Free Office Software?

john432

Can you still get the free open software that is equivalent to the Microsoft 2010 package?
Is the free software any good?
Anyone got experience of it, or shall I just get the Microsoft product.
Thoughts please.

enfield_freddy

john432 wrote: »

Can you still get the free open software that is equivalent to the Microsoft 2010 package? YES
Is the free software any good? YES
Anyone got experience of it, Yes or shall I just get the Microsoft product. No
Thoughts please.

https://www.openoffice.org/

bluesnake

There are equivalents and sort of like for like, but not the exact same.

The exact same layout of menus and features? Well not really, and I still think of Word 2002 when I see LibreOffice.

LibreOffice and open office both work well. Sort of equivalent and like for like and often are ok in importing and saving MS Office sheets and documents, but not always. - even Microsoft between its own version can't manage total backward comparability. I would say on average 99% of the word and excel stuff works (have not tried the rest of the packages), but if you use that 1% wrong feature or function then you are done for.

On the good side it cost you nothing, so download them and see If you like them

esuhl

I'd go for LibreOffice over OpenOffice.

Both projects were forked from OpenOffice.org a few years ago, but LibreOffice has had a lot of work done to it to reduce the bloat (in coding), and the devs are slightly more active on this project.

gjchester

john432 wrote: »

Can you still get the free open software that is equivalent to the Microsoft 2010 package?
Is the free software any good?
Anyone got experience of it, or shall I just get the Microsoft product.
Thoughts please.

Why not try Libre Office and Open office, after all you have nothing loose by doing so.

esuhl

john432 wrote: »

...or shall I just get the Microsoft product.
Thoughts please.

If you just want to be able to create moderately-complex documents and be able to share them with people using MS Office (and vice versa), you'll be fine using LibreOffice or OpenOffice.

If you want to use the most advanced features of MS Office (running macros, etc.), or are using the software in a professional situation where 100% compatibility is important, then you'll need the "proper" MS version.

No harm in trying a free version first. :-)

henm2

For a good recent review of Libre Office see this
http://netrunner-mag.com/libreoffice-4-4-review-finally-it-rocks/

Mr_Toad

Libre Office is good, I use it a lot but I do have MS Office for more complex stuff that needs sharing with other Office users.

Be aware that Libre Office files don't always look as expected in MS Office due to formatting compatibility issues. For basics it's fine though.

As said by others, it's free, try it, you have nothing to lose.

Shrimply

esuhl wrote: »

or are using the software in a professional situation where 100% compatibility is important, then you'll need the "proper" MS version.

I'd disagree with this slightly, generally anything I produce is sent on as a PDF, and I'm being, very reluctantly, pushed to switching to LaTeX.

As a basic rule, because things don't always work, and you are often sharing between linux, mac and windows users, if you want comments on text, I'd send a basic word document with the text produced by any processor accompanied by a pdf to show the layout as you've designed it.

Obviously there are cases where compatibility is required, but that tends to be due to limitations set by the people involved. Not their professionalism... :rotfl:

I've used OpenOffice, LibraOffice and Microsoft Office. I prefer Microsoft Office by a long way but if I just wanted a word processor I don't think I'd be paying for it. I have found LibraOffice to have too restricted a size on spreadsheets which was an issue for me, but probably isn't generally unless you are dealing with huge amounts of data

bod1467

No personal experience (well, I have it but haven't used it as I have MS Office), but to throw another suggestion into the mix ...

http://www.kingsoftstore.com/

Lessi7

FreeOffice is another altnerative. You may also wish to opt for Web Based solutions such as Google Docs, or Zoho Files.

Some others are: KingSoft Office, or NeoOffice (for Mac).

Peronsally I would opt for OpenOffice suite, best experience out of all the ones I've tried with LibreOffice a close second