Etchings on the Attic Wall

Highly Effective Work Habits:  Leverage Alternative Office Software

Do you use office software on a regular basis, such as word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations?  Who doesn’t, right?  If you work independently and don’t have the cash to spend on an expensive software package, work for a company/department that doesn’t use Windows as the primary OS, or just want to boycott Windows altogether, there are a couple of really good alternatives out there that are free.

OpenOffice has been around for about 20 years and is open to the user community.  In other words, anyone can make suggestions, request enhancements, or fix issues.  There is a web site out there called Ninite from which you can easily download and install the latest version.  Or you can just go to the OpenOffice homepage.  It has several modules available including word processing, spreadsheet, presentation, graphics and diagrams, and a database.

Lotus Symphony is a free office package provided by IBM and is actually based on OpenOffice technology.  It appears that IBM had this integrated into Lotus Notes and then decided to release this in a standalone version.  The nice thing about Lotus Symphony is that it has IBM behind it to deliver quality updates based upon the ODF document standard.  This isn’t quite as feature rich as OpenOffice, but it has a word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation editor.

So, take these out for a spin.  No one ever said that we all have to use Microsoft