Microsoft Office is often pre-installed on new PCs as a 60-day trial. A full version of Office Professional 2010 more costly. Thankfully, plenty of free and low-cost alternatives can also meet your productivity needs.
#1. Google Docs
Google Docs lets you import and create documents, spreadsheets and presentations, then edit them in a web browser. It’s also compatible with mobile devices running Android 2.2 and iOS 3.0 or later. Google Docs allows you to access your files from any web-connected computer, and it makes document sharing and collaborative editing easy.
#2. LibreOffice
The free, open-source LibreOffice comes in versions for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux; a portable edition is also available. It offers a word processor, spreadsheet utility, presentation program and database, plus tools for sketching diagrams and editing equations.
#3. SoftMaker Office
SoftMaker Office is not free, but it’s cheaper than Microsoft’s suite. It’s available for Windows, Linux, Windows Mobile and Windows CE. It has word-processing, spreadsheet and presentation modules, and offers a script that lets you automate recurring tasks.
#4. Zoho Office
Like Google Docs, Zoho is a cloud-based suite that’s accessible via a browser. It incorporates a word processor, a spreadsheet tool and presentation apps. Zoho lets you securely store files in a central location, then share or access them from a far. Individual use and 1GB of storage is free.
#5. Acrobat.com
This Flash- based online office suite (Acrobat.com) offers a collaborative word processor, basic spreadsheet tool and experimental presentation creator. While the word processor, Buzzwords, is actually pretty good, it only offers seven typefaces, and these don’t include common choices such as Anal and Times New Roman, so imported documents will be adjusted to the nearest equivalent. Documents can be exported in all the common office formats or as PDFs.
#6. Live Documents
Live Document is a flashy suite opens as a virtual Desktop with a Mac OS X-style dock at the bottom of the screen, and icons for accessing your files, and creating or importing documents (either from your computer or from Google Docs). There are word-processor, spreadsheet and presentation modules, each with well-designed menus that make it easy to access all the features. It’s not as powerful as it first looks, but it’s a decent offering.
#7. ThinkFree
ThinkFree Online is a close match to a web-based version of Microsoft Office, in that its components closely resemble earlier versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Its features aren’t as sophisticated, but most of the tools and menus you’d expect to see are here, and if you’re familiar with using Microsoft’s products, you’ll feel immediately at home.
#8. Lotus Symphony
IBM’s Lotus Symphony consists of a word processor, spreadsheet tool and presentation creator. It’s built on the OpenOffice.org source code. Lotus Symphony is a good-looking office suite, which is very easy to use. However, it’s not as feature- packed as LibreOffice, so can only score second place in this contest.
#9. Calligra Suite
Calligra Suite program consists of six office applications - Words (word processor), Tables (spreadsheet), Stage (presentation creator), Kexi (database) Flow (diagrams and flowcharts), and Plan (project management). In addition, you get two graphics applications: Krita (drawing and painting) and Karbon (vector graphics). Although it’s designed for Linux, there is a Windows version available. It’s in beta at the moment, but a more stable release is expected shortly.
#10. SSuite Office
Rather confusingly, there are five different versions of SSuite suite - Personal Edition, Advanced, The Fifth Element, Excalibur Release and Premium HD (optimised for use on large and widescreen monitors). Each offers a wealth of applications including a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation creator, image viewer, email program, media player, games, and a CD ripper, but concentrating on a few might have made the suite more powerful.
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