Open Office for Windows
(ver 3.3.0)
Freeware


Microsoft Office is a ubiquitous software suite found on the vast 
majority of office (and home) computers throughout the world.  However,
Microsoft Office is overpriced, keeps its source code private, and 
changes its file format from version to version (so older versions of 
the software can NOT read newer files).  

Europe, and several US State governments are totally unsatisfied with 
this situation.  There business is documents, and they can not 
effectively function if documents stored just a few years ago can NOT 
be opened or read.  Therefore, many of these government, library, and 
other archival institutions are stating that they will only use 
file formats that are "open source".  

The vast majority of these institutions are choosing the file formats 
supported by the Open Office.  Note that Open Office also includes full 
support for Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files (so you no longer 
even need to own Microsoft Office)!  


NOTE: Open Office requires Java to be installed, if you want to run the
"BASE" database, or certain extensions in the other suite programs.



Equivalencies
-------------

Base	= MS Access
Calc	= MS Excel
Draw	= (a line drawing program, like the applet in MS Office)
Impress	= MS PowerPoint
Math	= (a math symbols program, like the applet in MS Office)
Writer	= MS Word


Document Type 				Extension   
-------------				---------

Base (Database) document 		odb 

Calc (Spreadsheet) document 		ods 
  Calc document used as template 	ots 

Draw (Graphics) document 		odg 
  Draw document used as template 	otg 

Impress (Presentation) document 	odp 
  Impress document used as template 	otp 

Math (Formula) document			odf 
  Math document used as template 	otf 

Writer (Text) document 			odt 
  Writer document used as template 	ott 



LATE NOTE:
Since OpenOffice forked to LibreOffice, support for Win2k has been dropped.
This is the LAST Windows 2000 version!