Sick of Microsoft Office?

[nsmaf7]

If like me your sick of using the big corporate Microsoft Office then I have a couple of free alternatives.

OpenOffice, this is completely free and is very decent software.

Kingsoft Office, there's 2 options with this. 1st is free software Writer, Spreadsheets and Presentation they do offer a paid suite which I think gives a couple extra programs. The best bit about using these programs is that you can also download an Android App and edit any of your documents on your phone.

Don't worry if you have loads of MO documents because you can load and save files in those formats.

 

[SUroot]

Now I use Linux so I am familiar with OpenOffice and LibreOffice. They are reasonable alternatives for the casual user but I much prefer using MS Office. I have a Windows 7 VM in Unity mode on my Linux Machine.

 

[nsmaf7]

The Kingsoft programs are really just mirrorored versions of MO but free

 

[SUroot]

Its still Windows only though so for me I would still have to keep a VM. I'll give it a go though.

 

[zuben el genub]

Been sick of Microsoft Office since DOS.

 

[argedion]

Been sick of Microsoft since DOS.

^ that sums it up for me

I wouldn't use Open Office anymore its owned by Oracle. I use Libre Office which is the guys who started Open Office which was built off of Star Office. Open Office used to be a Sun project but since Oracle bought them out it now its theirs however Sun did make all of its parts of the Suite Open Source so hopefully no law suits will be filed anytime soon but we all know oracle.

 

[zuben el genub]

I liked WordPerfect. Corel made a mess of some of it, but did keep the basics.
WP was always better at desktop publishing, even in DOS (WP6 had GUI)and reveal codes is great.

 

[johnlgalt]

I'm getting to be a digger and bigger fan of Google Docs.

However, being in academia, M$ Word has some fabulous citation and reference features built in that make it almost a necessary evil to have. I've learned how to edit the .XML files to make them appear exactly as I want them to appear (both inline as well as at the end, in a Works Cited list) as my masters program uses a modified style that is really a hybrid of two major styles with minor modifications.

It has made writing both my proposals and my thesis a lot easier than it normally would be.

 

[mikedt]

Now I would love to be able to ditch MS Office and use something FOSS like Libre Office instead. But unfortunately many of the People's Education Press (PEP) and English Weekly PPTs we use here don't render or show correctly with non-MS suites like Libre Office. Problem seems to be is that Chinese text sometimes has formatting problems, becomes jumbled or misplaced and is occasionally unreadable in PPT slides. I find a similar thing with some of the Android office suites I've tried as well, like Kingsoft or Quickoffice.

 

[linuxrich]

OpenOffice.org isn't owned by Oracle anymore, it's an Apache Software Foundation project. I'd be inclined to keep O and LibreOffice around as although they're very similar for historical reasons, they're likely to start getting different features and capabilities as the 'fork widens'...

 

[lenOx]

I used OpenOffice for a while, then moved to LibreOffice, I felt like it was a nicer UI.

But it's best to keep MS Office just in-case, as most places do use that and all the formatting and such sometimes may not appear as well in the open source suites.

 

[IOWA]

As much of an Open Source fan that I am, IMO nothing comes close to the Microsoft Office suite, yet. I'd love for a company like Adobe, Mozilla, Google to come out with a desktop client that is as feature rich as Microsoft Office, AND make it cross platform.

 

[argedion]

Even Colleges require you to have MS Office (2007 or higher) Which I hate because I am definitely not into making Gates and Co even richer. I only use office products to read something that someone emailed me. For the most part Libre Office is more than sufficient for the task. My wife is in school however and needs MS Office

 

[Dawei1980]

I prefer Kingsoft too. It's free and the interface is more slick than Open Office's which I find to be a bit archaic.

 

[saptech]

MS doesn't make Office for Linux so I won't use it at home...I do use it at work since it's there dollar!

 

[SUroot]

I have a win7 vm primarily to use office.

I wanted to make a quick expenses spreadsheet the other day. LibreOffice annoyed me within a minute. Maybe its unfamiliarity, but the icons were garish too.

Went to mso excel and productivity doubled.

I guess you can't easily replace excel, especially when you're a VBA whore like me

 

[zuben el genub]

Here's some news about Libre Office:
The Future of LibreOffice

I don't use any of them - I still have Wordperfect Office. I love "reveal codes"
Since I no longer need a spreadsheet - I went to Abiword on Ubuntu.

 

[MacFett]

Office XP (2001) has been my favorite. I've tried 2010 and did not like it at all.

I have LibreOffice installed (as well as Office XP) and use LibreWriter, but Calc will never replace Excel.

I used to use OpenOffice, but as mentioned the GUI is archaic feeling.

I've meant to try Kingsoft for a while, but never remember until after I am done with my project.

I would love to be able to ditch MS Office, but until someone puts out an Excel killer I will always have it installed.

 

[MacFett]

Hopefully this means good things:

Microsoft opens Office to open source standards - Open Source Insider

 

[SandMulls]

I have been using Microsoft Office for years and although I have tried using OpenOffice before, I still reverted back to using MS Office. I think it's because I always stick to something that I have already been used to.

 

[Bob Maxey]

The Kingsoft programs are really just mirrorored versions of MO but free

As I recall, the basic Kingsoft suite is free but there is a paid professional version that is (?) 100.00 or thereabouts. Fifty pounds or so. I tried the free version and it changes the Word formatting I tried so hard to create in the first place.

There seems to be something "wrong" with how these free packages deal with Word Styples, but I'll leave that discussion up to those that use these free packages.

I think for most people, just about any free Office suite is just fine. Either KS or OO or Libre or whatever. I still prefer MS Office because I know my way around. I am not sure the free versions handle VBA either, but I do not know. For some of us, VBA is vital.

Just remember, free is not always free if you consider the learning curve.

That said, I can earn my keep with nothing more than a 486, a 40mb HDD and 8MB of memory and a test editor, so I need very little.

I think until something revolutionary arrives (and I have no idea what that might mean) I'll stick with MS Office.

 

[horsecharles]

As much of an Open Source fan that I am, IMO nothing comes close to the Microsoft Office suite, yet. I'd love for a company like Adobe, Mozilla, Google to come out with a desktop client that is as feature rich as Microsoft Office, AND make it cross platform.

Totally agree with this and most other pro-MS Office comments.
For serious n heavy duty work nothing else will do for the plethora of features n options.
Plus, once something's created in it, you really cannot use any other alternative for editing...AND to boot the opposite is not true; in fact, work can be converted into tons of other non MS file formats.
All it needs is a photo suite incorporated....even a simple one, to become the only program the average business office would need.

It's the poster child of you get what u pay for.

Hhmmm.....

 

[BS1397]

I have tried every alternative to MS over the years but non of these managed to persuade me to switch over. If I am to chose the best version then I would have said Office 2003 without that stupid ribbon system which wastes so much display, so I have it turned off all the time.

I think there is no chance in hell that I will ever allow anything Adobe in my PC, it is usually so bloated and buggy that it is constantly asks for updating (to fix bugs and introduce more) when it is not eating resources like The Hungry Caterpillar.

I think Microsoft Office for OSX is about the best GUI ever.

 

[zoxxo]

I have been an Office user for years, but I got turned off when Microsoft introduced that damn ribbon. So many experienced, loyal Office users spoke out against the ribbon, but Microsoft always know best and said it was our future. Now that the ribbon will start infecting the rest of Microsoft software I'll stop upgrading now...

 

[BS1397]

I hate the ribbon too, but I just turn it off and get on nicely without it.