Office Suites
What Are They?
An office suite always consists of a Word Processor and a Spreadsheet. It probably also has one or more of: a Presentation program; a Information Manager; a Database; or a Publishing program.
There
are several alternatives: Microsoft Office Standard or Professional, whether
anybody approves of Microsoft's monopoly or not, is the best. that's why
almost every business and government organisation in the world uses it.
It's also the most expensive.
Similar, less expensive, but not quite as powerful, is Corel WordPerfect Office.
A cheaper alternative, adequate for most home users and very small businesses, is Microsoft Works Suite. This includes Microsoft Word, the Microsoft Office word processor. Word is worth every penny of the price of any suite. You're welcome, Bill. It also includes a basic version of the excellent Microsoft Encarta encyclopędia.
Don't buy Microsoft Works Standard version, you need the Suite. Plain old Works doesn't have Word. Doesn't cut the mustard.
If
you purchase Microsoft Office or Microsoft Works Suite with a new PC, you'll
get it for a fraction of the full price. There are also upgrade options
if you have an older program.
Lastly, the open source (free software) movement provide an excellent suite equivalent to Microsoft Office Standard and 95% as good. It's called OpenOffice.org 2.0 and is available to download from here http://www.openoffice.org/Every few months it's available on PC magazine free disks. It's free, and as good as a lot of commercial programs. A little more about that here.
Academic Prices
If you're a student or teacher, or if you're learning and are not intending to use the software for commercial pursuits, you can purchase Academic Versions of Microsoft Office and many other programs. These are the same software, but much cheaper than the full versions.
