Mozilla Firefox
Probably the first thing you do when you sit down at the computer is open a web browser to read your morning news. Many people are happy using the default browser installed on their computer (usually Internet Explorer); however, there is a very good alternative that is (of course!) free and, quite frankly, addictive. Mozilla Firefox is much faster and more secure than IE; the best part is you can customize it with Add-ons that add functionality to your browser. There are hundreds of add-ons to choose from which means everyone's Firefox installation will end up being unique to them.
You can also choose from a variety of "skins" which change the look and feel of the browser, from the buttons to the color scheme.
Mozilla Thunderbird
We spend and untold amount of time checking email every day. Waiting for a slow application to load or fighting with a program that just doesn't do what you want can really ruin your day. Thunderbird is developed by the same great community that develops Firefox. As a result you can install Thunderbird add-ons just as you can in Firefox that will change the program to do just what you want it to. In addition to handling all your emails, Thunderbird can also be used to manage your RSS feeds. This is great news, especially if you are subscribed to many feeds. Thnderbird allows you to see at a glance what emails and RSS feeds haven't been read yet by clicking on the Unread Folders link. This can add up to hours a day that you would otherwise spend searching your inbox for new messages.
Primo PDF
This is a simple program that you can download for free that acts as another printer on your system. This means that any program that allows you to print your work, be it graphics, a word document, spreadsheet, or power point slides, can now print your work directly to PDF. Without this nifty program you'd have to shell out hundreds of dollars to buy Adobe Acrobat; with it you can generate PDFs at the click of a button.
The Gnumeric Spreadsheet
The Gnumeric Spreadsheet is part of the GNOME desktop, a free desktop environment for the Linux operating system. However, Gnumeric is not just for Linux - you can also download a Windows version. It offers all the features of Microsoft Excel and can import and export files to and from Excel so you can share your work with colleagues using MS Office. Gnumeric is fast, accurate, and best of all free.
AbiWord
AbiWord is a fast and free cross platform word processor. It offers all the features of MS Word and, like Gnumeric, can import and export files to and from Word so you aren't cut off from colleagues using the MS Office software.
Photoscape
Photoscape is great piece of software for taking screen captures and doing very basic image manipulation. It is incredibly easy to learn, makes it vey easy to take a screen capture either of the whole screen or a specific window and has a batch editor for those times you need to work with a group of photos. Tools include a color picker, Raw converter, and an animated gif creator.
The Gimp
For those who need a full featured graphics program The Gimp is available as a free download. This is a program the rivals Photoshop when it comes to features. The interface is definitely not as intuitive or easy to learn as Photoshop but there are many tutorials available online and once you get used to using the program you will be able to do any image manipulation tasks, whether it's modifying photos you've taken or creating images from scratch.
These are
all some great tools that are backed by the Open Source Community which is dedicated to developing full featured applications freely available for all. There is ongoing development of all of these programs and new features are always being added. They will help you create a strong collection of small office software.