6 Free Alternatives to Microsoft Office
Over the years, Microsoft Office has become the most preferred and advanced office suite. However the high price tags attached to legal and licensed copies of Microsoft Office can become a burden in the long run.
Fear no more recently lots of alternative office suites have sprouted up. They not maybe as comprehensive as Microsoft Office, but they still manage to get the work done. Here are my 6 alternative office suite picks.
1. Google Docs – Google Docs is probably your best bet against the monopoly of Microsoft office. Assuming you a decent internet connection, Google Docs includes a web-based Word Processor, Spreadsheet application, and a Presentation app. Best of all its free.
2. Zoho- Zoho is another great online office productivity suite. It features a word processor, spreadsheet and presentation apps, but also includes online project management, CRM solutions, web conferencing, online database with reports, online planner, group chat, wiki, and lots more. Every things online!Only thing you need is a decent connection.
4. OpenOffice – OpenOffice.org is a free and open source office suite, including word processor, spreadsheet, presentation, vector drawing and database management. It is available for many different platforms, including Microsoft Windows, Unix-like systems with the X Window System including GNU/Linux, BSD, Solaris and Mac OS X.
2. Thinkfree – ThinkFree Office is another application suite comprised of word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation graphics software-all usable online and off. Thinkfree also has advanced collaboration features such that users can share, edit, and contribute their ideas remotely.
5. StarOffice – StarOffice 8 is a full-featured office suite that contains a word processor, a spreadsheet tool, applications for presentations, databases, math formulas and drawing. It has support for most Microsoft Office formats (except for the formats introduced in Office 2007), but it can also export documents as PDF out of the box. The software normally costs $70, but it’s available for free in Google Pack.
6 Ajax Write : ajaxWrite is a web-based word processor that can read and write Microsoft Word and other standard document formats. Simply point your fav browser to ajaxwrite.com and in seconds a full-featured program will be available for you to open, edit, print and save. Best part its free.
Pranjal : Nice post! And thanks for recommending Zoho to your readers :-)
@Arvind
Zoho is quite good.
Your missed CatalystOffice!!
@Matt
did i.
I’ve tried openoffice before. It’s quite similar but still have different in several little details. So, I still feel better to work with Microsoft Office…I don’t know if it is a kind of addict :).
@Diana
Free alternatives aren’t close to Microsoft Office functionality or workflow! even i’m a Microsoft addict!
Hi,
great overview!
by the way, to find alternatives you can try http://dooblet.com
it is quite a new service, but it usually manages to give a hint about alternatives to all things that make sense :)
e.g. for “microsoft office” it is:
***** microsoft works
***** works
*** star office
*** open office
** openoffice
* wordperfect
* appleworks
* iwork
have a nice day!
Sweet!
Pretty nice list, some I didn’t know about, I haven’t heard of star office in a long time, I thought they had merged with openoffice.org or something.
ALL OF YOU SUCK DICK!!!!!!!!! HAHA
idiot
@Post author : Good post, thank you.
I suggest you can test Kingsoft Office, the download link http://ksoffice.net/download.htm It really can be said the best alternative to Microsoft Office basic.
I like Kingsoft Office also, it so familiar appearance like office 2003 and supporting read to office 2007, and will be no using more space…it’s simple
Damn, that’s crazy…
amen！
Well, I love OpenOffice as as alternative to Microsoft Office.
For more details on OpenOffice, check out:
http://www.webtechquery.com/index.php/2010/04/microsoft-office-alternate-free-openoffice/
Is there a particular reason you failed to mention Softmaker Office 2006 which is also free and fully ODF compatible?
http://www.softmakeroffice.com/
Or did you not make much of an effort to look for other options?
My review of SMO2006 is that it doesn’t look as nice as Open Office, but still has all the same features and functions. It’s also smaller and faster, much quicker as a portable application. No program is perfect, but SMO2006 does the job and does it well. I use Open Office on my home and work PCs, SMO2006 on the go.
The best, complete and most affordable office i have ever used will be Celframe Office. I was a open source lover before but constant issues with learning stuff the open source way, the file alignment problems and other things drove me to buy a commercial product, i wanted to purchase MS Office, then a friend of mine from NY mentioned about Celframe Office a product from NY and asked to give it a try. I tried their 30 days trial and it just blew my mind. It was exactly like MS Office, only much faster, cheaper and didn’t crash LOL!
Now all my family, friends and my company use Celframe Office
i use both open office and microsoft office and i would say that microsoft office is more responsive and user friendly .“
MS office is responsive and user friendly. But to power you need money. Invest more money in every 2-3 years for updgrades. Also welcome to ms office viruses.
Go Libreoffice . Yes less responsive. Less Virus. Less Money.
You can do everything in Libreoffice those can do with MS Office.
Even though google docs has a lot of advantages, it’s main problem is you need to upload/download documents to be able to use them.
To bypass this problem,I created a small tool, gdocsopen, which automatically uploads the document to google docs, when you double click it. Then, when you’re done editing, it brings your changes local.