OpenOffice is a fully fledged office application suite, complete with a word processor, spreadsheet and presentation graphics program.

OpenOffice will be more familiar to some people as Sun Microsystems' StarOffice, which until recently was a free download.

With the launch of StarOffice 6, Sun changed its policy: the full office application suite would now cost (a still very reasonable) £50, while this completely free version is available to download.

Both share the same source code, with a few differences. OpenOffice does not include the StarOffice Adabas D database, certain fonts (especially Asian language ones), some templates and certain file filters. This is because Sun pays to license third-party code in StarOffice which it doesn't have permission to give away in OpenOffice.

But yes, you do get a fully featured word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation graphics program that are all compatible with Microsoft Office, along with an HTML editor, a maths and a drawing package.

It's the best choice if you're on a tight budget, fancy trying something different or don't want to hand over more money to Microsoft.

It is a large download, so be prepared for a long wait and use a download manager for convenience.

Note: Click the link below and you will be taken to the OpenOffice download page, where you can download OpenOffice for Windows, Linux and Mac.