Generally speaking, writers don’t have a lot of money. When you dedicate your life to the creative arts, an endeavor that yields very little in the way of compensation, you tend to be broke. This can prove to be an obstacle when you, say, want to write in a decent word processor on your computer. Most people are familiar with Microsoft Office, the standard for all things word processing and spreadsheet. But unless you’re lucky enough to be a student, the standard Microsoft Office suite will run you $399.95 (students pay $149.95). That is a lot of money for a person who, if providence shines on them that day, could make $20 from a short story published in a journal.

Over the past 15 years we have been indoctrinated to think that Microsoft is the only name in computers, and we’ve also come to accept that Office is only name in desktop productivity. True, many people who request your writing be sent to them will ask it to be emailed in Word’s ubiquitous .DOC file format. It’s like you can’t get away from spending $399.95 on a couple of programs that do very basic things.

But you don’t have to spend any money at all. You can download OpenOffice for free.

OpenOffice is both a productivity software suite and an open-source project, dating back to October 13, 2000. Open-source, if you’re unfamiliar with the term, means that the source code (the programming behind the software) is open for anybody to view or alter. But the open-source ideal is larger than that. Open-source projects have communities that surround them, many people involved in the design, development, and distribution. These people, often industry professionals, lend their talents and time to these projects for free and offer their work to you free of charge. This isn’t just about a free lunch; it’s about freedom of information. For a project to truly be considered open-source, it must adhere to the Open-Source Definition outlined by the Open-Source Initiative. Surely, this is a lot to absorb at first for someone who thinks that paying hundreds of dollars for software is business-as-usual. But just because something distributed by Microsoft is the industry standard, that doesn’t mean it has to be your standard as well.

Another, even larger, open-source project that might be of interest to you is the Linux operating system. Rather than using Windows, or even Mac OS X for that matter, you could be using a free operating system that will render you essentially insusceptible to viruses and various exploits. Just today it was announced that Windows, and Word and Excel specifically, are open to a new exploit through fonts of your computer; if someone sends you a nefarious .DOC or .XLS, or you view a website with Internet Explorer and someone has embedded a hacked font, your computer could be compromised. The beauty about open-source projects like Linux, which are generally immune to viruses via both programmer care and software obscurity, is that they can work on your computer right now as it is. I won’t get as deep into it as I would like in this article, but I highly suggest looking into Ubuntu Linux and the strides that particular project has made.

But what about OpenOffice, the topic of this article; how does OpenOffice stack up to Microsoft Office? I admit, there will be a learning curve for you. Not everything will be in the exact place you might remember it. But the key ingredient to the usage of OpenOffice is that, while it default saves to its own file format, you can also save your file in Word’s .DOC file format. That’s right, you can, for free, write in a word processor and save your work in the .DOC format. OpenOffice also has other software comparable to Microsoft Office, apart from Writer (their version of Word), including Calc (Excel), Impress (PowerPoint), and Base (Access). And, even better, OpenOffice works on Windows, OS X, and Linux. You can download and use it right now.

So if you’ve been on the fence about upgrading to the newest Microsoft Office, or buying Office for the very first time, give OpenOffice a try first. It will save you hundreds of dollars, give you a more secure machine, and make you part of a greater project meant to share information rather than control it.