very good presentation program. You can even open PowerPoint presentation files with it, as well as create your own. The entire OpenOffice suite is compatible with Microsoft Office.
DRAW ... A nifty little drawing program. Produce everything from simple diagrams to dynamic 3D illustrations and special effects.
Around 100Mb (for the latest version) is a very large chunk of time if you have a modem connection and a blink if you have a high speed cable or DSL hookup. However you connect, this is a very worthy download.
The programs take a little getting used to. Everything looks very basic and you will need to spend some time poking around the help area to learn about more advanced features. You will be very pleasantly surprised at how quickly you will be able to produce basic documents (complete with graphics and text wrapping) and presentations. If you are tired of sending Microsoft your money every year for upgrades, or haven't been able to afford their complete Office suite of programs, this can be a wonderful, LEGAL and FREE alternative.
If you have a fast Internet connection and a CD burner, do your friends a favor and copy the installation file onto a blank CD for sharing. It is perfectly OK and even encouraged on the website.
The latest version I have downloaded of OpenOffice.org is 2.2. One of the neatest features (in addition to being able to open any Microsoft Office document) is the ability to export to a pdf file. That's right folks! If you can create or open the document in OpenOffice.org, you can make a pdf file without having to purchase anything extra!
Check OpenOffice.org periodically to make sure you have the latest version with all the bells and whistles!
Got questions?
Search mrswizard.com and compuquicktips.com
with Google!
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