Do you know about OpenOffice? OpenOffice deliberately created to compete with Microsoft Office. OpenOffice is an office application package which can be used free of charge. Like Microsoft Office, OpenOffice also provides for word processor, spreadsheet, presentation, graphics, and the database aplications.
We may compare the OpenOffice and Microsoft Office application is as follows :
| Microsoft Office | OpenOffice |
| Microsoft Word | Writer |
| Microsoft Excel | Calc |
| Microsoft PowerPoint | Impress |
| Microsoft Graph | Draw |
| Microsoft Access | Base |
The advantage of OpenOffice is that all files created by Microsoft Office applications are compatible to be read by openoffice.
So, if you create a spreadsheet document using microsoft excel, it can be read by OpenOffice Calc but not vice versa. In consequence of that, Therefore, if you want to transfer documents to another computer, then you need to save documents in several file formats are supported both by openoffice and microsoft format. So if the destination computer does not have OpenOffice, one of your files can still be opened by using Microsoft Office.
It is a small problem for this data transfer, but if you look further, see what applications you use most often for office work? I dare say that most of you would answer Microsoft Word and Excel, with the occasional use Microsoft PowerPoint, and Microsoft Access is very rarely or even never at all except for a few programmers or people who work in the field of IT. If you only use these applications, so why not try openoffice? Because it generally can do what you usually need when you work with your document.
Furthermore, why should you spend money if it can still be obtained for free ? 
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.. really nice post, Mike.