History

• OpenOffice.org is derived from an application called StarOffice, originally created by a German company called StarDivision. Sun Microsystems acquired StarDivision and created OpenOffice.org, which was named with ".org" attached due to a trademark conflict. Oracle later acquired Open Office when it acquired Sun Microsystems.
  
  

Writer

• Writer is OpenOffice.org's word processing application. Writer includes many features of commercial word processors including spell check, document templates and the ability to run, edit and create macros. The native file format for Writer is the Open Document Text (.odt) format. Users can open and save documents from popular text formats including plain text (.txt), Rich Text Format (.rtf), HyperLink Text Markup (.html) and commercial document formats including Microsoft Document (.doc and .docx).
  
  

Calc

• Calc is OpenOffice.org's spreadsheet application. Calc includes a number of features including DataPilot technology which can convert raw database data into a meaningful format for the user and Natural Language formulas, allowing users to create formulas using words. Calc natively saves files using the Open Document Spreadsheet (.ods) format. It can also also open and edit other spreadsheet file formats including Microsoft Excel, Comma Separated Values (.csv) and Lotus 1 2 3 (.123) files.
  
  

Impress

• Impress is OpenOffice.org's presentation application. Users can create and edit digital slide shows using a variety of tools, templates and clip art. It supports multiple monitors, allowing users to show a slide on one monitor while controlling the application on another. Impress saves natively to the Open Document Presentation (.odp) format but can also save directly to a Flash (.swf) version. Impress can also open and save Microsoft PowerPoint presentation (.ppt and .pptx) files.
  
  

Similar Projects

• NeoOffice is a port of OpenOffice.org created specifically for the Mac platform. LibreOffice is a fork of the OpenOffice.org project developed and released by The Document Foundation. OxygenOffice Professional is based off of the OpenOffice.org source code with extras including an extensive clip art library.
  
  

Future

• On April 15, 2011, Oracle announced that OpenOffice.org would transition to being a completely open source project and that the company will cease commercial development of the application.