4 Best Free Alternatives to Microsoft Office

Microsoft Office is probably the most popular productivity suite and includes different tools that allows to work with documents. Some of the most popular tools included in Microsoft Office are: Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

New software applications has been developed and they make similar tasks with Microsoft Office. They can be called alternatives because Microsoft Office still remains number one.

These recent software tools that can be successfully used as free alternatives has been tested and presented below.


1. OpenOffice by Apache is developed since 1996 (first time was named StartOffice) and it includes the main components that allow user to work with docs:

• Text Document - alternative for Word
• Spreadsheet - alternative for Excel
• Presentation - alternative for PowerPoint
• Drawing, Database and Formula

This application is free (open source license), it has a large use, is stable and includes a lot of useful features.








2. FreeOffice is made by a German company (no worry, software is available in English language) and is a full rich office package that includes 3 components:

• TextMaker - open, view, edit, create new documents (.doc) as alternative for Word
• PlanMaker - open, view, edit, create new documents (.xls) as alternative for Excel (even was not named with inspiration, is doing a great job).
• Presentations - create, view, edit or work with presentation files (.ppt, .pps, .pptx ..) as alternative for PowerPoint

This tool is free, the only thing required by developer is to register with your valid email address on their website before using the application.






This tool is good and ready to use, it has a small size. One thing i have observed when tested on Windows 7 64-bit, it does not make shortcuts on desktop, but you can find executable icons on C->Program Files->SoftMaker FreeOffice.


3. LibreOffice is a free alternative that is based on OpenOffice source code, but it has a slightly different interface and more friendly look. It includes the following tools:

• Text Document - work with Word files
• Spreadsheet - work with Excel files
• Presentation - work with PowerPoint files
• Drawing
• Database
• Formula

4. Kingsoft Office is another alternative. This application is made by a Chinese company and it has a great and easy to use interface. Very easy to find and use buttons from main panel to format text or access different features.

It includes:

• Kingsoft Writer - similar with Word
• Kingsoft Spreadsheets - similar with Excel
• Kingsoft Presentation - similar with PowerPoint

There are many applications to choose from, the above ones were tested and for sure will help you to open or work with your documents.