What Are Other Options To Microsoft Office

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However, there are no upgrade options which means if you plan to upgrade to the next major release, you'll have to buy it at full price. Office Online is a free version of Office that you can use in a web browser. All you need is to sign up for a Microsoft Account with a new or existing email address. Try the Office Online apps. Five alternatives to Microsoft Office 365. You can adjust text kerning, add footnotes, share documents with other users, and more. Imported documents (from Google, Microsoft Office,. Open, edit, and save files using the new file formats in 2007 versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. It's compatible with Microsoft Office formats, including a lengthy list of other files, and includes an option to download extensions. It presents a slight learning curve to people accustomed to.

  1. Options Instead Of Microsoft Office
  2. Free Options To Microsoft Office
  3. What Are Other Options To Microsoft Office
  4. What Are Other Options To Microsoft Office For Mac
Alternative Options to the Microsoft Office Suite Due to the software package being bundled with many new personal computers running a Windows operating system, the Microsoft Office program suite is one of the best known office software sets available. However, simple control of market square is not a definite indicator of quality. Depending on an individual user's needs, other publishing, writing, and storage software on the market may be equally useful, if not more. Alternatives exist in the form of both commercially licensed and open source software programs, many of which are completely compatible with the current Microsoft Office file types. The most notable of alternative office software packages is the OpenOffice.org suite. OpenOffice.org is free to download, and is completely open source. It can be used freely for any reason, including commercial. The software will never expire, and the wording of the licensing agreement ensures that any user who downloads a free copy can never be charged for it even if there are later policy changes. The program is capable of opening and reading documents in most formats, including the standard .doc*, .ppt*, and .xls* file types, as well as saving files into pre-2007 formats and PDF documents. There is no capacity to save into the .*x format, but as the current Microsoft Office suite is backwards compatible to that format, even when sending files to other users this is a non-issue (OpenOffice.org). The Microsoft Word alternative, OpenOffice.org Writer, and the Powerpoint alternative, OpenOffice.org Impress, are nearly identical in features offered and ease of use. The layout is similar to pre-2007 Office and so feels comfortable and familiar to most users of the Office software bundle (OpenOffice.org). However, OpenOffice.org Calc and Base, the products comparative to Microsoft Excel and Access, leave much to be desired in calculating power and data analysis. An average user is generally unaffected by this lack, but a business user would most likely need to purchase Excel as a standalone product to supplement OpenOffice.org Calc. A commercial alternative is the Lotus SmartSuite from IBM, which contains the spreadsheet program Lotus 1-2-3, the word processor WordPro, and the presentation program Freelance Graphics. Lotus SmartSuite integrates with the email management program Lotus Notes, also from IBM. Similarly to OpenOffice.org, SmartSuite can open, display, and save to Microsoft Office file formats, though its capabilities are limited to pre-2007 file types. A single-user install of the Lotus SmartSuite costs approximately $332 (IBM, 'Lotus SmartSuite'). In addition to OpenOffice.org and Lotus SmartSuite, there are literally dozens of other alternative office software suites. Many of these are free, and both web- and download-based options exist. The effort needed to move away from Microsoft Office has never been so slight. The availability of free and open source software is especially tempting for business network administrators, as these bundles require no initial investment of capital and can be installed slowly to reduce the manpower investment. While Microsoft does currently hold the lion's share of the market in office productivity suites, this may not continue to be true into the future with so many new competitors emerging into the market and the increased quality of existing competition. References IBM. (n.d.). Lotus SmartSuite. In IBM Office Productivity Suite. Retrieved March 11, 2011 from http://www-01.ibm.com/software/lotus/products/smartsuite/ OpenOffice.org. (n.d.). OpenOffice.org. Retrieved March 11, 2011 from http://why.openoffice.org/ Read More

What opens rar files on windows 7. Update: In the meantime, Microsoft has officially released Office 2016, which replaced the 2013 edition.

Acrobat reader windows 8. Microsoft Office is world's most popular productivity software suite. On the other side, Microsoft's Windows is the most used operating system for PCs. In this post, we'll explain what options are available when it comes to Office use under the latest version of OS – Windows 10. Besides the old-school Microsoft Office suites, free Office Online web service, and free open source replacements for Office, in Windows 10 users now have a new option – touch-optimized 'Universal' Office apps.

Options Instead Of Microsoft Office

Windows 10 & Traditional Laptop-Use Microsoft Office 2013; Office 365

Best suited for classic laptop and desktop PCs with Windows 10 and previous OS iterations is the current Office 2013 edition. This keyboard-and-mouse-centric 'desktop' version is available as a one-time-purchase package, such as for instance Office 2013 Home & Student edition ($139) or as a suite delivered via Office 365 subscription service (starting at $6.99 per month). In both cases, Office 2013 is fully compatible with Windows 10. We have tried it out and found no problems so far. As a side note, although Office 2013 is keyboard/mouse-oriented, it can be made more touch-friendly by increasing spaces between menu items and other elements of programs' user interfaces.

If you haven't purchased any of these yet and you want to, it's worth mentioning some of the differences between the Office 2013 'buy' and 'rent' options. As already mentioned, if you buy it you'll be charged only once at the time of the purchase, but then you're stuck with the current version of the suite until you buy the new one. With Office 2013 delivered via 365 service, you 'rent' it for a monthly fee. Once a new version of software gets released your edition can be automatically upgraded to it without additional fees. Furthermore, it's important to note that Office 365 (Personal and Home) packages include a robust set of applications, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, Publisher, and Access. On the other side, the classic Home & Student 2013 edition lacks Outlook, Publisher and Access programs. Furthermore, even the most basic Office 365 subscription allows you to install software on multiple devices – on up to 1 PC or Mac, 1 tablet, and 1 smartphone. The standard Office Home & Student can be installed on only 1 PC.

Both options are available via Microsoft's official store.

Modern Touch-Friendly ('Mobile') Office Apps: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote

Microsoft has recently launched a new set of Office apps. Following the trends in the PC industry, new Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote apps available on Windows Store have touch-friendly interfaces. That's the main difference of these Windows 10-specific 'Universal' apps over the old-school keyboard/mouse Office versions. Nevertheless, you can use the apps even if you don't have a touchscreen computer, by working with a keyboard and mouse/trackpad. On the negative side, Microsoft has removed some functionalities which are present in the 'full' versions of the apps, in order to make document creation and editing more straightforward and simpler.

Options

If you have a laptop, 2-in-1, tablet, or any other kind of PC running Windows 10 and want to install these apps, just hit the Windows Store and search for Word, Excel, or PowerPoint. OneNote is by-default pre-installed on Win 10 systems. On devices with display sizes above 10.1″, the apps are listed in the Store with 'Mobile' suffix, except OneNote. If you access the Store on a Windows 10 device with a screen of 10.1″ or smaller, the apps are simply listed as Word, Excel, PowerPoint… Except the names, the apps are the same. Screen size matters in one more important way. If you're using a 10.1″ or smaller device, the apps are free to use with full editing functionality enabled. If you have a larger-screen PC, unrestricted use of 'Mobile' Office apps requires an active Office 365 subscription. Otherwise, you can use the apps for document viewing, but not for creation and editing.

Office 2016 Preview

Microsoft is currently working on Office 2016, successor of Office 2013. Although it isn't a finished product yet, you can use it as a preview ('beta') software. Office 2016 Preview is free of charge and will remain free until the final release. It's scheduled for September 2015. You can download it now as a standalone installation from Microsoft's website. Also, you can upgrade your Office 2013 to 2016 Preview if you use the older version as a part of Office 365 pay-per-month service.

Old Office Editions

Out of curiosity, we have installed under Windows 10 an almost 15-year old Microsoft Office – the XP Professional Edition. Although it doesn't sport newer features such as tight integration with Microsoft's OneDrive cloud storage service or advanced collaboration functionalities, Office XP Pro works just fine under Windows 10. So, if you still want use an old suite, chances are it will work under Windows 10 as good as under Windows 7, 8.1, or other old Windows versions. A problem might be differences between old Office file formats, such as the old Word's .doc as opposed to newer .docx. Opening older files in newer Office programs might need converting and produce improper formatting of documents. Even worse, you won't be able to open a .docx file in XP Pro's Word at all. The same applies to other Office applications.

Microsoft Office Online – Web-Based and Free of Charge

There's another Microsoft Office version – Office Online. It's web-based. The most popular applications – Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and OneNote are completely free. After a single login to http://home.office.com using any modern web browser, users can create, edit, and view Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents, work in OneNote, or check emails via online Outlook version. True, there are some limitations, since the Online apps can't work without Internet connection and lack some functionalities of their 'offline' siblings. Also, working with user interfaces through a web browser isn't as smooth as with locally installed programs.

Free Options To Microsoft Office

If you're OK with doing your office work online, you can also use Google's counterpart called Google Docs.

What Are Other Options To Microsoft Office

Free Open-Source Microsoft Office Alternatives – LibreOffice, Apache OpenOffice

What Are Other Options To Microsoft Office For Mac

If you however want a completely free 'offline' productivity solution, you can try some of the available open source-based suites. On our Windows 10 test laptop, we have easily managed to install and run two most popular free productivity suites – LibreOffice and Apache OpenOffice. These keyboard-and-mouse-optimized software suites can be used for word processing, work with spreadsheets, presentations, databases, and other productivity tasks. Their applications are mostly compatible with Microsoft Office document formats, so chances are you'll be able to edit your Word, Excel, and other documents using the open source replacement programs without problems.





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