Open Office comes only in a single version which is free to download. When looking at popularity, MS Office is used more often than Open Office. Though both of the software offers the same functionality to the users, they have many differences between them. You can read more about OpenOffice.MS Office and Open Office are popular software that users prefer. You can join the community and affect the course of the product you use. Enhancements, software fixes, and release dates are community-driven. These files can easily be unzipped and read by any text editor, and their framework is open and published.

OOo 2.x uses OpenDocument, an XML (eXtensible Markup Language) file format developed as an industry standard by OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards). OOo includes PDF and Flash export capabilities, as well as support for opening and saving files in many common formats including Microsoft Office, HTML, XML, WordPerfect, and Lotus 123 formats. However, OOo options can be set at a component level or even document level. Usually, if you change an option, it affects all components.

You do not need to know which application was used to create a particular file (for example, you can open a Draw file from Writer).

For example, the drawing tools available in Writer are also found in Calc, with similar but enhanced versions in Impress and Draw.

All the components share a common spelling checker and other tools, which are used consistently across the suite.

The components of are well integrated with one another. All the components have a similar 'look and feel,' making them easy to use and master.

OOo also provides support for both Complex Text Layout (CTL) and Right to Left (RTL) layout languages (such as Hindi, Hebrew, and Arabic). OOo's user interface is available in over 40 languages, and the OOo project provides spelling, hyphenation, and thesaurus dictionaries in over 70 languages and dialects. OOo 2.x runs on several hardware architectures and under multiple operating systems, such as Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, and Sun Solaris. You can distribute, copy, and modify the software as much as you wish, in accordance with either of OOo's Open Source licenses.

There are no hidden charges now or in the future. Many features that are available as extra cost add-ins in other office suites (like PDF export) are free with OOo.

OOo is free for anyone to use and distribute at no cost. Here are some of the advantages of over other office suites:

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