TOP 100 TOOLS
OpenOffice

OpenOffice is a free office suite of tools to install on your desktop to create documents, spreadsheets and presentations. It is compatible with MS Office, so you can read and edit existing Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents in it.  You can also convert your materials into PDF files for free.  OpenOffice docs can also be read in Google Docs.

NOTE: OpenOffice can be used as a hosted service at Ulteo.

Website	www.openoffice.org
Cost	Free
Availability	Download
Platform	Windows, Mac and Linux
2007 ranking	31=
2008 ranking	41=
2009 ranking	71=
Directory of Learning Tools	Document and presentation tools

Comments from those who selected OpenOffice as one of their Top 10 Tools in 2008

• "Although I have had OpenOffice installed on my  computer for some time, I have tended to continue to use Word and PowerPoint, but I have been using it more and more later as I really like some of the additional functionality it offers me.  For instance it is so easy to create PDFs from within it, and convert presentations to Flash."  Jane Hart

• "50% of my job consists of writing. Although I like to use Kile for larger texts, I find Writer indispensable for letters and other short texts. Exporting to PDF is only one button away and it reads and writes most office formats.  Impress is a bit crude, but it good enough to author a presentation and manage its slides. I then use KeyJnote for the presentation itself which uses stylish 3D effects and great thumbnail zooming."  Hans de Zwart

• "The open source office suite which helps me redacting reports and papers as well as creating presentations, graphs and so on."  Guy Boulet

• "I don't use Open Office often, but it does a great job of converting Powerpoints to PDF format for putting on the website."  Don Simmons

• "A wonderful office suite that has seen a lot of growth and improvement since I first started using it."  Robert Chapman

Comments from those who selected OpenOffice as one of their Top 10 Tools in 2007

• "I've been using the free and open source OpenOffice for so long that I don't remember the other office suites. It saves in multiple formats, including MS .doc, .xls and .ppt, and exports to Flash or PDF with a single click."  Harold Jarche

• "Mainly because it is not a Microsoft product and the fact that it is absolutely free. Not only can it open and save MS Office file formats, it also allows to save to PDF. It even includes a nicely featured drawing application."  Guy Boulet

• "The great thing on OpenOffice is that the windows version is exactly the same as the Linux version. It doesn't matter on which system you are."  Tim Schlotfeldt

• "Especially for producing PDF-files from Office-documents."  Wilfred Rubens

• "Impress - better than Powerpoint, and exports to Flash"  Nick Hood

• "A good, open source, suite of office tools. It is Microsoft Office compatible and it is free."  David Delgado

• "For writing, collating, preparing presentations, tracking, reporting – online and offline – I still haven’t found a way to avoid these tools"  Andrea Barrett

• "Would definitely recommend beginners use OpenOffice.org Writer instead (of Word)" Michael Chalk

• "I have gotten personal thank you notes from students for introducing them to Open Office.org!"  Susan Quinn