Microsoft Office Alternatives

[rcannon]

Hi guys, I bought a new computer a couple months ago and it came with a free 90 Day trial of Microsoft Office. Well the 90 days are almost up, does anybody know of any Microsoft Office Alternatives? Maybe something free that can open up and edit existing Microsoft Excel and Word files?

Thanks in advance!

 

[mykevermin]

openoffice and neooffice come to mind. both free/opensource.

 

[pacifickarma]

OpenOffice.org

 

[Rusty Ghia]

While I'm not familiar with neooffice, I've been using OpenOffice for years now. And yes, OpenOffice can open up MS Word and Excel files. It can even save them in any number of formats.

 

[Serik]

OpenOffice is my first recommendation.

There's also AbiWord if you want a basic, lightweight word processor.

Google also has web-based word processor if you need to do stuff on the go.

 

[Sokkratez]

I use OpenOffice and AbiWord.

 

[hostyl1]

I'll add another voice for openoffice. Started using it circa 2003 and havent seen a reason to buy MS Office since.

 

[VioletArrows]

Has OpenOffice gained the ability to open MSOffice 2007 (.docx) files yet?

 

[neverletthem]

[quote name='VioletArrows']Has OpenOffice gained the ability to open MSOffice 2007 (.docx) files yet?[/QUOTE]

Just opened one in it, so yeah.

 

[Liquid 2]

Write your papers in LaTeX.

 

[howlinmad]

Google Docs?

But to echo everyone else, OpenOffice.org.

 

[strikeratt]

A cracked copy of Microsoft Office .... I mean Openoffice.org works

 

[lordwow]

Google Docs is nearly impossible to format correctly, especially for academic papers and such.

 

[rcannon]

Thanks, I'm going to check out OpenOffice.org.

 

[GogetaSS4]

I use OpenOffice.

 

[richierich]

I use open office and have been using it for the past 5 years. It's very nice, but most people who are used to office need to remember to save in the correct format (ex: when I needed to print something at school they only have Microsoft Office installed so I had to save in *.doc format)

 

[GuilewasNK]

OP, did your PC come with Microsoft Works? I have no idea if that comes with Vista, but Works is decent enough.

Other than that though, there is no other option other than Openoffice that is even worth talking about.

 

[n25philly]

if openoffice is the best alternative, well that is just sad

 

[biscuit]

We use openoffice. Instead of remembering to save in doc format, just change your preferences so that it always open doc formats in openoffice, and always saves in doc format from openoffice. I had to do that for my daughters PC so when she emailed school assignments to her teachers they showed up in the format they wanted to see them in without her remembering to save it separately as a doc file.

 

[Nohbdy]

I'm surprised nobody's mentioned IBM Lotus Symphony. I'll be trying it out later.