The Apache Open Office Software Suite is an alternative to the pricey Microsoft Office Suite. It is free, open source software.
As I mentioned in my article “free vs. paid,” there are some really good open source software available on the internet today that does a better job than paid software. For example, I once paid a hefty fee for Cute FTP, a software which helps you upload webpages to the internet. Later, I ran into problems with it, and was advised by my webhost to use the free open source FTP software “Filezilla.” Filezilla, being free and open source, and still the king of FTP software, and I can tell you that from personal experience – I threw away my license from Cute FTP.
What makes open source software so powerful is that a huge team of experts from all over the world come together and work on it voluntarily, for the good of all mankind. And that is what can be said about Apache Open Office.
Sometime in December, 2017, I was at a friend’s place, and being that I’m a writer and English teacher, they asked me if I could help to run through and edit a novel Yvonne was working on. It’s a beautiful novel by the way. I agreed, but when I went to open it, I found that the Microsoft Office Software that was installed on my friend’s computer was expired. So I couldn’t open the document.
“Hold on a minute,” I said, as I fired up Google. I had remembered that there was a free alternative to the Microsoft Office Suite. I ran a search for “open office,” and it turned up the download link for Apache Open Office.
Within a few minutes, I had downloaded and installed the Apache Open Office Software Suite, and I was good to go. I was able to open the Word document, read and edit.
The million dollar question: is it as good as, or better than Microsoft? I can’t answer that question at this point, because I haven’t examined both software that carefully as yet. Nevertheless, I was very impressed with Apache Open Office, and it is an awesome editing tool with beautiful features. In conclusion, I strongly recommend Apache Open Office.
