Who needs Microsoft Office? Freeware puts twists on old apps

Most people become so accustomed to using Microsoft Office that they never consider its alternatives. But there are more than one way to process words and spreadsheets: Word and Excel aren't the only games in town.

In fact, it's getting easier and easier to do without the most popular Office applications. Other than Outlook--which my company uses--I haven't opened a Microsoft Office app since last February, when my HP laptop died prematurely.

In fact, it wasn't easy removing the trial version of Office Enterprise 2007 that was preinstalled on the Sony Vaio that replaced the piece-of-crap HP that died. I've been working just fine using the free Jarte word processor and Gnumeric spreadsheet.

Plenty of free Office alternatives
For several years, I've relied on the free, open-source OpenOffice.org suite and free, not-so-open-source Google Docs online services as my part-time Office surrogates. But OpenOffice.org's Writer and Calc apps are slow, and Google's online word processor and spreadsheet are missing some important formatting features.

Of course, OpenOffice.org and Google Docs have some nice features that Office lacks. Microsoft neither offers anything like Portable OpenOffice.org that lets you run the suite's programs from a USB thumbdrive you can take with you from system to system. Nor is it easy for Office to match the ubiquity of the documents you store on Google Docs, which are never more than an Internet connection and Web browser away (even closer with the Google Gears offline component).

Your Office alternatives aren't limited to those two products--far from it. Among the leading candidates for Office stand-in are IBM's Lotus Symphony, OxygenOffice, and Go-oo. What's the difference? You'll find a nice discussion of free office software at Tech Support Alert.

Not the same-old interface
How did word processors, spreadsheets, databases, graphics software, and other disparate apps ever get tied together in the first place? I'm sure there was a good reason, but I can't seem to remember it right now. I rediscovered the joys of standalone apps earlier this year when I started using the Jarte word processor and Gnumeric open-source spreadsheet program.

The Jarte interface in particular was a revelation: it just makes sense. The program is based on Windows' built-in WordPad program, but frankly, I don't see any resemblance. Start with Jarte's browser-like tabs, then check out the dashboard controls for managing files, formatting documents, manipulating content, and accessing references.

Two of my favorite Jarte features are the instant word and character counts, which appear when you hover over the Document Counts icon, and the smart clipboard that lets you save multiple snippets of text for later pasting. You get your choice of three interfaces, but I prefer Compact to Classic or Minimal. And then there's the world of clickless options that let you select menu items simply by hovering over them.

The free Jarte word processor lets you save and reuse multiple text snippets.

(Credit: Carolina Road Software)

The commercial Jarte Plus version adds such features as background spell-checking, autocorrect, and "Personalities" for saving custom configurations, but as the vendor Carolina Road Software states, the Plus version is intended primarily as a way for customers to show their support for the product with their pocketbooks.

By contrast, the Gnumeric spreadsheet is part of the open-source Gnome project that's committed to providing a free desktop environment for various operating systems. I readily admit that my spreadsheet needs are limited, but it was actually easier to transition from Excel to Gnumeric than it was to switch from Word and OpenOffice.org Writer to Jarte. You may not get Excel's fancy pivot tables or charting options, but Gnumeric puts the features you're most likely to need front-and-center.

Switching from Excel to the free Gnumeric open-source spreadsheet is nearly automatic.

(Credit: GnomeProject)

Microsoft goes after Office scofflaws
On those rare occasions when I criticize Microsoft (ahem), I can count on some commenter taking me to task, saying something like "it was a fine article until you got all political and started bashing Microsoft." Well, I've pointedly avoided mentioning the company's recent expansion of Office Genuine Advantage. Just as Windows Genuine Advantage is one of the company's attempts to control unauthorized use of Windows, OGA is designed to ferret out illegal copies of Office.

Despite its noble goals, OGA is a hassle for many, many legitimate Office customers. You can probably keep OGA off a PC running Office, but not without some effort. And then there's Microsoft's "guilty until proven innocent" assumption. Far be it from me to tell one of the biggest companies in the world how to run its business, but appreciated I don't feel, thank you very much.

[DJ_Lae]

I've been waiting a long time for an acceptable replacement for Excel, as I can't complain about something that would save me money. All of the other spreadsheet applications I've tried have been more or less useless, of course, as they're designed for you to dump a table, make a summation at the bottom, graph it, and not much else. The instant you want to add a bit of code, play with macros, use an automated solver, use pivot tables, or integrate it easily with another document you're working on, you're kind of stuck with Excel.

That's probably the greatest benefit of Office, as the Access/Excel/Word integration is pretty handy for a lot of things. I could do without most of the other bundled programs, though.

[BigueNique]

Then, I suggest that you try out OpenOffice.org. Their spreadsheet software, Calc, surpasses Excel in power, in my point of view. Of course, it doesn't support VBScripting, though!

OpenOffice.org apps are getting very well integrated, and it's getting better on every release. The only downside of that open source suite is that it's pretty heavy, and it relies on the Java environment, which is pretty heavy too, which all makes it a not too good solution for using on older computers.

But for more recent computers, it's a pretty good office suite.

[t8]

Not being nasty, but you are in the minority.

Most people don't do that stuff, so it isn't a problem for them to use Google Docs, or Open Office.

[pjcamp]

How did the apps get bundled? The Redmond marketing machine, of course.

In the 1980's, there were several tightly integrated "suites" -- really just software with different modules. ClarisWorks/Appleworks and the original Lotus Symphony come to mind. These were nibbling away at the low end of Microsoft's market so they bundled the original office (Word, Excel, Powerpoint and, in the pro version, Access) -- 3 apps for the price of 1.5. Such a deal!

It wasn't really a suite. It was just a marketing term for a bunch of stuff thrown into the same box. But since that box included two of the market leaders, Word and Excel, it sold. The bundle also had the advantage of taking significant market share away from other, single app, vendors such as Borland (Quattro Pro), xywrite and Q&A write (much beloved of book authors), to the point where most of them either collapsed or merged.

[jeduardocafe]

Ah yes, box integration. I remember when that was the dominant way of bundling. Nice that we've evolved from that.

[juancastro6]

I think that if they made office suits more affordable people would not look for alternatives. I think that 139 for an office suit is too much. I think that because of the economy people can not afford to pay that much.

[chiara embaum]

Exactly !!! That's why people use pirate versions. Also, you should be able to get just the word processor and pay for that alone, I do not use anything else. So why make me buy spreadsheets and other stuff that's horribly expensive that I never use ?

[daas88]

I have to admit that, quite a while ago, before switching to openoffice, i used a pirated ms office. But there's plenty of opensource alternatives that can make you save money and still feel honest.
Besides openoffice, there's abiword processor for text documents, the already mentioned gnumeric, scribus for replacing publisher, other full suites like StarOffice, and many others.

[doreilly]

Unfortunately, StarOffice is no longer free, although Sun does offer free licenses for schools.

Dennis

[chiara embaum]

Thanks for mentioning abiword which seems to be just a word processor, which is all I need.

I do not want to pay for spreadsheets and other features I never use.

I have also pirated versions but now use the open suites, but really want nothing but a good word processor.
Will have a look at abiword,

thanks,

lol

chiara

[wedgevt]

What about a Powerpoint alternative?

OpenOffice has one... its called Impress or you can just make a Powerpoint Presentation on Google Docs.... Both work fine if you want a very basic slide-to-slide presentation...

[djames42]

If you're on a Mac, Keynote is a much preferable alternative to Powerpoint. I had to use Powerpoint recently and I felt like I was beating my head against a wall. A wall of nails. Turned backwards.

Yes, it has nice integration with the other office applications, but trying to create pleasant looking slides with elegant transitions is an exercise in futility. Keynote is much easier to use, allows much faster creation of presentations, and gives you the added advantage of creating presentations that don't look like every other PowerPoint presentation.

[khamma]

'm a big fan of Jarte. It's my default .rtf word processor. My everyday workhorse. Speedy. Never fails me. Never gives me back-talk. When I have some really heavy-duty word processing to do, I go to my heavy-duty WordPerfect.

Because I wanted to find a replacement for Excel, I recently installed SoftMaker suite. Not free, but I got an older (AShampoo) version for less than $10.00. Now I'm using Textmaker for those in-between jobs - the things I will have to keep stored away for a very long time and PlanMaker is fine for my needs. Does it do everything Excel does? No. But it does everything I will ever need it to do and if it doesn't, I still have Excel installed, uh, somewhere. As for Word - A-a-agh-h-h-h. Haven't seen its face in a couple of years and never want to again. And NEVER is when I will ever put up with that space-hog ribbon. There is one glitch in my distaste for the MS Office Suite: I love Access. Can't do without it - but NOT the 2007 version. I'm sticking with ribbonless.

Oh yeah, SoftMaker has a Powerpoint alternative, but I don't know how good it is. I never use it - or Powerpoint either.

[ade333]

LOL I love articles like this. It reminds me of the people who drive 40 miles to save 3 cents on gas.

and pjcamp, the reasoning for the bundle are many. The popularity was a result of the value. In the case of MS, all the apps have always been available on their own. Buying a few together saves you quite a bit of money.

[Lanadapter]

So, using an open source office suite that does everything you need it to instead of spending $80+ on Microsoft office = people who drive 40 miles to save 3 cents on gas?

[ade333]

Lanadapter, nope....but scouring the internet for a mixture replacement applications that don't play nice together does.

[khamma]

Isn't about saving $. I purchased MS Office 2003. Who can get along without it altogether in this MicroSoft world? The cost? $500.00. I am baffled by people commenting on Microsoft's suite saying $80 + or $160 is too much? Where did you folks find such a good price?

It is about overkill or as some of you call it, bloat. MS Word is bossy, and never keeps its settings. I hate the copy/paste panels that I have to constantly close down. I like lean and mean. Except for Access, of course.

[Lanadapter]

" I purchased MS Office 2003. Who can get along without it altogether in this MicroSoft world?"

Just about everyone who uses OO.o instead.

"The cost? $500.00. I am baffled by people commenting on Microsoft's suite saying $80 + or $160 is too much? Where did you folks find such a good price?"

Open office: $0.00, every website/peer network FLOSS software is distributed on.

[Lanadapter]

Also, $83.97 was the lowest I could find when googling office 2007. Just so you know.

[OfficerNelson]

@ade333: Lots of us had no choice. After reinstalling Vista 5 or 10 times, Office 2007 locked up on me and wouldn't let me reinstall it. To the same computer. I called Microsoft and they were no help, because they stupidly assumed I was using it on multiple computers and put me through the hoops to try to score another sale of Office. I told them to cram it and promptly downloaded OO and installed Portable OO on my USB just to be able to use it on campus in an emergency. I haven't yet.

No significant problems with OO formats yet. Saving to DOC works fine, sans the occasional spacing quirk that never really causes any issues.

I'm going to stay away from the next Office release, thank you. They've wasted enough of my time with this activation BS. At least my Dell OEM Vista Ultimate doesn't lock up after 30 days.

[bigpicture]

If Lanadapter can buy an MS Office copy for $83.97 it is most probably black market with a illegitimate product key. Would not want to say pirated because some of these outlets also sell copies at the MSRP with a legitimate product key.

[n25philly]

Someone let me know when these alternatives actually get close to being anywhere near as good as the real deal and I'll care

[ade333]

n25philly, couldn't agree more.

[Trillogy1]

n25philly, I am a strong MS supporter in many ways. I have used the office suite for a long time. But, I have to say that open office is a great alternative. No, it is not faster, in fact a bit slower. But, speed in loading is not a huge thing for me. It works fine once loaded. Even when office student (Word, Excel and powerpoint) are on sale for $100 that is $100 more than open office costs.

You don't have to surf the net looking for alternatives. Simply download open office and use it.

[n25philly]

open office is junk. Sorry, I know everyone is enticed by the price, aka free, but that's about all they got right. One, comparing office and open office is a joke, because open office only cover what, like 1/3 of the suite? On top of that it's not intuitive and poorly designed. Yeah, if all you have to do is type and don't have to go past the needs of a fifth grader open office will pass, but it's a waste for any kind of real work.

[bigpicture]

MS fan boy bend over because Big Daddy MS is putting it to you. Both with price and with hacker vulnerabilities. I work for a bigger company than MS and they don't use MS Outlook because of this. And if it was not for file format lock up, and interoperability lock up with other corporate software they probably would not use the rest of MS office either. We already pay big time taxes to the government.

[Seaspray0]

How about we make individual choices. If you want to use office, then do so. If you want to use something else, then do so. That's the most important thing. The only reason I read the comments is to see why people made the choice they did... perhaps I may find myself needing to make similar choices down the road. I may agree or disagree but that's ok because the individual choice is what matters. So if you guys want to impress me, be honest in your post because a biased one really does nobody any good. Help people make the decision that's right for them... not for you.

[rjpotts]

Before MS Office the Desktop was being ruled by WordPerfect, Lotus 1-2-3, Harvard Graphics, and dBase. Each of these products cost between $400 and $1,000. Depending on what you needed the price to outfit your desktop with these tools could cost a few thousand dollars. There were earlier attempts to bundle office productivity apps before MS Office. But when it was released it only cost $400 - $600. A significant departure from a few thousand dollars.

A bit of office productivity application history:
The Electric Pencil was the first PC word process released in 1976
WordStar replaced The Electric Pencil as the word processor of choice by 1978
VisiCalc released in 1979 was the first spreadsheet app, it was first released for the Apple II
In 1980 Ashton-Tate released dBase II (originally developed in 1978 called Vulcan)
In 1982 WordPerfect Corp released WP 2.x for the PC
In 1983 Lotus Corp released Lotus 1-2-3
In 1984 Apple was bundling MS MultiPlan, Word, Chart, and File
In 1986 Microsoft released MS Works and SPC releases Harvard Graphics
In 1989 Microsoft releases the first version of Office on the Mac

[PRsurfer`]

Ok and 33 yrs later, the full suite should cost $75 with taxes, at most!....
Ms Word $20, $10 for students... And maybe charge a few bucks for new features and updates...

[cp1951]

PRSurfer, you can get MS Home & Student for as low as $69 from Microcenter and Newegg on occasion. Excel, Word, and Powerpoint are included. Most home users don't need Access or Outlook.

I get full shrinkwrap versions of Professional, which includes Outlook, for $170 from Dell when I order new systems for businesses. Small businesses with more than one employee look at OO as a time sink that cannot possibly ever save them more than $170 per employee. Learning to convert file formats, asking clients to re-send a compatible file, learning the different techniques to do mail merge, letter heads, templates, etc. is just too labor-expensive for the businesses I work with.

Office is #1 for many good reasons. For some people it isn't a good deal at all. I look at what AmiPro, Lotus 123, and WP5.1 used to charge and think that $170 is a wonderful deal.

[stealthpiper]

Just tried Jarte and Gnumeric . Love em. Fast and do everything I want. Thanks for the article.

[doreilly]

Rjpotts, you forgot about PC Write, the shareware word processor for DOS, but otherwise a nice capsule history of PC applications/suites.

Thanks,
Dennis

[coolkams03]

how come ZOHO is not mentioned in this article ? the best online office suite out there .. read up . .

[pdnelson01]

The only problem with using Office alternatives is that we don't live in a vacuum - that is, I often have to count on other people to open the file formats I use and vice versa. While alternatives can save files in the Office formats, they don't always look that same when you open them with an Office suite program. I recall the first time I sent a professor a DOCX file after 2007 version came out - they thought I was trying to send a virus or something! Perhaps when I am no longer a student I will consider Office alternatives for personal use.

[Ceedub2]

I remember when First Choice was a number 1 pick for office apps., I got it on 4 (5 1/4") floppy disks.

Open Office offers some good apps but when working in a business or learning in the college. It's MS Office they want you to learn most.

[Toulinwoek]

Why do some women stay with men who beat the crap out of them every Friday night just to stay in shape?

In SOME ways (not all), it's for the same reason most people (me included I'm afraid) stick with Office; because it's what you get used to. I have used several alternatives (OpenOffice especially) pretty extensively over the past several years, but I just can't get comfortable with the different "feel", and I wind up drifting back to Office even though I'm not consciously thinking that the alternative sux.

Then there are little things, like for a while (I don't know if it's changed even now), in OpenOffice Writer, I could not point to the left of a paragraph, get a backward-facing cursor, and click to select the entire paragraph. I could not understand why that didn't seem a handy enough feature, and I can't imagine it would have been a programmer's nightmare to implement. Just a bunch of little things like that.

I don't stay with MS Office because it's sooooooo much better than the alternatives; it's mainly because I'm just used to it. I do have to say though that the enhancements brought on by Office 2007 have made it even harder to want to give any alternatives a try. I think it's the best Office since 2003

[John01Racing]

Wow! This is actually good for home users and other users to save their money and get a free word processor, and a spreadsheet. Other companies and I will still need Microsoft Office.

[Seaspray0]

+1. A very informative article.

[salehjamal]

I understand Toulinwoek point. Many people fear change and just don't feel comfortable using different softwares. However, I can't understand why people say that OO is lacking in any way or that they can't use it at work for whatever reason. The new versions of OO are much better than the old ones.

At work, I use MS Office Word mainly and I suffer the whole time using that garbage. It's counter-productive in many ways specially formatting and cross-referencing. I admit I haven't used OO extensively so I can't say much but I can say without doubt that MS Office still has ways to go to be a "productivity tool".

[Toulinwoek]

Actually, salehjamal, fear of change is not an issue for me. In fact, I probably download and test between 15 and 30 programs (of all kinds) a month, always looking for something new/better/easier, etc. I'm not afraid to switch from MS Office, I just haven't found anything (yet) with which I am as comfortable. If I find something that does the trick I'll switch; I have no loyalty to any product. OO lacks features, it just does, but then so does Word. Last time I used OO, which was probably about a year ago, there were features I was missing that Word had, and it had a few nice features that Word did not. However, when Office 2007 came out, I found it to be such an enhancement that I haven't tried anything since.

I'm not sure how you define 'productivity', so I can't grasp how you can say that Word can't be called a productivity tool. Sure, there are many ways in which it's counter-productive, but the same is true of the alternatives. I find Word (and the other Office programs) to be less so, simply because I am used to the way they function.

[qzuiilw]

I like any alternative to office, it makes life alot easier and obviously cheaper.
but if there was one where all the options where in the exact same spot as office was around that would make me want to use it... i've only got experience with open office but for some reason there are a businesses who can't open my files every now and then

[kannuc]

Without MS, the internet wouldn't be what it is today so I felt kinda guilty a few years ago when I decided not to update my older version of Word, but instead, switched to Open Office, which I find quite adequate for my home office needs. Now I'm ready to look at an open source operating system and get rid of Windows as I assume my XP version will soon be out of date and I'm not willing to pay big bucks for a newer version.

[jgrab1]

> Without MS, the internet wouldn't be what it is today

Huh? Microsoft was among the last to realize the Internet's possibilities and has had very little influence on it, playing catchup most of the time. Gates later admitted he was completely blindsided by the 'net--in his 1996 autobiography he spends pages talked about his cool new house but barely mentions the Internet when talking about the future of computers at all. Microsoft has been playing catchup every since, being a follower trying to "own" trends after they become popular i.e., cloud computing, just as it did in the past i.e., WYSIWYG.

[whclevelandjr]

@jgrab1

I think kannuc meant to say that without MS, the personal computer wouldn't be what it is today.

I have to agree with that sentiment. Oh the good old days of looking in my printer manual to enter the escape codes in the configuration file for my word processor, or having to make sure the program I purchased had all my hardware listed as supported before I bought it...

I'm not say Microsoft is a saint! Far from it. But face it, it took Microsoft to introduce driver support in a desktop OS that is capable of running on a multitude of PC-Compatible machines. This was not an easy feat.

[Seaspray0]

Microsoft tends to gravitate towards business needs and desires. That's been thier focus and as a strategy, it has been successful. That's not to say it's perfect since the internet side suffered, but it was successful.

[margilowry]

I'm with pdnelson01 and Toulinwoek - I am a word processor/transcriptionist by trade - and if I could get each and every one of my clients to be able to accept alternative files or if the "save as Word" document features worked on these open-source alternatives, I'd snap it up in a heartbeat. Until then, I'll keep shopping for the lowest prices for Microsoft Word and Suites and use the tried-and-true.

[farker1]

I am a translator, but a scholar and not freelance, so I don't need to use the DOC format for clients like other translators do - I can simply save ODT files as DOC in OOo at the end of a project.

However, I use Wordfast, a brilliant translation memory program that only works on Word. If there were an open source programme that worked as flawlessly as Wordfast, I stay with OOo.