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Free alternatives to Microsoft Word
By Daniel | May 7, 2008
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If you have ever bought or looked at the price of Microsoft Office you’ve found out that it isn’t cheap. If you’re a Mac user you’ve probably seen iWork. The price for Microsoft Office standard edition is only $399.95. For me that is a lot to spend when I’ll probably only use a fraction of the features available in it. You can save some money by getting the student edition if it applies and that is only $149.95. iWork is the Mac software for documents and spreadsheets and is a little more reasonable at $79.00 for a single license. Here are three alternatives to Microsoft Office and iWork:
- OpenOffice.org
- NeoOffice
- Google Docs
OpenOffice.org is an open-source office software suite for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, and databases. It is available for several operating systems including Windows, Mac OSX, Linux, and Solaris. One important feature available is the ability to create .pdf files which isn’t available in some of the expensive alternatives. It is free to use for any purpose, or make copies. I’ve only heard good things about this software and it will read documents from other office suite programs.
NeoOffice is for the Mac OSX platform and provides the same word processing, spreadsheet, presentation, drawing, and database programs needed in an office suite. This software is funded completely by the time and donations of its users. It will support Microsoft Office files except for some of the complex ones. Again this software is completely free, but donations are welcomed to support the time and effort that is put into creating and updating the software.
Google Docs is the third alternative. This is primarily used online with your Google login, but files can be accessed off-line as well. This can be handy if you want to access and edit your documents from any location. You can create documents, spreadsheets and presentations and share them with whoever you choose. This service is free and will recognize existing formats of your current documents.
These 3 suggestions are very good choices and there are a few differences. They’re not always as stable as Microsoft or Apple due to less rigorous testing and it is recommended to save your work more frequently. Each option has slight difference that might make one better than the other depending on what is important for you, but all of them are less expensive than the competition.
Topics: Personal Finances, Saving |