Alternate to MS Office !?

MT_

Hi Guys, I am looking for an alternate to MS Office for home laptop (which I am using for part-time freelance work, not on office but programming related). Buying MS Office is costly and can't afford at least at this moment. :( I need word and excel only. I saw few alternates like Apache OpenOffice, LibreOffice, KingSoft Office etc. I know free ones may not be as best as MS Office but which would be closest? Anyone has first-hand experience to guide which one is more like MS office? :confused:

Thanks, Milind

Dr Walt Fair PE

I've used OpenOffice and it does OK for my personal stuff. On the other hand, Office 365 is only $99/year and if your freelance work won't cover $99/year in expenses, I think I'd call it a hobby, not work.

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MT_

Thanks for the reply. OpenOffice seems promising one. Freelance work is s/w related not ms- office related, sorry for the confusion in original post :-( specified that in the post now.

Thanks, Milind

Mike Hankey

I've used OpenOffice for many years, I don't use it a lot but it does what I need it to do.

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Lost User

Another vote for OpenOffice. I've got it on USB, and also use Calc and Writer on systems where Office is installed. It does not come with a Ribbon, does not have those annoying and useless gradients. It's small and fast, but the way it displays a Word-document might differ slightly from Word itself, which may result in empty pages when viewing it in Word.

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Brisingr Aerowing

Personally I like LibreOffice, as it has a ton of features. It is a very active fork of OpenOffice that was created when Oracle bought Sun Microsystems, due to fears about what Oracle would do to the suite. It even has LDAP Support (e.g. Active Directory)[^]!!!

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Nemanja Trifunovic

If you are connected to the Internet all the time, take a look at MS Office Online[^]. It is free and may be enough for your needs.

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Chris Losinger

Google Docs is good. their Sheet thing isn't as powerful as Excel (nothing is), but it's good for basic stuff.

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Joe Woodbury

I've tried the various OpenOffice products and hated them. Office 365 Personal can be purchased from Amazon for $69.99! If desperate, log into your OneDrive account and use the online Office stuff; it's pretty fantastic.

Slacker007

Google docs?

ZurdoDev

OpenOffice and Google Docs. Both great and both free.

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Pualee

I used OpenOffice a while back. I didn't like it because... it looks like it is compatible with MS Office, in most ways, but is just enough different to drive you nuts. If you are handing off any documents in electronic form to an office user (or vice versa) you could get into compatibility/display problems which will look unprofessional. On the other hand, if none of the documents will leave your computer, and it is just for tracking your own information, it will be fine.

mikepwilson

Yeah, I'll second OpenOffice. I DO use Office 365 at home. But that's only because I'm doing some work at home that requires it. OpenOffice does far far more than I need, and does it well.

TheGreatAndPowerfulOz

I would go for LibreOffice instead. It's a fork of OpenOffice since Oracle screwed the OpenOffice pooch. Also, look into Office365 from Microsoft. It's online and I believe there's a free version. Also, for simple documents, Google docs is pretty good. And the Google's spreadsheet is actually fairly rich.

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Mark_Wallace

Kingsoft rocks.

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Jeremy Falcon

It cost like $200 to buy Word and Excel. I'm not *that* pro MS usually, but $200 for all the crap you can do with those two programs isn't that bad of a deal. That being said, last I checked OpenOffice was extremely compatible. Just as another alternative, the KDE project makes Calligra[^].

Jeremy Falcon

Mycroft Holmes

POV - US$200 seen from India is one hell of a lot more than US$200 seen from US (or Singapore for that matter). I could be disparaging about Indians not wanting to spend money on software when they are in the industry but that would be bigoted/racist or just plain rude!

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JMK NI

For pure comedic value have you read the reviews for Microsoft's cheapest offering on their website, gave me a laugh anyway :laugh: http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msuk/en_GB/pdp/productID.260260400[^]

bkyee

Since you mentioned programming related, I assume you are doing VBA macro for your customers. Your customers are most likely use MS office, and your programming work with Office alternates will not able to use in their environment. I believe Office 365 Home is the cheapest solution.

Asgard25

Used OpenOffice for many years, actually still have it installed on my personal laptop. Works just great:thumbsup: