Alternate to MS Office !?

[Simon ORiordan from UK]

Libre Office. Open office was 'bought' by Oracle via Sun; last time I looked at it, it was obsolete and virtually unmaintained, although it went to Apache Foundation in 2011 and they may be maintaining it more actively. When Oracle took over, the developers promptly left (so that all they had was a collection of unmaintained and obsoleting code), and started LibreOffice. Not being sure, I would compare Libre and Open. I use Libre on my personal boxes, it handles practically any MS file type, including 2010 Docx made with Templates, although there are some macro compatibility issues at deeper levels with Excel. This means that if your xls projects are complex, some parts won't automate in Libre. I would recommend it; I last looked at oo in 2012 and it was pretty poor, although as I said, Apache now has it.

[Rage]

You can purchase original MSOffice licences for a cheap as a few dozen dollars on ebay. (legally, if needed said !). I for instance have a full professional install of MSOffice 2010 on my home computer, bought for $35 two years ago.

~RaGE();

I think words like 'destiny' are a way of trying to find order where none exists. - Christian Graus Entropy isn't what it used to.

[Bassam Abdul Baki]

There's also FreeOffice[^] and a few more from Wikipedia[^].

Web - BM - RSS - Math - LinkedIn

[MT_]

Thanks. That seems to be better choice compared to Google Docs. I was looking for something similar, probably I didn't try hard. Thanks.

Thanks, Milind

[Ingo]

Anna-Jayne Metcalfe wrote:

Ditto, though I've found Publisher and Outlook hard to leave behind.

:wtf: If a customer would ask me to do something in Publisher, i would role laughing on the floor. Of course I could do for a minimum 2000 Euros per Hour, but it's lost lifetime. I could do the same with Indesign (or another Desktop-Publishing software) in a quarter of time, I could do it better, it would look nicer and I would have fun doing it. MS Publisher is the silliest bunch of crap I ever started on my computer. X|

SharePoint Consultant and Developer at acocon Author of Primary ROleplaying SysTem I'm the ninth in a row of seven!

[Anna Jayne Metcalfe]

That's a valid opinion. but I don't think it's helpful in this context.

Anna :rose: Tech Blog | Visual Lint "Why would anyone prefer to wield a weapon that takes both hands at once, when they could use a lighter (and obviously superior) weapon that allows you to wield multiple ones at a time, and thus supports multi-paradigm carnage?"

[Ingo]

Anna-Jayne Metcalfe wrote:

That's a valid opinion. but I don't think it's helpful in this context.

You are right. But when I read something about "MS Publisher" I automatically change to be a rant troll. Sorry. :-\

SharePoint Consultant and Developer at acocon Author of Primary ROleplaying SysTem I'm the ninth in a row of seven!

[Andres Cassagnes]

My vote to LibreOffice. It's free, runs fantastic and handles every MS Office document type. It's pretty maintained. Try it a little to familiarize yourself with it. As example, its writter is better than MS Word handling objects like tables and images

[Anna Jayne Metcalfe]

No worries. Rants are fine from time to time, but I'm very wary of trolls at the moment so don't be too surprised if I reach for the halberd.

Anna :rose: Tech Blog | Visual Lint "Why would anyone prefer to wield a weapon that takes both hands at once, when they could use a lighter (and obviously superior) weapon that allows you to wield multiple ones at a time, and thus supports multi-paradigm carnage?"

[User 10244914]

Go with Kingsoft office, pretty small download. Simple to use. Works well with MS office documents

[_WinBase_]

While not perfect, MS office is the best and most common and you will find most your customers use it. I don't advocate piracy but ive *heard* of folks getting friendly students or kids to buy a copy that enables a multi pc licence. Myself, I bought it and claimed the full amount back in my accounts as a business expense rather than paying it in tax. GL

[Paul Kemner]

I'd suggest LibreOffice too. I've used Impress for presentations, and the writer for everything from letters to writing a novella. I don't have to hear complaints from my wife about the presence of "the ribbon" on her computers- a big plus. :-D

[Andres Cassagnes]

My wife, who is a lawyer, turns to LibreOffice too because of the ease of use and the practical functionality

[zhaozhaozz]

Kingsoft office is very good! You can have a try. Made in china is the best.

[Matt McGuire]

agreed; OpenOffice rocks. I have both on my work machine (MS office 2010 and OpenOffice)and only resort to Word when i absolutely have to. OpenOffice has a few quarks, but I still prefer the layout. (hope someone at MS is listening ;P )

[kdmote]

If the only reason you are wanting to avoid office is the cost, and if your freelance work could be considered a "startup" business, you definitely will want to take a look at the Microsoft Bizspark program -- an amazing (free) MS-sponsored organization that is dedicated to helping startups by providing free tools (both dev and Office tools). It really is quite incredible.

[patbob]

If you need to exchange documents with other people using MS Office, you really have no choice but to use MS Office yourself, and you'll have to be using a version fairly close to theirs at that. If you have a full time job someplace, they might be part of the home use program, and you might be able to get a license for MS Office through that for a very reasonable cost. If you don't need to interoperate with MS office, I've used the OpenOffice suite for a number of years and it works very well.

We can program with only 1's, but if all you've got are zeros, you've got nothing.

[User 10083203]

Quarks as opposed to neutrinos :) I prefer LibreOffice, because I like the layout and compatibility a little more.

[BobbyStrain]

If you shop online you can find a single installation license which cannot transfer. You can get Office Enterprise for less than $100.

[RASPeter]

LibreOffice. Last I checked, OpenOffice was dead, development-wise. I've used MSOffice 365, but wasn't impressed enough with it to continue using it once the project I was on that required it was done (It was an automated document generation thing). My daughter uses Google Docs for all her school work, and for the rare occasions when Google Docs isn't enough for me, LibreOffice is more than good enough, and also has a better UI, IMHO.