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OpenOffice.org ('''OOo''' or '''OO.o''') is a Free And Open Source Software Office Suite available for many different Operating System s including Linux , Microsoft Windows , Mac OS X , Solaris , FreeBSD , OpenBSD , OpenVMS and IRIX .1 It supports the OpenDocument standard for data interchange. OpenOffice.org is based on StarOffice , an office suite developed by StarDivision and acquired by Sun Microsystems in August 1999. The Source Code of the suite was released in July 2000 with the aim of reducing the dominant Market Share of Microsoft Office by providing a free, open and high-quality alternative. OpenOffice.org is Free Software , available under the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL). The project and software are informally referred to as "Open Office", but project organizers report that this term is a Trademark held by another party, requiring them to adopt "'''OpenOffice.org'''" as its formal name. OVERVIEW According to its Mission Statement , the OpenOffice.org project aims "''To create, as a community, the leading international office suite that will run on all major platforms and provide access to all functionality and data through open-component based APIs and an XML-based file format.''"2 OpenOffice.org aims to compete with Microsoft Office and emulate its look and feel where suitable. It can read and write most of the File Formats found in Microsoft Office, and many other applications; an essential feature of the suite for many users. OpenOffice.org has been found to be able to open files of older versions of Microsoft Office and damaged files that newer versions of Microsoft Office itself cannot open.3 However, it cannot open older Word for Macintosh (MCW) files.4 The primary development platforms are Microsoft Windows, Linux and Solaris. There are also ports available or in progress for Mac OS X, OS/2 and many Unix-like operating systems such as FreeBSD .5 Federal Computer Week issue listed OpenOffice.org as one of the "5 stars of open-source products." In contrast, OpenOffice.org was used in 2005 by '' The Guardian '' newspaper to illustrate what it claims are the limitations of open-source software, although the article does finish by stating that the software may be better than MS Word for books. OpenOffice.org is a collection of applications that work together closely to provide the features expected from a modern office suite. Many of the components are designed to mirror those available in Microsoft Office. The components available include: ; similar in Look And Feel to Microsoft Word and offering a comparable range of functions and tools. It also includes the ability to export Portable Document Format (PDF) files with no additional software, and can also function as a WYSIWYG editor for creating and editing Web Page s. One important difference between Writer and Microsoft Word is that in Writer, many functions and number formats from Calc (below) are available in Writer’s tables. ; similar to Microsoft Excel with a roughly equivalent range of features. Calc provides a number of features not present in Excel, including a system which automatically defines series for graphing, based on the layout of the user’s data. Calc is also capable of writing spreadsheets directly as a PDF file. ; similar to Microsoft PowerPoint . It can export presentations to Adobe Flash (SWF) files allowing them to be played on any computer with the Flash player installed. It also includes the ability to create PDF files. Impress suffers from a lack of ready-made presentation designs. However, templates are readily available on the Internet. Caludio's personal hideout: Templates for Openoffice Impress Presentation templates at OpenOffice.org Impress Templates - User/Template ; program similar to Microsoft Access . Base allows the creation and manipulation of databases, and the building of forms and reports to provide easy access to data for end-users. As with Access, Base may be used as a front-end to a number of different database systems, including Access databases (JET), ODBC data sources and MySQL / PostgreSQL . Base became part of the suite starting with version 2.0. Native to the OpenOffice suite is an adaptation of HSQL . While ooBase can be a front-end for any of the databases listed, there is no need for any of them to be installed. ; comparable in features to CorelDRAW . It features versatile "connectors" between shapes, which are available in a range of line styles and facilitate building drawings such as flowcharts. It has similar features to Desktop Publishing software such as Scribus and Microsoft Publisher . ; . Formulae can be embedded inside other OpenOffice.org documents, such as those created by Writer. It supports multiple Font s and can export to PDF. ; . Substantial improvements were made in this area for version 2.2. ; The . It is not possible to download these components individually on Windows, though they can be installed separately. Most Linux distributions break the components into individual packages which may be downloaded and installed separately. OPENOFFICE.ORG BASIC See Also: StarOffice Basic OpenOffice.org Basic is a programming language similar to Microsoft Visual Basic For Applications (VBA) based on StarOffice Basic . In addition to the Macro s, the upcoming Novell edition of OpenOffice 2.0 supports running Microsoft VBA macros, a feature expected to be incorporated into the mainstream version soon. Novell announces VBA macro support OpenOffice.org Basic is available in the Writer and Calc applications. It is written in functions called subroutines or macros, with each macro performing a different task, such as counting the words in a paragraph. OpenOffice.org Basic is especially useful in doing repetitive tasks that have not been integrated in the program.6 As the OpenOffice.org database, called "Base", uses documents created under the Writer application for reports and forms, one could say that Base can also be programmed with OpenOffice.org Basic. FILE FORMATS OpenOffice pioneered the ISO/IEC standard , StarOffice , Lotus Software , MS Works , Rich Text Format ), most notably including Microsoft Office formats (some older versions of which it reads better than current versions of Microsoft Office itself) . Additional software for exchanging files with Microsoft Office |
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