Free office suites

This list is by no means meant to be a list of every single free office suite on the Web. But it’s a list of office suites we have tried.  If you have a suggestion for a free office suite – either downloadable or “in the cloud”, offer it up in the comments section. We’d appreciate it and others would too.

Open Office
The most often recommended alternative to MS Office by you – our readers. We’ve tried it and think it’s a great replacement for MS Office. It can read and create almost any Office document format and you can’t beat the price. If you’re looking for Office compatibility and a really all-around good replacement for MS Office you can’t beat Open Office. Get more information about Open Office – and/or download it here. Dialup users? It’s a 148 MB download. Keep that in mind.

IBM Lotus Symphony
Not much MS Office compatibility here – except with MS Word. It contains all of the programs you’d get with MS Word but many are in proprietary formats which only those using Lotus will be able to read. Not a good choice unless you don’t care who can read your files. It’s a great office suite but if your files aren’t readable (except MS Word Doc format) by MS Office users then it’s not a real alternative to MS Office. We’re listing it here becuase it is free and it is an office suite. It is also a download over 200 MB. Dialup users please note that. If you’re interested in learning more about Lotus Symphony (Free) visit this page.

Online (in the cloud) office suites

Google Docs
Complete MS Office compatibility – and lots of space to store  your files. Reads all the standard MS Office formats and creates them too. Google Docs has become the most popular of all online office suites – well it’s by Google for one thing – and its compatibility with MS Office doesn’t hurt. You can upload and download the documents you create or have created to and from your desktop computer. Want to learn more about Google Docs? Visit this page. If you have a Gmail account you can login with your Gmail login info.

Zoho
Zoho is another online office productivity suite. It features MS Office-compatible word processor, spreadsheet and presentation apps. Zoho also includes online project management, web conferencing, online database with reports, online planner, group chat, wiki, and more. Requires registration and a decent internet connection (read “broadband”). If Zoho sounds interesting to you, you can learn more about it here. You can sign-in with your Yahoo or Google information, but we don’t advise you to do that. Zoho probably has the nicest online word processor we’ve ever seen.

ThinkFree
ThinkFree is a unique online office suite that is free – you can also buy it for your computer. If you could only buy it wouldn’t be listed under our freeware picks section, but since you can use all its applications online for free – it is. Features include all the standard office apps plus compatibility with MS Office apps. You can use ThinkFree in one other way. If you don’t have MS Office installed, you can open any kind of Office doc using ThinkFree without signing up for an account. Another pretty nifty online office suite you can use free. To learn more about ThinkFree visit their web site.

There you go. You got five for the price of one today – five free office applications you can use instead of making Microsoft richer. We hope you enjoyed today’s departure from the normal “Freeware pick of the week” format!