OpenOffice.org has 90% of the capabilities of Microsoft Office, but is missing one thing: the price tag. OpenOffice.org is free. I have been recommending the program for several years for people who don't want to pay the high prices charged for Microsoft Office. See http://goo.gl/k2oO for my earlier articles.
OpenOffice.org is now being abandoned by most of its programmers, most of whom have moved a brand-new program called LibreOffice.
OpenOffice was originally founded and sponsored by Sun Microsystems. Oracle acquired Sun and its OpenOffice assets earlier this year. The free OpenOffice.org product doesn't seem to fit well in the new owner's plans so it was cast adrift. Many of the lead programmers who have worked on OpenOffice.org have now left the company and have formed a new non-profit organization, called the Document Foundation, that is creating a replacement product. That product, called LibreOffice, reportedly will be even better than OpenOffice.org.
The creation of the Document Foundation is backed by leading Linux distributors Red Hat, Novell, Google (Android) and Canonical as well as many international concerns and nations, including Germany, Italy, Brazil and France.
The LibreOffice software is already available in beta version at www.libreoffice.com. It doesn't appear to be changed much from the older OpenOffice.org version. However, developers are predicting big changes in coming months.
LibreOffice ("free office") is available for Windows, Macintosh, and Linux.
I'd suggest not hurrying to switch. Let someone else fight the bugs in this early beta version. However, if you would like to try the new version, go to http://www.libreoffice.com
The older version of OpenOffice.org remains available at http://www.openoffice.org while Macintosh users may prefer NeoOffice at http://www.neooffice.org
