Getting What You Need @ the Best Price...Free!

Have you ever needed a specific piece of software to open that important file? For many, I am sure that it had something to do with Microsoft Office or Adobe Acrobat? Well, you clicked the right link to find out some FREE alternatives to some of the industry's most expensive software, and I am not talking about software piracy.

One of the biggest problems I face when working with small business owners, is that they need to open Word and Excel documents, but they can not afford to buy Microsoft Office for each machine in the office. This expense can rack up as high as $500 per computer. But there is a solid alternative, it is called OpenOffice.Org and it is developed and distributed by the community. When I say community, I mean a community of programmers that pool together ideas and functionality to a product. In most cases the outcome is an easy to use, very functional, and quite impressive piece of software. With OpenOffice.org, they stood up to those standards.

OpenOffice.org is packed with many features. It allows you to use it as the default program for opening and editing Microsoft Office Documents. OpenOffice gives you the ability to make professional text documents, create highly functional spreadsheets, impressive presentations, and intense 3D drawings. For more information about OpenOffice.Org, please visit their website. Please, if you try it and are satisfied with it, don't hesitate to donate. Every penny helps.

Another problem that many businesses face is creating PDF (Portable Document Files) documents. Because of the free software from Adobe, Adobe Acrobat Reader, PDF documents have become an industry standard for distributing information and forms. Because of the importance of PDF documents, Adobe has created a dominant need and desire for their software, Adobe Acrobat, that allows you to create PDF files. The only catch is that Acrobat costs around $279 for the standard version, but there are alternatives.

One alternative that I have found to be extremely effective is PDFCreator. It installs on your computer as a print driver. What I mean by that, is when you choose to print a document from a program like Microsoft Word, you can select PDFCreator as the printing device. This will then activate the PDFCreator and begin creating your PDF document, which you can then save and use it how you please. The best part about this piece of software is that it is effective and free. For more information, please visit their website.

--Doc