Looking for a Fully Functional Office Program?

Have you considered purchasing a copy of Microsoft Word, Excel, or maybe the entire suite (Office)? You may have been turned off by the high pricing associated with this type of software. Are you aware that there are several versions of office software available to the public at no charge?

Open Office

One of the leading open-source software suites is provided by Open Office. Open Office features a full suite of software, ranging anywhere from word-processing to spread-sheets and presentations. This office program is free to download and use. For a free program it provides excellent functionality. To download it, visit OpenOffice.Org. and click on the download link provided.

Open Office Functionality

Open Office is very comprehensive and provides a full range of services you would expect from a professional stand-point when purchasing an office suite. Lets take a look at some of the abilities the software has.

1. Word Processing (Writer)

2. Database Creation and Management (Base)

3. Presentations (Impress)

4. Drawing and Charts (Draw)

5. Create and Manage Scientific Equations (Math)

6. Spread Sheets, Manage Finances and Equations (Calc)

With this amazing level of functionality, it is difficult to purchase a typical version of Microsoft Office that provides the same funtionalities but with a insensitive price tag.

Downloading Open Office

1. To download Open Office, click here and click on the download link provided on their site:

2. You will be presented with the download box associated with your Operating System ( you may be prompted to confirm the download).

3. Once the download is complete, you may launch the executable file to start the installation of the office suite:

4. The installation will prompt you with the license agreement etc. and will continue with the installation after these options are selected.

5. Once the installation is complete, you can launch the program to see the features provided:

6. Select any of these Items on the list, they provide you with the functionality of any of services indicated. Thats hard to beat at no charge.

Another Free Office Program

There are other free office programs available to you from different organizations that develop and manage these programs. AbiWord is another example of an office program that is fully functional and completely free. There are others out there but these are two of the bigger names in the field of free office programs.

Just Might be what You’re Looking for

Go ahead and download them and give them a try, you never know, they just might be what you’re looking for.

TrueStarTE

Your TrueStar Technology Expert

Thunderbird Calendar (Lightning)

Thunderbird has many functionalities, one of them is a calendar. Thunderbird calendar (known as Lightning) is a practical, easy-to-install, calendar that features a audible reminders and a number of other nice features. I will run through downloading and installing the calendar into Thunderbird.

Downloading The Calendar (Lightning)

To download Lightning, click here. Lightning is provided by Mozilla and can be added as an “Add-on” to your Thunderbird Email program.

1. After clicking on the link to download lightning, you will be presented with the Mozilla web-page where you can click on whichever version of the software you need to download (Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, Other Systems such as OS2 and Solaris).

2. After clicking on the link that represents your Operating System, you will be presented with a download (represented here in Firefox) :

3. Once you have selected your Operating System type, you will be presented with a download button for that OS type:

4. Click on the “Download Now” button to start your download. You may be presented with a dialog box indicating the download name, type, etc. :

5. Make sure you click on “Save to Disk” or such related option to save the file to your hard drive. Note where you tell this file to download to, you will need it shortly.

Installing the Calendar into Thunderbird

6. Once the download is complete, you may go ahead and launch Thunderbird. When Thunderbird is up and running, follow the instructions below to install the Calendar Add-on:

1. Click on “Tools” in the file menu.

2. Click on “Add-ons”

3. Click on “Install” (located at the bottom-left hand side of the “add-ons” dialog box:

4. Go to the location on you downloaded the file to and click on it to select it and click on “open” (depends on your OS). The name of the calendar add-on is: lightning-0.8-tb-win.xpi :

7. You will be presented with the “Install Add-on” Dialog box: You may click on “Install Now” to begin the installation.

8. Once the installation is complete, you will be presented with the Add-on dialog box, you may click on “Restart Thunderbird” at this point to complete the installation process and make the calendar available:

The calendar will be available in Thunderbird on the right-hand side. You may switch between full calendar view, tasks view, and email view by clicking on the respective buttons (“mail”, “calendar”, or “tasks”)  at the bottom of your inbox folders at the bottom left portion of Thunderbird:

Here is a quick peek at a calendar with an example event:

Adding an Event:

To add an event to the calendar, double-click the location on the calendar (such as the date/time) that you would like to schedule an event for, you will be presented with the following event dialog: (You can add the title for your event, the time you would like to schedule it for, and whether or not you should receive an audible reminder).

Once an event is added, it will appear in your calendar with the time of the event, followed by name of the event:

Enjoy!

Your TrueStar Technology Expert