Good value 'Office' software?

daivid

Hopefully some of you can advise: my membership via Office 365 of MS Office 2013 has just ended and with the cost being what it is I am looking for a value alternative for home use on a laptop.

I've been using Word, Excel and Publisher mostly and having publisher in an Office 2013 package makes it very expensive. Buying Office 2007 would be a considerable saving but would I have problems? Or an open office package, are there any particularly good ones out there?

Sugestions welcome, thanks in advance!

JethroUK

daivid wrote: »

Hopefully some of you can advise: my membership via Office 365 of MS Office 2013 has just ended and with the cost being what it is I am looking for a value alternative for home use on a laptop.

I've been using Word, Excel and Publisher mostly and having publisher in an Office 2013 package makes it very expensive. Buying Office 2007 would be a considerable saving but would I have problems? Or an open office package, are there any particularly good ones out there?

Sugestions welcome, thanks in advance!

I teach MS Office for a living and I can tell you its dead for personal use (will end up just for business uses)

Within the next 5 years i will be teaching Google Docs (Word Processor, Sheets/Spreadsheet, Slides/Presentation) to qualification standards

1. These apps cover 90% of common functionality of MS Office Apps
2. Zero Installation =
3. Instantly Available on any computer with internet connection (works best with Google Chrome browser but not essential)
4. They are soooooooooo easy to use
5. Autosave documents as you type/edit so you dont need to worry about it failing/corrupting
6. They are compatible with MS Office formats (can open/save as MS Apps)
7. You dont have to worry about different versions/formats/compatibility issues
8. Now editable in 'offline' mode
9. You can share any documents with anyone IN THE WORLD (just add their email addy or share by link) in a couple of clicks and they will receive email to say you have shared including a link to your document - Which is Brilliaaaaaaaaaaant!!!!!
10. You can share as view only or you can even give them permission to edit your document which is fan-flippin-tastic for collaborative working
    
    Have a play http://goo.gl/rJt46h
    
    
11. You can even edit documents you have attached to email totally on-the-fly (without download/edit/upload clunky methodology)
12. 3rd party browser add-ons available for additional functions
13. They are all totally FREE
14. All you need is a gmail account and you get 15GIG of cloud space

S0litaire

Go with Libre Office, Does everything you need it to do and it's free.

Google docs can be useful, I've not used them much and the last time I did some of the functionality I'm used to with things like Libre Office wasn't there yet (This may have changed since I last looked at them).

amugofjava

I'll second Jethro's comments. Google Docs is excellent and is certainly enough for my needs. It is also collaborative, so that more than one person can work on a document at any one time. Being stored in the cloud also means that I can work on a document/spreadsheet/presentation from my PC, phone or tablet.

If you would prefer an office package that is installable, there is also Libre Office. This is a complete and open source office package available for Windows, Linux and Mac.

daivid

Thanks for the suggestions, will give both a go and see how I get on.

InsideInsurance

Publisher is going to be your issue, Google Documents doesnt support it and whilst Libre does there are mixed reports on both the quality of importing from .pub files and the DTP features in it.

Where do you work? If its a large organisation see if they subscribe to the MS Home Use Programme http://www.microsofthup.com/ which would allow you to get Office 2013 Pro for £10 which includes publisher

JethroUK

InsideInsurance wrote: »

Publisher is going to be your issue, Google Documents doesn't support it ...

Google Docs may not open MS Publisher file types but again 90% of desktop publishing features (just mixing pictures and words) are available to Google Docs

Robisere

Libre Office or Open Office, both free, both can ope/save Microsoft Office documents.

When installing after Download, choose "Custom" Installation. You may wish to use all the installation, but that way you can see whatever you need to use.

bod1467

InsideInsurance wrote: »

Publisher is going to be your issue, Google Documents doesnt support it and whilst Libre does there are mixed reports on both the quality of importing from .pub files and the DTP features in it.

JethroUK wrote: »

Google Docs may not open MS Publisher file types but again 90% of desktop publishing features (just mixing pictures and words) are available to Google Docs

I think the point II was driving at was that the OP specifically mentioned using Publisher.

daivid wrote: »

I've been using Word, Excel and Publisher mostly and having publisher in an Office 2013 package makes it very expensive.

Nada666

JethroUK wrote: »

Within the next 5 years i will be teaching Google Docs (Word Processor, Sheets/Spreadsheet, Slides/Presentation) to qualification standards

1. These apps cover 90% of common functionality of MS Office Apps

But exclude elementary functions used 90% of the time

(paragraph styles, first line indents, character styles)

wiogs

amugofjava wrote: »

I'll second Jethro's comments. Google Docs is excellent and is certainly enough for my needs. It is also collaborative, so that more than one person can work on a document at any one time. Being stored in the cloud also means that I can work on a document/spreadsheet/presentation from my PC, phone or tablet.

If you would prefer an office package that is installable, there is also Libre Office. This is a complete and open source office package available for Windows, Linux and Mac.

Cloud storage can be useful but when you are out and about with no access to the internet it is as much use as a chocolate fire-guard.