Author Topic: M$ office alternatives. (Read 2207 times)

sam · « **on:** April 15, 2006, 17:41 »

Ok you might be happy and think M$ office is good but do you like the attached price? I don't. You probably know I'm a big open source person but I really do like M$ office, not that I would use it to write reports in or anything (I use a typesetting program could LaTex). Anyway, I do like M$ office. I think it is great but it is expensive so how about a cheap (i.e. free alternative and no I don't mean BiTTorrent! :-) ). Here are a few contenders (I am to add to this in time):

AbiWord - http://www.abisource.com/
   - nice and small, only (currently) 5.1 mb
   - you can get the source code!!!
   - works on the mac, linux and windows!!

OpenOffice - http://www.openoffice.org/
   - the biggest and best contender to microsft's rein
   - it is good and powerful, lots of useful M$office like features
   - smaller than M$office, and free
   - not as small as ability office.
   - linux, mac and windows versions

ThinkFree Online - http://online.thinkfree.com/index.jsp
   - doesn't need installing
   - online only
   - odd but only needs net connection and java...

GillE · « **Reply #1 on:** April 15, 2006, 18:46 »

I've been using Open Office for several months now and prefer it to my antiquated version of MS Office 97. The maths module can be useful at times.

Gill

sam · « **Reply #2 on:** April 15, 2006, 18:57 »

btw, did you know that there is a similar maths program within M$ just it isnt normally installed by default (equation edit btw).

What version of open office are you using??

GillE · « **Reply #3 on:** April 15, 2006, 20:15 »

I didn't know about the maths program within MS Office - how strange that it should be obscured. I'm using v2.00 of Open Office.

sam · « **Reply #4 on:** April 15, 2006, 20:17 »

thats a nice version, if you wasnt using that I would have suggested upgrading since there have been some great developments.

You should be able to use equation edit in M$ Office if you insert object... and choose it. It should be installed, but you never know it might not be.

chorleydave · « **Reply #5 on:** April 15, 2006, 22:32 »

If you are a student or work in education, you can get Sun Star Office free of charge. I recently downloaded it and have it installed on a spare PC that I use to mess about with.

http://www.sun.com/software/star/staroffice/education.jsp

sam · « **Reply #6 on:** April 15, 2006, 22:50 »

yep good one there dave, not quite sure how i forgot to put that in my original list, though it is basically open office these days.