{"id":611,"date":"2011-03-10T13:23:14","date_gmt":"2011-03-10T18:23:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/?p=611"},"modified":"2011-03-12T22:33:19","modified_gmt":"2011-03-13T03:33:19","slug":"freeware-picks-3102011","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/freeware-picks-3102011\/","title":{"rendered":"Freeware picks 3\/10\/2011"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Alternatives to Microsoft Office
\n<\/strong>Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

This past week we’ve seen dozens \t\tof emails from folks touting Open Office as an alternative to Microsoft’s \t\tubiquitous Office suite. Microsoft’s Office is, by far, the most installed \t\toffice suite in the world. But it has its drawbacks, the biggest of which \t\tis its price. Now hovering around $400 for its most economical version (unless \t\tyou’re a student or eligible for some other discount) Microsoft Office is \t\texpensive.<\/p>\n

But lately, Office has some serious competition and some of these \t\tcompetitors are much cheaper – like $400 cheaper – as in free cheaper. So, \t\twhat is Microsoft’s response to competition? No, they don’t lower their \t\tprice, they simply change the formats so older versions of Office can’t \t\tread docs created by newer versions of Office without downloading a converter \t\tfrom Microsoft. Was this an attempt to thwart competition from these new \t\tcompetitors? We’ll never know, but it isn’t working anyway. The competitors \t\tare all keeping up with Microsoft’s odd way of dealing with competition \t\t– and most of these lower-cost or free office suites can read old and new \t\tOffice files, so Microsoft’s ploy isn’t working well.<\/p>\n

Anyway, you’re right, I’m ranting again and heaven knows \t\tI don’t like to ramble, you know!<\/p>\n

OK here we go folks. Some of these \t\tare downloadable desktop applications and some are “Cloud-based” (applications \t\tthat run on the Web). Whether you choose to download and install the downloadable \t\tones or use the online office applications, one thing is for sure: If you \t\thave a dial-up connection, you’re at a disadvantage. Web-based (in the cloud) your connection may be too slow to use applications in The Cloud (on the web) and the file \u00a0sizes for office suites run between 140 and 200 MB – formidable downloads \t\tfor dialup users, like days and days of downloading.<\/p>\n

The following MS Office alternatives \t\tare not in any particular order. The downloadable ones are listed first.<\/p>\n

Free downloadable desktop office \t\tsuites<\/strong><\/p>\n

Open Office<\/a>
\n<\/strong>The most often recommended alternative to MS Office by you – our readers. \t\tWe’ve tried it and think it’s a great replacement for MS Office. It can \t\tread and create almost any Office document format and you can’t beat the \t\tprice. If you’re looking for Office compatibility and a really all-around \t\tgood replacement for MS Office you can’t beat Open Office. \t\tGet more information about Open Office – \t\tand\/or download it here<\/a>. Dialup users? It’s a 148 MB download. Keep \t\tthat in mind.<\/p>\n

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

Online (in the cloud) office \t\tsuites<\/strong><\/p>\n

Google Docs<\/a><\/strong>
\nComplete MS Office compatibility – and lots of space to store\u00a0 your \t\tfiles. Reads all the standard MS Office formats and creates them too. Google \t\tDocs has become the most popular of all online office suites – well it’s \t\tby Google for one thing – and its compatibility with MS Office doesn’t hurt. \t\tYou can upload and download the documents you create or have created to \t\tand from your desktop computer. Want to learn more about Google Docs? Visit \t\tthis page. If you have a Gmail account you can login with your Gmail login \t\tinfo.<\/p>\n

Zoho<\/a><\/strong>
\nZoho is another online office productivity suite. It features MS Office-compatible \t\tword processor, spreadsheet and presentation apps. Zoho also includes online \t\tproject management, web conferencing, online database with reports, online \t\tplanner, group chat, wiki, and more. Requires registration and a high-speed Internet connection. If Zoho sounds interesting to you, \t\tyou can learn more about it here<\/a>. You \t\tcan sign-in with your Yahoo or Google information, but we don’t advise you \t\tto do that. Zoho probably has the nicest online word processor we’ve ever \t\tseen. Zoho is free for personal\/home users.<\/p>\n

ThinkFree<\/a><\/strong>
\nThinkFree is a unique online office suite that is free – you can also buy \t\tit for your computer. If you could only buy it wouldn’t be listed under \t\tour freeware picks section, but since you can use all its applications online \t\tfor free – it is. Features include all the standard office apps plus compatibility \t\twith MS Office apps. You can use ThinkFree in one other way. If you don’t \t\thave MS Office installed, you can open any kind of Office doc using ThinkFree \t\twithout signing up for an account. Another pretty nifty online office suite \t\tyou can use free. \t\tTo learn \t\tmore about ThinkFree visit their web site<\/a>.<\/p>\n

There you go. You got five for \t\tthe price of one today – five free office applications you can use instead \t\tof making Microsoft richer. We hope you enjoyed today’s departure from the \t\tnormal “Freeware pick of the week” format!<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alternatives to Microsoft Office Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 This past week we’ve seen dozens of emails from folks touting Open Office as an alternative to Microsoft’s ubiquitous Office suite. Microsoft’s Office is, by far, the most installed office suite in the world. But it has its drawbacks, the biggest of which is its price. Now\u2026 Read More »<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[390,388,391,389],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=611"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":613,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611\/revisions\/613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}