(Note that it is necessary to set the default document language to English (UK) rather than English (Irish) to enable spell-checking in most open-source or free office applications)
OpenOffice.org - the free and open productivity suite
OpenOffice.org (OOO) is probably the best-known and most widely-used free office productivity suite. Its applications are quite similar in layout to Microsoft's Office 2003®. Its development was supported for many years by Sun Microsystems, who were recently bought by Oracle. Oracle continues to support OOO's development and distribution.
OOO is distributed under the LGPL licence, which means that it is free to use and you can basically do what you want with it, such as pass on copies of it, or even sell it if you wish, but it must always remain under the LGPL licence.
There is also a proprietary version of OpenOffice.org available called Oracle Open Office - this used to be called Star Office. This version is a licensed product that cannot be freely redistributed. The OOO that we refer to here is not that product.
OOO Screenshots (click on thumbnails to see full-size images):
OpenOffice.org features:
- Can read Microsoft Office® (up to Office 2010 format) documents.
- Can write Microsoft Office® (up to Office 2003 format) documents.
- Provides word-processor, spreadsheet, presentation, graphics, maths and database applications, along with a manager application.
- OOO is available for Windows, Mac, Linux and Solaris.
- OOO's native document format is the widely-supported Open Document Format (ODF).
- Free to use under the LGPL licence, and can be redistributed freely subject to this licence.
- There are many Internet-based support facilities for OOO.
- The most widely-used free office productivity suite.
- Programmers can obtain the full source code to OOO - it is open-source software.
- OOO can be modified, if desired.
- PDF support via free plug-in.
Click this link to visit the OpenOffice.org home page
Please note that LibreOffice has recently 'forked' off OpenOffice. After Oracle bought Sun, some of the people involved with OpenOffice felt that it was tied too tightly to Oracle and decided to set up the new, completely independent Document Foundation, which will be releasing LibreOffice, based on and moving forward from open-source OpenOffice code. Updated - the current version of LibreOffice is now suitable for production use (the initial version was not).
IBM Lotus Symphony® - free productivity suite
While you may remember Lotus Symphony from the 1980s, this is an entirely different product, with IBM having bought Lotus some years ago. Symphony has its roots in IBM Workplace, and also builds on code from OpenOffice. IBM Lotus Symphony is currently distributed as freeware, subject to a proprietary licence. It is not open-source software and may not be redistributed, unless within the terms of IBM's licence. Note that it is necessary to register with IBM to download this software from their web site.
While IBM Lotus Symphony does not provide as many components as OpenOffice.org, the components that it does provide should be sufficient for most users and have a slicker, more evolved interface. IBM uses these applications internally in its offices around the world.
IBM Lotus Symphony v1.3 screenshots - this version is similar to IBM Workplace:
IBM Lotus Symphony 1.3 features:
- Can read Microsoft Office® (up to Office 2007 format) documents.
- Can write Microsoft Office® (up to Office 2003 format) documents.
- Provides word-processor, spreadsheet and presentation applications, along with a launcher application.
- Available for Windows, Mac, and Linux.
- Its native document format is the widely-supported Open Document Format (ODF).
- Is free to use under a proprietary IBM licence.
- IBM can provide paid support services.
- Based on IBM Workplace
- It is NOT open-source software.
IBM Lotus Symphony 3.0 is now available. There is no version 2: version 3.0 is based on the same code as OpenOffice.org 3.0, though it is released as free software under a proprietary IBM licence. It is necessary to register with IBM to download this software. It looks very similar to version 1.3, as in the screenshots above, and has the same three components with a launcher. It has the same feature set as 1.3, but much additional functionality has been added within the applications, including an export to PDF feature (though it is not possible to open PDFs for editing).
When we installed Lotus Symphony 3.0 (as an upgrade install to 1.3) we noticed that it set itself to auto-run in the background in the account that we installed it in, and there was no obvious way to disable this, other than by tweaking the Windows Registry directly. This is not a problem if you intend to make use of the software, but could be annoying if you are just having a look at it.
Here are some screenshots of version 3.0 - if you look closely you will notice that most of the widgets have changed:
