What Is OpenOffice?

OpenOffice is an open-source office suite that allows you to create documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and databases.

OpenOffice uses the ISO standard OpenDocument Format (ODF) as its default file format. But it also supports Microsoft Office file format.

Currently, OpenOffice includes 6 components:

• Writer - A word processor analogous to Microsoft Word or WordPerfect.
• Calc - A spreadsheet analogous to Microsoft Excel or Lotus 1-2-3.
• Impress - A presentation program analogous to Microsoft PowerPoint or Apple Keynote. Impress could export presentations to Adobe Flash (SWF) files, allowing them to be played on any computer with a Flash player installed. Presentation templates were available on the OpenOffice.org website.
• Draw - A vector graphics editor comparable in features to the drawing functions in Microsoft Office.
• Math - A tool for creating and editing mathematical formulas, analogous to Microsoft Equation Editor. Formulas could be embedded inside other OpenOffice.org documents, such as those created by Writer.
• Base - A database management program analogous to Microsoft Access. Base could function as a front-end to a number of different database systems, including Access databases (JET), ODBC data sources, MySQL and PostgreSQL. Base became part of the suite starting with version 2.0. HSQL was the included database engine. From version 2.3, Base offered report generation via Pentaho.

Major versions of OpenOffice are:

OpenOffice 4.1.7   2019-09-21   A maintenance release.  
OpenOffice 4.1.6   2018-11-18   Bug fixes, English dictionary updates.
OpenOffice 4.0.0   2013-07-23   New sidebar, Symphony merge, additional features.
OpenOffice 3.4     2012-05-08   First Apache release.
OpenOffice 3.3     2011-01-26   New spreadsheet functions and parameters. 
                                Last Oracle stable release.
OpenOffice 3.0     2008-10-13   Milestone with ODF 1.2, OOXML import, improved VBA, 
                                native OS X interface, Start Center.
OpenOffice 2.0     2005-10-20   Milestone with major enhancements and default saving 
                                in the OpenDocument format.
OpenOffice 1.0     2002-05-01   First official release

 

⇒ Download and Install OpenOffice on Windows

⇐ Getting Started with Apache OpenOffice

⇑ Getting Started with Apache OpenOffice

⇑⇑ OpenOffice Tutorials