iTech Review- Open Office (Mac, Windows)

If you have made the decision to buy a Mac, you will know that it isn't cheap. And if you didn't know, unlike PC's, you have to spend EVEN MORE money on office suites to get anything out of your laptop. Suites like iWork and MS Office could empty your pocket in no time. Thats where Open Office, the free and open productivity suite comes in.

When you first click on it, I will admit that it is kind of slow, but not unbearable and the Open Office team updates quite frequently, so that will not be an issue in a little while. MS Office vetrans will notice that the toolbars and layout is similar to that of MS Office, and everything is there; layouts, tools, fonts and formatting etc.

One thing that people sometimes dont know about Open Office is not a 'trial program' (it has limited features and/or it lasts only for a period of time). It has the fully-fledged capabilities of MS Office, with word processing, presentations, spreadsheets, HTML and XML capabilities, Open Office may be the only productivity suite you will ever need!

With the fairly recent updates, users can not only create their own masterpieces, they can upload them to Google Docs, upload to their blogs and others. It is the perfect tool for professional publishers to use for ease of editing, it has made it's mark as a tool for casual and professionals alike.

As you can see, Open Office is a great tool for any user to have, and the best thing is that you've got nothing to lose! I would recommend it to any Mac user, even if they have another Office Suite because Open Office is Multi-Platform which makes it a great tool to use if you need to make a document that PC users need to access. It's completely open, free and safe to use as long as you download from trusted websites such as these:
http://download.cnet.com/OpenOffice-org/3000-18483_4-10263109.html
http://porting.openoffice.org/mac/
http://www.softpedia.com/get/Office-tools/Office-suites/OpenOfficeorg-for-Windows.shtml

Don't hesitate to give it a go and write your own reviews in the comments section!