OpenOffice.org

OpenOffice.org is an open-source office suite, including a applications for word processing, presentations, vector graphics, formula editing, spreadsheet calculations, and databases. It is available for many different platforms, including Microsoft Windows, various Unix systems with the X Window System, GNU/Linux, BSD, Solaris and Mac OS X.

As an open-source package OpenOffice.org is available at no cost. It is distributed under the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL). OpenOffice.org supports as default the Open Document Format(ODF), however, it is also compatible with Microsoft Office for reading and writing all types of Microsoft Office documents. This makes it easy to exchange documents with people that use the market leading office suite.

Various versions of OpenOffice.org exist:

LibreOffice is a fork of OpenOffice that occurred after the Acquisition of Sun by Oracle. LibreOffice is governed by the Document Foundation and many of the core OpenOffice team continue to develop this version.
StarOffice is a commercial product by Sun Microsystems based on OpenOffice.org, adding commercial components such as additional fonts and improved spell checking dictionaries.
NeoOffice is an open source version for Mac OS X that adds full support for the Aqua user interface. The general ports of OOo to Mac OS X require an X Window extension that does use it's own look and feel for user interactions.
OpenOffice.org Novell Edition is an open source version and maintained by Novell. It adds new components that are developed by Novell Inc. and donated back to the full project, but haven't made it yet back into the general code base.
OxygenOffice is a free and enhanced version of OpenOffice.org. It boasts a lot of extra features including extra templates, fonts, cliparts, samples and other major improvements.
Go-oo is a separate edition made by like-minded developers that focuses on improved and faster performance for most OpenOffice applications.
RedOffice is a Chinese language edition of OpenOffice.org developed by Redflag Chinese 2000 Software Co., Ltd. Besides Chinese language support it has an improved interface and import features for China's Uniform Office Format (UOF).
EuroOffice is a free OpenOffice.org edition that focuses on extra functionality through the use of a number of free and non-free OpenOffice.org extensions.
Lotus Symphony is an edition developed by IBM based on OpenOffice.org 1.1.4. It is available at no charge and has Word Processing, Spreadsheet and Presentation applications. It can be installed in Windows and Linux.

Using OpenOffice.org

The following screencasts demonstrate how to start using OpenOffice.org:

OpenOffice.org™ is a registered trademark of Oracle.
LibreOffice™ is a trademark of The Document Foundation.
Microsoft® and Windows® are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and other countries.