Office suite
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In computing, an office suite, sometimes called an office software suite or productivity suite is a collection of programs intended to be used by typical clerical workers and knowledge workers. The components are generally distributed together, have a consistent user interface and usually can interact with each other, sometimes in ways that the operating system would not normally allow.
The currently dominant office suites are Microsoft Office, which is available for Microsoft Windows and Apple Inc.'s Mac OS X, and OpenOffice.org, a free software / open source alternative available for many operating systems. Microsoft Office's binary file formats have been the de facto default, but are being supplanted[citation needed] by the open standard ODF, OpenOffice.org's (among other programs') native format. ODF is becoming the standard choice for governments, educational environments and businesses seeking neutral document formats for information exchange or seeking to save money. There are numerous office suites attempting to challenge Microsoft and OpenOffice.org.
[edit] Typical office suite components
[edit] Multi-platform office suites
[edit] Proprietary suites
- SoftMaker Office 2008 — a word processor, spreadsheet and presentation graphics program, provided by a German company. For Microsoft Windows and Linux.
- StarOffice — an office suite from Sun Microsystems. Originally developed by the German firm Star Division, which Sun acquired. Early versions shared code with OpenOffice.org project, which Sun funded and continues to support, but there has been separate development of the two packages. For Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, Solaris.
- Kingsoft Office (Chinese version known as WPS Office) — a native Chinese-language office suite. English and Japanese versions are currently available also. For Microsoft Windows and some versions are available also for Linux.
[edit] Freeware suites
- IBM Lotus Symphony — based upon an older version of OpenOffice.org. Its components include Documents, Spreadsheets, and Presentations. For Microsoft Windows, Linux and Mac OS X.
[edit] Open source suites
- OpenOffice.org — an open-source software project upon which Sun's StarOffice is based. The initial code was provided by Sun Microsystems, based on the Star Office package by German company, Star Division, which it had previously acquired. Sun has provided much of the labor for its development since. Its components include Writer, Impress, Math, Draw, Calc, and Base. Releases are available for Microsoft Windows, GNU/Linux, Mac OS X and Solaris.
- OpenOffice.org Novell Edition — features the Office Open XML translator add-on. Based upon OpenOffice.org. Its components include Writer, Impress, Math, Draw, Calc, and Base.[1]
- Go-oo - OpenOffice.org variant with a number of enhancements similar to the Novell Edition but freely available. It has better support for Office Open XML (MS Office 2007) file formats than the official OpenOffice.org releases produced by Sun Microsystems, and other enhancements that have either not yet been accepted into the upstream Sun version.
[edit] Office suites for Microsoft Windows
[edit] Proprietary suites
- Ability Office
- Celframe Office — supports Microsoft Office and other popular file formats, with a user interface styled on Microsoft Office 2003.
- EasyOffice
- EIOffice[6] (Evermore Integrated Office) — a Chinese / English / Japanese / French language integrated office suite. Available for Windows / Linux operating systems
- Framework — historical but also still supported for Windows by the present developer, Selection & Functions Inc.
- Gobe Productive — Originally written for BeOS by developers of the original ClarisWorks, GoBe Productive is a lightweight integrated Works-like office suite with a generous "Hassle-Free License."
- Ichitaro JUST Suite 2008 — a full Japanese-language suite from JustSystems, the most direct competitor to Microsoft Office in Japan. For Windows only.
- Kingsoft Office (Chinese version known as WPS Office) — a native Chinese-language office suite. English and Japanese versions are currently available also.
- IBM Lotus SmartSuite — For Windows 2000 and XP only
- Microsoft Office
- Microsoft Works
- SoftMaker Office 2008
- StarOffice
- WordPerfect Office
[edit] Freeware suites
- IBM Lotus Symphony — Freeware word, spreadsheet and presentation suite.
- SoftMaker Office 2006
- WPS Office — The Chinese version is available for free if used non-commecially.of the computer suite
[edit] Open source suites
- GNOME Office
- KOffice — native for Linux, in Windows only partial beta support
- OpenOffice.org
- OpenOffice.org Novell Edition[1]
[edit] Office suites for Mac OS X
[edit] Proprietary suites
- iWork — Apple Inc.'s Mac-only office suite. Includes Pages, for word-processing, Numbers for spreadsheets, and Keynote, for presentations. iWork replaces the now-discontinued AppleWorks suite.
- MarinerPak — MarinerPak includes Mariner Write, a fully-featured word processor, and Mariner Calc, a fully-featured Spreadsheet application.
- Microsoft Office for Mac — Microsoft's office suite for Mac operating systems. The current version is a universal binary that supports both PowerPC- and Intel-based Macs. Prior editions ran on PowerPC systems and Intel based systems using Rosetta[2].
- Microsoft Works - 4.0 is the last version for Mac.
- StarOffice - Sun's supported version of OpenOffice.org added support for Intel-based Mac OS X systems with StarOffice 9.
[edit] Freeware suites
- IBM Lotus Symphony 1.2.1 - freeware word, spreadsheet and presentation suite.
[edit] Open source suites
- KOffice
- NeoOffice — NeoOffice is a Mac-specific free/open-source software development project, to integrating OpenOffice.org with native features of Mac OS X such as Quartz and Aqua, and by so doing giving the suite a more "Mac-like" look and feel.
- OpenOffice.org runs on Mac natively in an Aqua version.
[edit] Office suites for Unix/Unix-like operating systems
[edit] Proprietary suites
- EIOffice (Evermore Integrated Office) — a Chinese / English / Japanese / French language integrated office suite. Available for Windows / Linux operating systems
- SoftMaker Office 2008
[edit] Freeware suites
- IBM Lotus Symphony - freeware word, spreadsheet and presentation suite.
[edit] Open source suites
- AUIS — an office suite developed by Carnegie Mellon University and named after Andrew Carnegie.
- GNOME Office — includes AbiWord, Gnumeric and GNOME-DB data access components. It is a part of the GNOME environment for the X Window System (on Linux, the BSDs, and other Unix-like operating systems).
- Jambo OpenOffice — a Swahili version of OpenOffice.org.
- KOffice — a free, integrated office suite for KDE.
- MagyarOffice and EuroOffice — Hungarian and European multilingual commercial office suites based on OpenOffice.org
- Siag Office — a free office suite for Unix systems. Primarily written by programmer Ulric Erikkson, with contributions from other authors. Includes a word processor, a spreadsheet, and an animation program.
[edit] Online office suites
- Google Docs — an AJAX-based online office suite from Google, Inc. The suite includes a word processor, a spreadsheet program, and a presentation editor. Available free and as an enterprise service.
- Microsoft Office Live - an online office suite from Microsoft that runs exclusively on Windows and Macintosh operating systems. Provides email and office document creation; as both free and enterprise services.
- OpenGoo — an open source, fully featured online office suite. The application can be downloaded and installed on a server.
- ShareOffice — a Web-based office suite from ShareMethods. This suite utilizes separate word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation applications from other vendors. It is distributed through Salesforce.com's AppExchange program.
- Simdesk — an online office suite from Simdesk Technologies, Inc. This suite offers partial compatibility with the Microsoft Office file formats (Word, Excel, and Powerpoint). With a monthly subscription to Simdesk Services (costing $3.50 – $20 per month), one is allowed to install the application anywhere.
- ThinkFree Office — an office suite written in Java, from ThinkFree, Inc. It includes a word processor (Write), a spreadsheet (Calc), and a presentation program (Show). For Microsoft Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X.
- Zoho Office Suite — a free online office suite from AdventNet, Inc. Includes a word processor, spreadsheet, presentations, and collaboration groupware.
[edit] Comparison of general and technical information
The following tables compare general and technical information for a number of office suites. Please see the individual products' articles for further information. The table only includes systems that are widely used and currently available.
[edit] General information
| Developer | First public release | Predecessor | Latest Stable version | Operating system | Microsoft Office (.doc, .xls) support | Office Open XML support | OpenDocument support | License | Online capability | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ability Office | Ability Plus Software | 1985 | — | 5.00 | Windows | ? | No | Planned for Ability Office 6 | Proprietary | ? |
| AppleWorks | Apple | 1991 | ClarisWorks | 6.2.9 | Mac OS, Mac OS X and Windows | Yes | No | No | Proprietary | ? |
| Celframe Office | Celframe | 2006 (Windows) | Celframe Office 2006 Celframe Office Vista - 2007 | Celframe Office 2008 | Windows | Yes | Yes | Yes | Proprietary | Celframe Office Online - 2011 |
| GNOME Office | GNOME Foundation AbiSource |
? | — | 2.4.5/1.6.3/1.9 & 0.62 | Cross-platform | ? | (Gnumeric has limited SpreadsheetML support) | (Gnumeric has limited ODF support) | GPL | ? |
| GobeProductive | Gobe Software | 1998 | — | 3.04 / 2.01 | Windows and BeOS | ? | No | No | Proprietary | ? |
| Google Apps Google Docs |
2006 | — | beta | Cross-platform | Yes | Yes[3] | Yes | Proprietary | Fully online | |
| IBM Lotus Symphony | IBM | 2007 | OpenOffice.org | 1.3 | Windows, Linux and Mac OS X | Yes | (Import only)[4] | Yes | Proprietary | ? |
| iWork | Apple | 2005 | AppleWorks[5] | '09 | Mac OS X | Yes | (Import only support, with the ability to save a modified document in iWork, Office (non-xml) and generic formats) | No | Proprietary | iWork.com |
| Kingsoft Office (WPS Office) |
Kingsoft | 1988 | WPS (word processor) | 2009 | Windows and Linux | Yes | (Import only support for .docx and .xlsx) | No[6] | Proprietary | ? |
| KOffice | KDE Project | 1998 | — | 2.0.1 | BSD, Linux, Solaris (Mac OS X and Windows in KDE 4) | (Import only) | No | Yes | LGPL and GPL | ? |
| Lotus SmartSuite | IBM | 1992[7] | — | 9.8 | Windows and OS/2 | ? | No | No | Proprietary | ? |
| MarinerPak | Mariner Software | 1996 | — | 10.0 | Mac OS and Mac OS X | ? | No | No | Proprietary | ? |
| Microsoft Office | Microsoft | 1990 (Macintosh), 1992 (Windows) | Microsoft Word Microsoft Excel PowerPoint | 2007 (12.0) (Windows), 2008 (12.1.7) (Macintosh) | Windows and Macintosh | Yes | Yes Office 2007 supports ECMA-376 1st edition.[8] Office 2010 will support ISO/IEC IS 29500.[9]) | Yes (Native support starting with Microsoft Office 2007 SP2[9]; several free plugins for older versions) | Proprietary | Microsoft Office Live |
| Microsoft Works | Microsoft | 1986 | — | (9.0) (Windows), (4.0) (Macintosh) | Windows and Macintosh | ? | Yes | No | Proprietary | ? |
| NeoOffice | Planamesa Software | 2005-06-02 | OpenOffice.org 1.1 for Mac OS X | 2.2.5 | Mac OS X | Yes | (Supported since version 2.1) | Yes | GPL | ? |
| OpenGoo | Feng Office | 2007 | — | 1.3.1 | Cross-platform | ? | No | No | AGPL | Fully online |
| OpenOffice.org | OpenOffice.org Organization | 2001 October | StarOffice | 3.1.0 (all versions require Java runtime environment) |
Cross-platform | Yes | (With several free plugins, and full import/export support) | Yes | LGPL | yes - with several free extensions |
| ShareOffice | ShareMethods | 2007 May | — | Cross-platform | ? | No | Yes | Proprietary | Fully online | |
| SoftMaker Office | SoftMaker | 1989 | — | 2008 (Windows, Linux, Pocket PC, Windows CE), 2006 (FreeBSD, Handheld PC) |
Linux, PocketPC, FreeBSD, and Windows | ? | No | TextMaker | Proprietary | ? |
| StarOffice | Sun Microsystems | 1995 | StarWriter | 9.0 | Cross-platform | Yes | (Import only) | Yes | Proprietary | yes - with several free extensions |
| StarOffice from Google Pack |
Sun Microsystems | 1995 | StarWriter | 8.0 - Update 10 | Cross-platform | Yes | No | Yes | Proprietary | yes - with several free extensions |
| ThinkFree Office | Haansoft, Inc. | 1998 | — | 3.5 | Cross-platform | ? | Yes | No[10][11] | Proprietary | Yes. ThinkFree.com |
| WordPerfect Office | Corel | 1991 | WordPerfect (1982) | X4 | Windows | ? | (Import only support for .docx, .xlsx, .pptx) | (Import only support for .odt) | Proprietary | ? |
| ZCubes | ZCubes Inc. | 2006 | — | 2007 | Cross-platform | ? | No | Yes | Proprietary | Fully online |
| Zoho Office Suite | AdventNet | ? | — | Cross-platform | Yes | (Supports OOXML word processing files) | Yes | Proprietary | Fully online | |
| Developer | First public release | Predecessor | Stable version | Operating system | Microsoft Office (.doc, .xls...) support | Office Open XML support | OpenDocument Support | License | Online Capability |
[edit] Operating system support
The operating systems the office suites were designed to run on without emulation; for the given office suite/OS combination, there are five possibilities:
- No indicates that it does not exist or was never released.
- Partial indicates that while the office suite works, it lacks important functionality compared to versions for other OSs; it is still being developed however.
- Beta indicates that while a version of the office suite is fully functional and has been released, it is still in development (e.g. for stability).
- Yes indicates that the office suite has been officially released in a fully functional, stable version.
- Dropped indicates that while the office suite works, new versions are no longer being released for the indicated OS; the number in parentheses is the last known stable version which was officially released for that OS.
Please note that the list is not exhaustive, but rather reflects the most common operating systems today.
| Office suite | Windows | Mac OS X | Linux | BSD | Unix |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ability Office | Windows 98 or later | No | No | No | No |
| AppleWorks | Yes | Dropped (6.2.9) | No | No | No |
| Celframe Office | Windows 98 or later | Yes with plugins | No | No | No |
| GNOME Office | Partial [12] | Partial [13] | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Gobe Productive | Windows 98 or later | 1Q '08 | 1Q '08 | No | No |
| Google Apps | Yes (fully online) | Yes (fully online) | Yes (fully online) | Yes (fully online) | Yes (fully online) |
| IBM Lotus Symphony | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? | ? |
| iWork | No | Yes | No | No | No |
| Kingsoft Office (WPS Office) | Yes | No | some versions[14] | No | No |
| KOffice | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Lotus SmartSuite | Yes | ? | ? | ? | ? |
| MarinerPak | No | Yes | No | No | No |
| Microsoft Office | Yes | Yes (no support for VBA in Excel) | No | No | No |
| Microsoft Works | Yes | Dropped (4.0; Classic only) | No | No | No |
| NeoOffice | No | Mac OS X v10.3 or above | No | No | No |
| OpenGoo | Yes (fully online) | Yes (fully online) | Yes (fully online) | Yes (fully online) | Yes (fully online) |
| OpenOffice.org | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| ShareOffice | Yes (fully online) | Yes (fully online) | Yes (fully online) | Yes (fully online) | Yes (fully online) |
| SoftMaker Office | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No |
| StarOffice | Yes | Yes (Intel only) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| ThinkFree Office | Yes (fully online) | Yes (fully online) | Yes (fully online) | Yes (fully online) | Yes (fully online) |
| WordPerfect Office | 98, Me, 2000, XP, Vista | No | No | No | No |
| ZCubes | Yes (fully online) | Yes (fully online) | Yes (fully online) | Yes (fully online) | Yes (fully online) |
| Zoho | Yes (fully online) | Yes (fully online) | Yes (fully online) | Yes (fully online) | Yes (fully online) |
| Office suite | Windows | Mac OS X | Linux | BSD | Unix |
[edit] Main components
[edit] Offline capabilities
[edit] Online capabilities
| Web design | Collaboration | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Ability Office | No | No | No |
| AppleWorks | Yes[15] | No | No |
| Celframe Office | Celframe Mail | Celframe Publishing, Celframe Write Inbuilt | Google Docs, plugin in all apps |
| GNOME Office | Evolution[15] | No | No |
| GobeProductive | No | Yes | No |
| Google Apps | Gmail | Google Page Creator | Yes |
| IBM Lotus Symphony | No | No | No |
| iWork | Mail[15] | iWeb[16] | iWork.com |
| Kingsoft Office (WPS Office) | No | No | No |
| KOffice | Kontact[15] | Quanta+[15] | No |
| Lotus SmartSuite | No | Lotus FastSite | Yes |
| MarinerPak | No | No | No |
| Microsoft Office | Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Entourage | Microsoft SharePoint Designer | Microsoft Groove |
| Microsoft Works | No | No | No |
| NeoOffice | No | NeoOffice Writer[20] | No |
| OpenGoo | beta | No | Yes |
| OpenOffice.org | No | OpenOffice.org Writer[20] | No |
| ShareOffice | No | No | Yes |
| SoftMaker Office | No | No | No |
| StarOffice | No | StarWriter[20] | No |
| WordPerfect Office | WordPerfect MAIL | No | No |
| ZCubes | No | Yes | Yes |
| Web design | Collaboration |
[edit] Unicode support
Not all office suites support Unicode; some have restricted Unicode support or, like Corel WordPerfect Office, use their own encoding standard.
[edit] Historical
- AppleWorks (previously known as "ClarisWorks") — an early Mac Office suite. It has morphed and branched into AppleWorks and GoBe Productive. When the original developers split up, ClarisWorks continued as AppleWorks after being bought by Apple, and GoBeProductive was redeveloped from the ground up using ideas from the original. Apple discontinued this suite after the release of iWork '08 in August 2007.[21]
- IBM Works — was an office suite for the IBM OS/2 operating system. It included word processing, spreadsheet, database and PIM applications.
- Island Office was available in the 1990s on many Unix platforms. This included Island Write, Draw, Paint, Presents, Calc, Chart, Table and Equation. Island Draw was, at the time, an extremely powerful PostScript editor. The company that created this software was/is called Island Software.
- Lotus Symphony — Following the popularity of office suites made by competitors, the makers of the wildly popular Lotus 123, tried their hand at a suite for DOS. (Name resurrected by IBM in September 2007 as a free OpenOffice based suite)
- Lotus Jazz — Mac sister product to Lotus Symphony.
- LotusWorks — DOS and Windows suite containing a word processor, spreadsheet, database, graphing tools and telecommunications (modem terminal) module.
- Open Access — Integrated software by Software Products International (SPI).
- Q&A (software) — Featured a database management system, "intelligent assistant", and integrated word processor.
- WindowWorks — Successor to LotusWorks above.
- Xoom Office — Historical but still available on eBay and elsewhere. Produced by the former makers of WordStar.
[edit] See also
- List of collaborative software
- List of online spreadsheets
- List of word processors
- Online office suite
- Office Open XML software
- OpenDocument software
- Web desktop
- Web operating system
[edit] References
- ^ a b NOVELL: SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop: OpenOffice.org
- ^ MacTech Editorial Staff. "Office 2004 Benchmarks on Intel-based Macs". MacTech. http://www.mactech.com/articles/mactech/Vol.22/22.05/Office2004Benchmark/. Retrieved on 2008-04-06.
- ^ http://www.neowin.net/news/main/09/06/02/finally-google-docs-can-open-docx-and-xlsx-files
- ^ "What's new in Lotus Symphony 1.3". IBM. http://symphony.lotus.com/software/lotus/symphony/help.nsf/ReleaseNotes. Retrieved on 2009-06-11.
- ^ "Apple Unveils iWork ’05". Apple, Inc.. 2005-01-11. http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2005/jan/11iwork.html.
- ^ Kingsoft Office 2009 has no ODF support [1]
- ^ Release date of Lotus SmartSuite from http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3563/is_n7_v9/ai_14346979
- ^ No OOXML in Office 2007 service pack
- ^ a b Microsoft Expands List of Formats Supported in Microsoft Office
- ^ ThinkFree on Ubuntu [2]
- ^ ThinkFree features [3]
- ^ Only Abiword, Gnumeric, GIMP and Inkscape are available for MS Windows.
- ^ Only Abiword is available as a native application. Using X11 one can run GIMP and Inkscape. With X11 and DarwinPorts - also Gnumeric.
- ^ Kingsoft Office 2009 - supported operating systems[4]
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Not included in this office suite, but provided in the Desktop Environment.
- ^ a b With additional iLife software included with every new Macintosh
- ^ With additional software from FileMaker Inc., an Apple Inc. subsidiary.
- ^ Native support starting with Microsoft Office 2007 SP2; free Microsoft plugins are available for older versions [5]
- ^ a b German only
- ^ a b c When in WYSIWYG HTML editing mode.
- ^ Evans, Jonny (2007-08-15). "Apple cans AppleWorks". Macworld UK. http://www.macworld.co.uk/macsoftware/news/index.cfm?RSS&NewsID=18827. Retrieved on 2007-08-15.
