OpenOffice Is A Winner

All throughout school, I had easy access to Microsoft Office and its suite of desktop applications, including Excel, its spreadsheet program. As soon as I graduated high school and I purchased a new laptop for my college courses, I was soon faced with a harsh reality: Microsoft's suite of office applications are nowhere near being free. As a typically broke college student, I did not want to spend hundreds of dollars on software after having just spent hundreds of dollars on the new computer I needed. I sought out a solution, and it did not take long at all to find the perfect solution: OpenOffice. OpenOffice is a free open source suite of office applications aimed to be a complete replacement of Microsoft Office. I must say, OpenOffice is pretty great.

Take for example OpenOffice Calc, the direct competitor to Excel. It is free to download for all operating systems, whereas purchasing Excel for use on a single computer will cost you about $80. I have been using Calc for about 3 years now, and have yet to find a limitation that would persuade me to think that Calc is any less superior to Excel. With Calc being such an effective and free replacement for Excel, why would I ever need to go back? We'd love to hear your thoughts. Which programs do you prefer?