And yet: overwhelming, revolutionizing success. The Personal Computer helped to solve real problems. Soon the PC was not an uncommon view in offices, small businesses, and some pioneers bought one for their home. You could use it to write letters, do calculations, manage your addresses, and with the subsequent development of better, faster hardware, more RAM, bigger hard drives, users expected to turn the endless rows and columns of a spreadsheet into an easily understandable diagram.
Words, numbers, diagrams. In the 80ies you needed a word processor, a spreadsheet, a data base, and a graphics program; all single, standalone and very expensive software solutions. Compatibility between these programs was the exception. A safe call was the purchase of a so called ‘integrated package’ – an All-In-One-Solution. The first Office Suites were born to satisfy the same needs as they do today.
LibreOffice
One of the best and most successful examples of what a developer community can achieve is the widely known office suite LibreOffice. As a marvellous piece of Free Software it is a perfect alternative to commercial products with which it can effortless compete. It is available in many languages, runs on many platforms, reads and writes many file formats – MS-Office files included. LibreOffice itself uses the OpenDocument Format and exports to PDF-files directly. Similar to Mozilla FireFox LibreOffice now can be adjusted via extensions to fit your personal needs. A variant is also available under the name OxygenOffice Professional adding more than 3.000 graphics (clip art, photos), templates and fonts to the package.
The modules of LibreOffice may look familiar to the experienced user. As a matter of fact, they cover all the tasks one has to fulfil in a modern office and also mirror those found in commercial products. A decision for LibreOffice is a decision for high quality standard software at the cost of a wink. It is also a decision for a reliable future with an ever growing community of expert developers working voluntarily for a good cause: for all of us!
So if you’re looking for a productivity suite meeting all the required modern standards for high quality office work, reliable with dependable support and help at exactly zero cost – you’ve just found it.
Writer - Word Processing
You want to write a decent letter, a memo, a report, or your next book? Whether you simply need an electronic sheet of paper or complex functions for creating literature, LibreOffice Writer will be there all along the way.
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Calc – Spreadsheet
Just doing sums or checking your monthly expenses? Maybe you need to calculate a new project or analyse stock market data? This spreadsheet is the tool to use.
Impress – Presentation
Similar to MS PowerPoint, you use Impress to draft your ideas and form them into an exciting presentation with all the bells and whistles. You can not only export it to a PDF-file, but also to a SWF-file. This file can be played on any computer, where the Adobe Flash player (also freeware and rather standard equipment) is installed.
Base - Database
If your needs exceed the limitation of a single, plain list stored in a spreadsheet, you might want to go for the ‘real thing’; a desktop database. Base can be used as a front end to various DB-systems (Access, ODBC-sources, MySQL/Postgre/SQL) but those applications need not be present on your computer, Base will also work on its own.
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Tools like Draw (Vector Graphics Editor) or Math (mathematical formulae) complete the package. In the net you find a wealth of resources and a supportive community.