Smart alternatives to expensive productivity software

Posted by Nikoletta Ventseslavova

Save: hundreds of dollars and learn more about the alternatives to expensive software

Cost: varies from $0 to $80 (per year)

Much software nowadays is expensive and nearly impossible for most people to get started with even for basic computer tasks. Microsoft Office dominates the market and many people spend hundreds of dollars on software useful to achieve personal or business goals. It may be surprising, but almost all expensive software has an alternative that is free or is far cheaper. Multiple alternative suites are capable of meeting our productivity or business needs for free. Thus, I am going to present the competing suites you might find useful, depending on what you need .

Desktop software

Let’s start with general office suite of tools. We have several alternatives here. The biggest competitor to Microsoft Office is OpenOffice. It includes a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation program, database, drawing program, and math program. It’s free, but this doesn’t mean that it has less power. ”All the applications are full-featured, and unlike Microsoft Office, it includes drawing and math programs. It also handles Microsoft Office formats, as well as many others, including .rtf and open-source formats. It can even export to .pdf. And it works with Word markup, so you can easily exchange documents with those who use Office. However, it does have one problematic format shortcoming: Although it can open files in the Microsoft Office 2007 formats .docx in Word,. .xlsx in Excel, and .pptx in PowerPoint, it can’t save files in those formats.” (PC World). This means if you want to send documents to a Microsoft user you will need to think about what format they can open, such as rich text format.

Another free suite, based on OpenOffice is IBM Lotus Symphony. It includes three applications: Lotus Symphony documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. It offers a variety of plug-ins as well. Version 3 of Lotus Symphony is unique with its features. We can open different types of files in one window, just in different tabs. Symphony gives us the chance to have a presentation window and a spreadsheet window side by side, which is great. It has a strong supporting standard for interoperability and works with more than 20 languages. It is suitable for basic desktop use, because it has limited scope, due to lack of Mobile support, Cloud Support, Collaboration software, e-mail, drawing and desktop publishing modules. LibreOffice is a fuller-fledged option for desktop thatn Lotus Symphony. Moreover,it has a portable version designed for USB, removable and cloud drives, which is perfect for users on the go. The experts from PC World report: “Available in more than 30 languages, LibreOffice 3.3 offers strong support for standards including Microsoft Office, Microsoft Office Open XML, Open Document Format, and PDF. A portable version of the software was recently launched for USB, removable, and cloud drives, enabling users to take it wherever they go.”

SoftMaker Office corresponds to Microsoft office more closely than the other alternatives above. Each of its modules offers different features which are familiar to Microsoft’s interface. The TextMaker word processor, for example, includes master pages, flexible frames, contour wrap and kerning. A spell check for 20 languages is available as well. Also, there’s a built-in database which helps build emails with ease. SoftMaker also possesses excellent graphics support, offering mirror effects, soft shadows, transparencies and image manipulation. However, SoftMaker Office doesn’t have cloud and collaboration capabilities. The mobile support may not suit people who are on the go. This desktop software is paid -$80 for three licenses for home and business use- but still much less than what we would pay Microsoft.

Cloud-based software:

One of the most powerful and free online office tools is Google Documents. It gives us access to word processing, spreadsheets and presentations. It can easily replace Word, Excel and Powerpoint. Its platform is online based and it is free for multiple users. It lets them import documents, spreadsheets and presentations, or create new ones from scratch. Additionally, they can be accessed, edited and shared from anywhere via Web browser. This features make Google Docs a good platform for group collaboration and sharing, which is suitable for people on the road. It possesses mobile options, which allow users work with Google documents on devices running Android Froyo or iOS 3.0 and up. For business purposes, Google Docs is paid ($50 per user per year) as part of Google Apps service, which includes Gmail, Google Calendar and more. There’s one con of opening files in Google Docs – files have to be uploaded and converted into its format.

By contrast, Zoho makes the process feel much easier with its elegant design. It offers different application for collaboration, business and productivity purposes. It incorporates Zoho’s word processor, spreadsheet, presentation, note-taking and organizer tools that compete with Microsoft Office. Zoho has a customizable dashboard, which lets users manage our work process, importing all kind of documents easily and without hassle. It allows users to store files securely in a centralized location and then access them from anywhere. The individual use is free, but like Google Docs, business users pay a monthly fee ($ 5). The reviewers from PC World say that “a particularly notable feature of the service, however, is that it offers a plug-in that lets you create, edit, and save your documents and spreadsheets directly to Zoho from within Microsoft Word or Excel.”

Watch this video if you want to learn the difference with Zoho vs. Google Docs:

All the alternatives reviewed have particular strengths and weaknesses. PC World experts prefer Zoho most in the cloud and SoftMaker Office is their favorite on the desktop. Zoho’s features outdo those of Google Docs and the additional capabilities attract more “cloud” fans. Those, who prefer desktop software won’t make a bad choice with SoftMaker, which outperforms the more limited Lotus Symphony and LibreOffice. On the other hand, SoftMaker is older and LibreOffice has the advantage of being open source. If you are still wondering which to choose, all of them are free to take for a test drive.