Office Suites are a mandatory part of any operating system. It is difficult to imagine using a desktop OS without office software. While Windows has MS Office Suite and Mac OS X has its own iWork apart from lots of other Office Suites especially meant for these OS, Linux too has some arrows in its quiver.
CNET's Cheapskate scours the Web for great deals on PCs, phones, gadgets and much more. Questions about the Cheapskate blog? Find the answers on our FAQ page.
Microsoft sells Excel for Mac as part of Office for Mac. That would be equivalent. Otherwise, there are a few spreadsheet apps for Mac, including Numbers from Apple's iWork office suite, LibreOffice (free and open source), and others. An office suite is a collection of programs, mainly consisting of a word processor, spreadsheet and presentation application bundled together. With the pricey tag put onto the all popular Microsoft Office, it leaves no surprise that the average home user or small business would be looking for an.
Microsoft Office 2016 has arrived , and with it the same pricing model Microsoft adopted a couple years back: $69 per year for the single-user Personal Edition, $99 per year for the five-user Home Edition or $149.99 to buy the suite outright.
Pass.
Make no mistake, I like Office. Word, Excel and PowerPoint have been refined and polished to a fine shine, and Outlook is arguably the best desktop mail client currently available, especially for business users.
But for years many of us have been spoiled by Google Docs, OpenOffice and other free alternatives, to the point where it just seems ludicrous to pay for Microsoft's suite -- even with its 1 terabyte of OneDrive cloud storage and (snicker) 60 minutes of monthly Skype time. (Excuse my mockery, but this is such a paltry value-add, one few people ever use, yet Microsoft wants you to think it's all that and a bag of chips.)
My question for you, fellow cheeps: What's your solution? My guess is you're not paying for Office either (unless you're getting it cheap or free as a student or from your company), but you still need word processing, spreadsheets and/or presentations.
One of my longtime favorites, WPS Office (formerly Kingsoft Office), has become something of a mess. If you head to WPS.com, you find only Android, iOS and Linux versions of the suite. Huh? A little Googling reveals that Kingsoft proper still offers the Windows version, but good luck figuring out the different names and options. (My advice: click the Download button next to Office Suite Free 2013. That's the version I used for a long while and really liked.)
What about Google Docs? It's effective enough for basic document work, but file management is kind of a pain -- especially if you use Google Drive as your portal. (If there's a way to sort your documents by file type, I haven't found it.) And like most of Google's Web-based apps, it's just ugly. I consider myself a creative guy, and when I'm creating stuff, I prefer a pretty interface.
Which brings us to Microsoft Office Online, a surprisingly decent set of tools that more or less rival what Google has to offer -- but with a much prettier UI. If you don't need the higher-end feature packed into Word, Excel and PowerPoint (and I suspect most users don't), you might be surprised by how much you can accomplish with free Office Online.
Now, your turn. What's your pleasure? LibreOffice? Old-standby OpenOffice? Something else entirely? Tell me (and everyone else) what tools you use to handle your everyday office-y tasks.
Bonus deal: Calling all Mac users! If you're getting ready to make the move to El Capitan, you'll no doubt want to make a full backup first. And for that you'll need software. For a limited time, you can grab Belight Backup Pro (Mac) for free. Normally $19.95, this drive-cloning tool creates a bootable backup and includes features like file-syncing and scheduled activities.
What Is A Good Free Video Editing Software
Bonus deal No. 2: You've probably heard this news by now, but just in case: Starting tomorrow (and ending tomorrow!), Amazon will offer a one-year Prime subscription for $67. Regular price: $99. This offer is for new subscribers only, though if there's a gift option, you could theoretically buy that gift for yourself and use it to renew an existing subscription when the time comes. (You'll definitely want to read all the fine print to see if this would work. I'm only speculating.)
CNET's Cheapskate scours the Web for great deals on PCs, phones, gadgets and much more. Questions about the Cheapskate blog? Find the answers on our FAQ page. And find more great buys on the CNET Deals page.
Quick housekeeping note: If you grabbed the VPN deal I mentioned the other day (or its even better successor) and you're having trouble with activation, the folks at StackSocial have assured me they'll help get you straightened out. Just e-mail [email protected].
A few years back, I dubbed Kingsoft Office the best free Microsoft Office alternative. Then the developers renamed it WPS Office, built in a bunch of clunky online features and added a watermark to all printed and PDF documents. Talk about ruining a perfectly great freebie! (To be fair, developers gotta eat, and the free version really was almost too good. I'm guessing few users bothered to pay for the pro version.)
Writing program for mac computers. So what's the alternative to that alternative? Ladies and gentlemen, the 2016 Cheapskate Award for Best Free Office Suite hereby goes to LibreOffice 5.1.
This is, of course, a decidedly old-school option. For many a user, word processing, spreadsheet management and presentation creation work just fine in a Web browser, thank you. Tools such as Google Docs and Microsoft's own Office Online afford plenty of basic features, without extra software to install or money to spend.
So why bother with a desktop office suite? I can think of any number of reasons: mail-merge, text boxes, change-tracking, custom styles.. shall I go on? Plus, and let's be honest, Google Docs is a really ugly place to spend your time. Interface isn't everything, but it's something.
LibreOffice, for its part, borrows heavily from Microsoft Office circa 2003 -- and that's just fine. (I know plenty of folks who despise the Ribbon interface that's prevalent across newer versions of Office.) I do wish it offered a tabbed view for multiple documents, though, of course, Microsoft Office doesn't, either. Which is ridiculous.
That gripe aside, I like pretty much everything about LibreOffice. It's fully file-format compatible with Microsoft Office (read: it can open and save .docx and all the other 'x' files), and it offers some of the more obscure features (macros, track changes, etc.) not typically found in freebie suites.
If you're a regular Cheapskate reader, you know I'm a bit conflicted about this. I like Microsoft Office, and in fact I rely heavily on Outlook because it's the only desktop mail client worth a damn. (Yep, I said it.) But I still think it's overpriced, and Microsoft shenanigans like this drive me insane.
That's just me. If you're looking for a free (technically, open-source) office suite that can handle the big-three productivity tasks with aplomb, look no further than LibreOffice 5.1. Your thoughts?
Bonus deal: I almost made this today's featured deal, because it's singularly awesome. But I also know many of you are probably sick of password managers, because they're a regular fixture around here. Just in case you haven't yet adopted one, though, here's your chance to get a lifetime subscription to Password Boss for $19.99. Regular price: $29.99 for one year. Password Boss is a relative newcomer, but as PC Mag pointed out in its very favorable review, 'it's full-featured enough that you'd hardly guess it's version 1.0.'
Bonus deal 2: https://mexever199.weebly.com/whats-the-program-name-for-drawing-in-mac.html. Calling all Mac users! Roadmap Planner is a highly rated project-management app that normally runs $24.99. Ending tonight, you can get Roadmap Planner for free! This 'strategic communication tool [lets you] build your marketing, business development and product vision roadmap, and show off it to your team and stakeholders at a glance. It will take you where you want to be in one, five, or 10 years.'
What Is A Good Free Antivirus
Bonus deal No. 3: Free beginners program for recording music mac. Want to see what kind of local stations your TV can pull in, but don't want to spend a lot to find out? Manage wireless connections windows 7. Depending on where you live, a flat antenna can work minor miracles. And today you can get one on the cheap: Dealfisher (via Amazon) is offering the refurbished Mohu Leaf 30 for $14.99, shipped free with Prime. As you'll see from the (mostly positive) reviews, performance definitely varies depending on your location -- but for many, the Mohu is a fantastic tuner.