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The OpenOffice.org source code includes the technology which Sun Microsystems has been developing for the future versions of StarOffice(TM) software. The source is written in C++ and delivers language-neutral and scriptable functionality, including Java(TM) APIs. This source technology introduces the next-stage architecture, allowing use of the suite as separate applications or as embedded components in other applications. Numerous other features are also present including XML-based file formats based on the vendor-neutral OpenDocument standard from OASIS and other resources.

A FAQ addresses the changing differences between OpenOffice.org and StarOffice.
Licenses

OpenOffice.org uses the LGPL (GNU Lesser General Public License). For documentation and website content not intended to be included in the product, we use the Public Documentation License (PDL). Our License page provides more information on our licenses and on our policies regarding the application of those licenses. As well, our we have several FAQs dealing with licensing.
OpenOffice.org Project Organization

The Three Main Categories

“OpenOffice.org,” the overall project, comprises many public projects. There are three main categories:

* Accepted
* Native-Lang
* Incubator

Each category further houses many projects and sub-projects.

Accepted Projects includes most of the technical projects as well as some non-technical projects. Projects leads of those projects in this category have voting rights. This category includes the leads of both Native-Lang and Incubator, thus ensuring that community interests are well-represented.

Native-Lang (also known as ” The Native Language Confederation”) houses native-language projects: areas in OpenOffice.org in languages other than English dedicated to providing information, resources, and assistance to users of OpenOffice.org.

Incubator is the general category for community-sponsored projects. This category is also for experimental, and often small projects. After six months, a project housed here may petition to move to Accepted Projects category.

Each project in OpenOffice.org is a focused, collaborative group with members and a lead, to whom you should address your questions regarding project and list management. Members can be part of more than one project, and a lead of one project may be a member of another. The structure is meant to foster collaboration and cross-discipline synergy, and it does. For a list of projects and their leads, please see our Projects and Leads page.

Finally, each project has its own associated mailing lists. To understand the structure of the mailing lists, please go to our central Mail List page.

About the Structure

The “www” project only provides the general “façade” to the world; and it is our primary public face. It is what you see when you look at the homepage and all those pages that are of the form, “http://www.openoffice.org/abc/xyz.html”. The crucial thing to look at is what comes before “.openoffice.org”. Particular projects are all of the form “http://[project].openoffice.org/abc/xyz.html”. Instead of “www” we have the project name.
Participation

There are a variety of ways you can actively participate in the OpenOffice.org Community. These range from something as easy as a monetary donation, and participating in mailing lists, to actually contributing code for the product. In any case, the entire OpenOffice.org project uses guidelines that define the roles and responsibilities of members, as well as describe how the source is maintained. For more information, please review our Guidelines for Participation.

To-Dos

Our “To-Dos” page lists the current tasks that need to be done. They range from the difficult to the simple, and we urge all members to consult the page prior to embarking on a new project. Additionally, there may be “To-Dos” listed on individual project main pages.

Joining

OpenOffice.org is an Open Source project. This means, first, that we offer not only a product but a process, and second, that we depend upon the contributions of developers and endusers to make that process happen. The easiest way for you to help us out is to join the overall OpenOffice.org project by registering.

Once you join the overall project, you are a contributor! You’ll be able to file issues, bugs, patches, or comment on already filed issues. You’ll be able intensify your participation and join an individual project, and subscribe to an individual project’s mailing lists (listed on each project’s home page using the Mailing Lists link). We encourage everyone interested in creating good software to join the OpenOffice.org. This is a democratic project and we want the best possible office suite that depends on community involvement. There is no requirement that you be a programmer. Just that you respect the other members of the community and understand that we are very serious about this Project and what it means.

2.What all can I do with Zoho Writer?

3. What browsers does Zoho Writer support?

4.How do I enable JavaScript in my browser?

The first incarnation of Lotus Symphony was an integrated software package for DOS released by Lotus Development as a follow-on to its popular spreadsheet program, Lotus 1-2-3. Lotus Jazz on the Apple Macintosh was a sibling product.

Download IBM Lotus Symphony

Although 1-2-3 had originally been billed as an integrated product with spreadsheet, database and graphing functions (hence the name “1-2-3″), competing products such as AppleWorks provided a more comprehensive level of integration and additional functionality; Symphony was Lotus’ response.

Symphony is a DOS program that is loaded entirely into memory when started. Using ALT-F10 the user can alternate among the five “environments” of the program, each a rendering of the same underlying data. The environments are:

• SHEET, a spreadsheet program very similar to 1-2-3
• DOC, a word processor
• GRAPH, a graphical charting program
• FORM, a table-based database management system
• COMM, a communications program

Several “add-in applications” can be “attached” and activated, extending Symphony’s capabilities, including a powerful macro manager, a document outliner, a spell-checker, statistics, various communications configurations, and a tutorial, which demonstrates Symphony usage by running macros. The program allows the screen to be split into panes, showing different views of the underlying data simultaneously, each of which can display any of the five environments. The user is then able to see that changes made in one environment are reflected in others simultaneously, perhaps the package’s most interesting feature.

All the data that Symphony handles is kept in spreadsheet-like cells. The other environments—word processing, database, communications, graphics—in essence only change the display format and focus of that data (including available menus, special keys, and functionality), which can be saved and retrieved as .WR1 files.

Symphony was designed to work completely in the standard 640k of conventional memory, supplemented by any expanded memory. Similar and competitive packages included SmartWare, Microsoft Works, Context MBA, Framework, Enable and Ability Office.

The spreadsheet engine is the same as the one used in Lotus 1-2-3, once the most popular of its kind.

Compared to other word processors of the day such as Micropro WordStar 3.3, WordPerfect 4.2, and Microsoft Word 2.0, Symphony’s word processing environment was simple, but effective and uncomplicated.

Compared to other database programs of the day—Ashton-Tate’s dBase III, MDBS Knowledgeman, Borland Paradox 2.0 and Borland Reflex 1.0—Symphony’s FORM environment was weak, lacking the analytical abilities of Reflex and the pseudo relational power of dBase III. However, it was integrated directly into the spreadsheet, simple to query, and fast, and the data could be accessed using VLOOKUP features of the spreadsheet.

Like its predecessor Lotus 1-2-3, Symphony contains a reasonably powerful programming language referred to as its “command language,” which can be saved either within a spreadsheet or separately in “libraries” in the form of macros: lists of menu operations, data, and other macro keywords. (One is “menucall,” which allows users to call their own menus, embedded into spreadsheets, which behave just like Symphony’s own.) One of the most significant features of Symphony is the integration of the various modules using this command language. In its day it was one of the few programs that would be able to log onto a stock market source, select data using dynamic or pre-assigned criteria, place that data into a spreadsheet, perform calculations, then chart the data and print out the results. All of this could take place unattended on a preset schedule.

IBM Lotus Symphony is a set of applications comprising:

• IBM Lotus Symphony Documents, a word processor
• IBM Lotus Symphony Spreadsheets, a spreadsheet program
• IBM Lotus Symphony Presentations, a presentation program

Each application is seamlessly split into tabs.

Symphony supports the OpenDocument format (ODF), as well as the binary Microsoft Office and Lotus SmartSuite formats, but not the Office Open XML format used by Microsoft Office 2007. It can also export Portable Document Format (PDF) files.

Symphony is available for Linux and Windows, and Mac OS X. It is based on Eclipse Rich Client Platform from IBM Lotus Expeditor for its shell and OpenOffice.org 1.1.4 for the core office suite code. OpenOffice.org version 1.1.4 was dual licensed under both the GNU Lesser General Public License and Sun’s own SISSL, which allowed for entities to change the code without releasing their changes. Therefore, IBM does not have to release the source code of Symphony.

IBM released version 1.0 of Lotus Symphony in May 2008 as a free download. IBM plans to incorporate code from the latest version of OpenOffice.org into version 2.0. Symphony 2.0 will also include modules that are already part of OpenOffice.org, including an equation editor, database software, and a drawing program, as well as other modules specifically provided by IBM^.

Symphony has its roots in IBM Workplace. In 2006, IBM introduced Workplace Managed Client version 2.6, which included “productivity tools” — a word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation program — that supported ODF. Later that year, IBM announced that Lotus Notes 8, which was already incorporating Workplace technology, would also include the same productivity tools as the Workplace Managed Client. In 2007, IBM released Notes 8, and then released Notes’ productivity tools as a standalone application, Symphony, one month later. The code in Symphony is the same as that for Notes 8’s productivity tools.

The software is developed by IBM China Development Laboratory, located in Beijing. During the Lotusphere event in 2009, IBM confirmed its cost reduction effort using Lotus Symphony: the company is leading the migration its 400,000 users from Microsoft Office to Lotus Symphony. IBM observed 2 millions downloads of Lotus Symphony in 2008.

Purchase Microsoft Word or Download it

It was first released in 1983 under the name Multi-Tool Word for Xenix systems. Versions were later written for several other platforms including IBM PCs running DOS (1983), the Apple Macintosh (1984), SCO UNIX, OS/2 and Microsoft Windows (1989). It is a component of the Microsoft Office system; however, it is also sold as a standalone product and included in Microsoft Works Suite. Beginning with the 2003 version, the branding was revised to emphasize Word’s identity as a component within the Office suite; Microsoft began calling it Microsoft Office Word instead of merely Microsoft Word. The latest releases are Word 2007 for Windows and Word 2008 for Mac OS X.

Concepts and ideas of Word were brought from Bravo, the original GUI word processor developed at Xerox PARC. On February 1, 1983, development on what was originally named Multi-Tool Word began.

Richard Brodie renamed it Microsoft Word, and Microsoft released the program October 25, 1983, for the IBM PC. Free demonstration copies of the application were bundled with the November 1983 issue of PC World, making it the first program to be distributed on-disk with a magazine.However, it was not well received, and sales lagged behind those of rival products such as WordPerfect.Although MS-DOS was a character-based system, Microsoft Word was the first word processor for the IBM PC that showed actual line breaks and typeface markups such as bold and italics directly on the screen while editing, although this was not a true WYSIWYG system because available displays did not have the resolution to show actual typefaces. Other DOS word processors, such as WordStar and WordPerfect, used simple text only display with markup codes on the screen or sometimes, at the most, alternative colors.

As with most DOS software, each program had its own, often complicated, set of commands and nomenclature for performing functions that had to be learned. For example, in Word for MS-DOS, a file would be saved with the sequence Escape-T-S: pressing Escape called up the menu box, T accessed the set of options for Transfer and S was for Save (the only similar interface belonged to Microsoft’s own Multiplan spreadsheet). As most secretaries had learned how to use WordPerfect, companies were reluctant to switch to a rival product that offered few advantages. Desired features in Word such as indentation before typing (emulating the F4 feature in WordPerfect), the ability to block text to copy it before typing, instead of picking up mouse or blocking after typing, and a reliable way to have macros and other functions always replicate the same function time after time, were just some of Word’s problems for production typing.

Word for Macintosh, despite the major differences in look and feel from the DOS version, was ported by Ken Shapiro with only minor changes from the DOS source code,[citation needed] which had been written with high-resolution displays and laser printers in mind although none were yet available to the general public. Following the precedents of LisaWrite and MacWrite, Word for Macintosh attempted to add closer WYSIWYG features into its package. After Word for Mac was released in 1985, it gained wide acceptance.

There was no Word 2.0 for Macintosh. Instead, the second release of Word for Macintosh, shipped in 1987, was named Word 3.0; this was Microsoft’s first attempt to synchronize version numbers across platforms. Word 3.0 included numerous internal enhancements and new features including the first implementation of the Rich Text Format (RTF) specification, but was plagued with bugs. Within a few months Word 3.0 was superseded by Word 3.01, which was much more stable. All registered users of 3.0 were mailed free copies of 3.01, making this one of Microsoft’s most expensive mistakes up to that time.

The first version of Word for Windows was released in 1989 at a price of 500 US dollars. With the release of Windows 3.0 the following year, sales began to pick up (Word for Windows 1.0 was designed for use with Windows 3.0, and its performance was poorer with the versions of Windows available when it was first released). The failure of WordPerfect to produce a Windows version proved a fatal mistake. It was version 2.0 of Word, however, that firmly established Microsoft Word as the market leader.

After MacWrite, Word for Macintosh never had any serious rivals, although programs such as Nisus Writer provided features such as non-contiguous selection which were not added until Word 2002 in Office XP. In addition, many users complained that major updates reliably came more than two years apart, too long for most business users at that time.

Word 5.1 for the Macintosh, released in 1992, was a very popular word processor due to its elegance, relative ease of use, and feature set. However, version 6.0 for the Macintosh, released in 1994, was widely derided, unlike the Windows version. It was the first version of Word based on a common codebase between the Windows and Mac versions; many accused it of being slow, clumsy and memory intensive. In response to user requests, Microsoft offered a free “downgrade” to Word 5.1 for dissatisfied Word 6.0 purchasers.

With the release of Word 6.0 in 1993 Microsoft again attempted to synchronize the version numbers and coordinate product naming across platforms; this time across the three versions for DOS, Macintosh, and Windows (where the previous version was Word for Windows 2.0). There may have also been thought to matching the current version 6.0 of WordPerfect for DOS and Windows, Word’s major competitor. However, this wound up being the last version of Word for DOS. As well, subsequent versions of Word were no longer referred to by version number, and were instead named after the year of their release (e.g. Word 95 for Windows, synchronizing its name with Windows 95, and Word 98 for Macintosh), once again breaking the synchronization.

When Microsoft became aware of the Year 2000 problem, it released the entire version of DOS port of Microsoft Word 5.5 instead of getting people to pay for the update. As of February 2009, it is still available for download from Microsoft’s web site.

Word 6.0 was actually the second attempt to develop a common codebase version of Word. The first, code-named Pyramid, had been an attempt to completely rewrite the existing Word product. It was abandoned when it was determined that it would take the development team too long to rewrite and then catch up with all the new capabilities that could have been added in the same time without a rewrite. Proponents of Pyramid claimed it would have been faster, smaller, and more stable than the product that was eventually released for Macintosh, which was compiled using a beta version of Visual C++ 2.0 that targets the Macintosh, so many optimizations have to be turned off (the version 4.2.1 of Office is compiled using the final version), and sometimes use the Windows API simulation library included. Pyramid would have been truly cross-platform, with machine-independent application code and a small mediation layer between the application and the operating system.

More recent versions of Word for Macintosh are no longer ported versions of Word for Windows although some code is often appropriated from the Windows version for the Macintosh version.

Later versions of Word have more capabilities than just word processing. The Drawing tool allows simple desktop publishing operations such as adding graphics to documents. Collaboration, document comparison, multilingual support, translation and many other capabilities have been added over the years.

Purchase Microsoft Word or Download it

Download Jarte

Does Your Word Processor Handle Like an Ocean Liner?

When word processors replaced typewriters they helped free the creative expressions innate in all of us. But somewhere along the way word processors evolved into enormous machines designed primarily to serve the needs of the corporate world. Office word processors have become huge, cumbersome vessels of software that remind us of ocean liners. The seeming goal of both is to become as large as possible by including every imaginable feature, whether anyone actually needs all those features or not. That’s fine for an ocean liner since you are there to relax and marvel at its grandness. However, it is not so fine when the size and complexity of your word processor makes it as cumbersome to operate as an ocean liner in a yacht race.

It does not have to be like that. Jarte is a WordPad based, FREE word processor whose unique interface will make you feel like you are piloting a swift, nimble yacht by comparison. Although Jarte doesn’t look anything like the office word processor you are used to, it can handle your word processing tasks with aplomb. If this sounds like the kind of word processor you are looking for then maybe you owe it to yourself to give Jarte a try.

Writing Should Be a Pleasurable Experience

The problem with word processors designed for the corporate world is they tend to sap the joy out of writing. Office word processors have so many features it becomes frustrating trying to find the features you actually need among the seemingly endless excess of unused functions. You either lose your train of thought while wrestling with the program or you simply do without the feature you want rather than embark on an expedition to find it among the endless cascading menus and pop-up windows.

The Jarte word processor relieves that problem by including only the features likely to be needed by real people. Jarte is designed for students, writers, small business people, and home users. But what really makes Jarte special is the unique way it makes the features that are included easily accessible.

You expect a word processor to be able to handle Word documents, font and paragraph formatting, spell checking, print preview, and more. While Jarte performs all the standard functions well, the most important aspect of Jarte is the numerous small details that make it an efficient and enjoyable tool for creating documents. Small details like:

• Tabbed document windows for easy access to your open documents
• Larger buttons for the most commonly used functions
• Instant dictionary and thesaurus word lookup (integrates with free WordWeb)
• Spell check and text search tools that do not park themselves on top of the text you are trying to edit
• Single click bookmarking that make bookmarks both useful and usable
• Instant access to the documents and folders you designate as your favorites
• Instant access to the fonts you designate as your favorites
• Use of the mouse scroll wheel button to copy and paste text

It is Jarte’s thoughtful details that will leave you wondering how you lived with that cumbersome office word processor for so long.

Stable WordPad Editing Engine

At the heart of Jarte sits the same word processing engine used by Windows’ WordPad. The difference is that Jarte builds far more capability around the WordPad editing engine than the WordPad program itself does. The significance of this fact is that Jarte users are secure in the knowledge that Jarte is making use of the same reliable, time tested editing engine used by millions of other Windows users all over the world. If you have tried other alternative word processors and found them to be unstable that may be in part due to their use of unreliable, home grown editing engines.

Microsoft is continually upgrading the WordPad editing engine, although you would never know it by examining WordPad. The WordPad program itself has not changed since it was first introduced. Jarte, on the other hand, continues to evolve and take advantage of useful features as Microsoft adds them to the WordPad editing engine.

Jarte is a Free Word Processor? What’s the Catch?

Yes, Jarte is completely free. There are no ads, no trial period, no nag screens, and no crippling of essential features. We do sell a separate edition of Jarte called Jarte Plus for those who want more. Many of Jarte’s regular users have been more than willing to pay the small price for the extra bells and whistles provided by Jarte Plus.

Whether or not you choose to upgrade to Jarte Plus, we hope you will go forth and free other weary souls from their corporate office word processors by introducing them to Jarte —the word processor for the rest of us.

General Features

• Fully compatible with Windows Vista
• Tabbed interface to provide easy access to open documents
• Opens files with file extension RTF, file extension DOC, and file extension DOCX (new default format in Word 2007)
• Fast start up
• Compact screen size
• Hot Connect lets you use Jarte with other programs
• Optional “Clickless Operation” feature greatly reduces clicking
• Can be run directly from a pluggable USB flash drive
• High quality spell checker with custom user dictionary
• Included spelling dictionaries: English (American, British, & Canadian), Spanish, French, German, Italian, and Dutch
• Link to, or import, your existing custom Word spelling dictionaries
• Support for templates
• Export to HTML or PDF
• Single click bookmarking and bookmark navigation
• Send documents via e-mail
• Full drag and drop file support
• Instant access to recently opened documents and folders
• Instant access to documents and folders designated as favorites
• Adjustable document zoom
• Detailed Help documentation

Editing Functions

• Insert pictures, hyperlinks, tables, page breaks, equations and other embeddable objects
• Quick Clips option provides easy copy, cut and paste capability using the mouse scroll wheel button
• Standard clipboard functions plus a Paste Plain function which strips HTML and RTF formatting from clipboard text before pasting
• Multi-level undo and redo functions
• Sorting

Font Formatting

• Bold, italic, underline, strikeout, subscript, and superscript font styles
• Choice of text colors
• Text highlight tool with choice of colors
• Font typeface selection box which displays each font choice in its own typeface
• Choose your own default font
• Quick access to your personally chosen favorite fonts and to recently used fonts
• Format brush tool quickly applies font styling to text

Paragraph Formatting

• Left, right, centered, and justified text alignment
• Paragraph indentation including first line and hanging indent styles
• Bulleted and numbered list styles
• Single, one and a half, and double line spacing
• Optional paragraph spacing before and after paragraphs
• User settable tab stops
• Format brush tool quickly applies formatting to paragraphs

Printing

• Print preview
• User definable page margins
• Reverse page order option and odd or even pages only options (useful for double sided printing) in addition to the standard print options
• Visual designer allows complete control of both headers and footers:
  • Define any combination of left side, right side, and center headers and footers
  • Headers and footers may contain any combination of page numbering, file date, current date (in choice of date formats), file name, and user definable text
  • User control of the font typeface, font size, font style, and font color used for headers and footers
  • User control of the positioning of the header and footer lines
  • Optional suppression of the header and/or footer on the first page

Tools

• Clip List allows you display and reuse the 25 most recent clipboard clips
• Screen capture tool for copying images from the screen
• Special Characters Keyboard allows single click insertion of any character including the extended characters not shown on your keyboard
• Reference Bar provides instant word lookup to online dictionary, thesaurus, and encyclopedia
• The Reference Bar also automatically integrates with the WordWeb dictionary and thesaurus if it is installed
• Document word count tool
• Search for files on your computer with direct access to the system file search tool

Download Jarte

AbiWord is a free word processing program similar to Microsoft® Word. It is suitable for a wide variety of word processing tasks.

Download Abiword

AbiWord Highlights

AbiWord is rapidly becoming a state of the art Word Processor, with lots of features useful for your daily work, personal needs, or for just some good old typing fun. This tour gives you a quick look into some of AbiWord’s highlights.

Multi Platform

Enjoy your favorite Word Processor on the operating system you like to use - be it Windows, Linux, QNX, FreeBSD or Solaris.

AbiWord has been designed to integrate perfectly with the operating system it runs on. It will take advantage of the functionality provided by the system, such as image loading or printing capabilities.

Interoperability

What use is a Word Processor when you can’t share your documents with your friends? AbiWord is able to read and write all industry standard document types, such as OpenOffice.org documents, Microsoft Word documents, WordPerfect documents, Rich Text Format documents, HTML web pages and many more.

Advanced Document Layout

Give your document that professional, scientific or fun-to-read look using AbiWord’s advanced document layout options. Use tables, bullets, lists, images, footnotes, endnotes and styles to enhance the way your document looks.

Internationalization

Since not everyone in the world speaks the same language, AbiWord comes in many different languages. AbiWord is available in most common and many not-so-common languages.

Make sure your document contains none of those nasty spelling errors by using AbiWord’s built-in spelling checker. Dictionaries exist for over 30 languages.

AbiWord supports right-to-left, left-to-right, and mixed-mode text. This means that in addition to supporting European languages, AbiWord supports languages like Hebrew and Arabic as well.

Internationalization

Do you also hate writing tens of thousands form letters by hand? With AbiWord’s Mail Merge capabilities, you can let AbiWord automate that job for you. Special fields inserted into a template document can automatically be replaced with data coming from a variety of sources, such as Relational Databases, Comma Separated Text files or Tabbed Text files.

To facilitate the use of AbiWord in a server environment, a powerful command line interface to AbiWord is available. This allows you to generate form letters, print documents or convert documents to any file format AbiWord supports - all from the command line!

Extensible Plugin Architecture

The main AbiWord program is very small and requires very little resources to run. This allows AbiWord to be used on systems that are not considered “State of the Art” anymore, which comes all too quickly in the IT world.

Our plugin system was designed to give AbiWord all the functionality you might expect from a modern Word Processor. A variety of plugins can be used to extend AbiWord’s functionality, ranging from Document Importers to a Thesaurus, Image Importers and a Text Summarizer.

Download Abiword