OpenOffice: Why shell out ~$150 for Microsoft Office 2007 when you could get the same features in a similar, compatible, if not, better product? Sun Microsystems, along with a large public community, have developed a freeware, open-source office and productivity suite known as OpenOffice (sometimes refered to as OpenOffice.org). It is avaliable for Windows, Linux, Solaris (SPARC and x86), Mac OS X, Linux PPC, and FreeBSD.

It contains:

Writer – a word processor you can use for anything from writing a quick letter to producing an entire book. (view screenshot)

Calc – a powerful spreadsheet with all the tools you need to calculate, analyse, and present your data in numerical reports or sizzling graphics. (view screenshot)

Impress – the fastest, most powerful way to create effective multimedia presentations. (view screenshot)

Draw – lets you produce everything from simple diagrams to dynamic 3D illustrations. (view screenshot)

Base – lets you manipulate databases seamlessly. Create and modify tables, forms, queries, and reports, all from within OpenOffice.org (view screenshot)

Math – lets you create mathematical equations with a graphic user interface or by directly typing your formulas into the equation editor. (view screenshot)

Download

Note: All of the above software is compatiable with MS Office file formats.

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AbiWord: What if you don’t want a whole bunch of software? What if all you want to do is type up a story, or write a report, or something that doesn’t require the power of a whole office suite? I bring you…AbiWord! AbiWord is a lightweight word processor that is compatiable with MSWord files and loads much faster than OpenOffice Writer (or any other OpenOffice app as a matter of fact.) From the site, you can download the app, plugins (conviently in executable files), and the source code. You can also view screenshots, get support, and other helpful things.

System Requirements:

Microsoft Windows:

* 486dx or better processor

* At least 16MB RAM

* Windows 95b or later

* Windows NT4 with update below

* Windows 95a has been known to work as well, but you need the update described at http://www.abisource.com/twiki/bin/view/Abiword

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GNU/Linux, BSD, Solaris (2.6, 7,8,9,10), AIX, HP/UX (10.20, 11.0), OSF/1, Tru64:

* GTK+ 2.2 or newer (2.2.4 recommended)

* At least 16MB RAM (embedded systems probably won’t require more than

* Any processor that supports any of these operating systems (which is effectively, any processor)

* Optionally GNOME 2.2 (2.4 recommended)

Mac OS X:

* Mac OS X 10.2 or later

QNX:

Note: currently the latest version available for QNX is 2.0

* QNX Neutrino 6.2

* Pentium class processor or better

* At least 16MB RAM

BeOS:

* The BeOS port of AbiWord 2.0 and later is not actively maintained and presumed to be slightly broken, but 1.0 was known to work on the following

* A BeOS supported machine, Intel or PowerPC based.

* At least 32MB RAM