Office Suites

The most commonly used suite is, of course, Microsoft, which includes Word and Excel (spreadsheet) and may include, depending upon your version,  Access (database), PowerPoint (presentation), OneNote (collect and organize information), Outlook (e-mail and calendar) and Publisher (desktop publishing software).  MS is currently up to version 2010.

 

However, it is not the only game in town. You may want to experiment with some of the following options, especially since some of them are completely free!  Check this Compare Office Suites chart to see full details.

 

• Apple
• Corel WordPerfect Office X4 - offers one-click PDF, HTML, and XML publishing and supports 60 file formats.
• Corel Lightning - can save to web
• Sun Microsystem's StarOffice 8 provides basic productivity tools as well as a drawing program.
• Sun Microsystem's OpenOffice 2 is completely free and includes word processing, spreadsheet and more.
• IBM - Lotus Symphony suite.
  Google Docs & Spreadsheets - web-based, free
• Zoho - web-based, can plug in to MS Office apps to work on hard drive or web.
• ThinkFree3
• AbiWord
• KWord

 

Desktop Publishing

• KWord - word processing and desktop publishing
• Scribus - desktop publishing

 

Spreadsheet

• Gnumeric (spreadsheet)

 

Illustration

• Inkscape (illustration)
• Skencil (illustration)

 

Web Design Software

• KompoZer
• NVU
• SeaMonkey
• Amaya
• Bluefish

 

Accounting

• GnuCash
• PostBooks
• Brisbi

Compatibility

Microsoft does not offer an open-office extension.

Sun offers a free plug-in for Microsoft Office that enables you to save ODF files.

MAC Compatibility:  iWork, Microsoft Office, ThinkFree, and OpenOffice work with Macs.