1. Microsoft Office Word For Mac

If you need to write a letter or work out your finances on a spreadsheet, chances are you’ll have considered paying for Microsoft Office so you can use Word and Excel. But you can get fantastic alternatives to Microsoft Office without spending a penny.

We’ve found six of the best free Microsoft Office alternatives for Windows, Mac and even iOS and Android devices. Informative, in-depth and in the know: 1. FreeOffice Windows A good alternative to Microsoft Office for light use, it’s a basic suite of programs including a word processor, spreadsheet and a presentation program. FreeOffice TextMaker includes spellchecking, design tools and a comprehensive range of editing tools. FreeOffice PlanMaker is similar to Excel, and includes advanced calculation and tools. FreeOffice Presentations includes animation tools and a series of templates to get you started. FreeOffice can open and save Microsoft Office file formats.

OpenOffice Windows, Mac OpenOffice includes programs for word processing, presentations, spreadsheets and graphics, so can be used as an everyday Microsoft Office replacement. It can open and save Microsoft Office formats, and can be used for business, student and home use.

Its word processor Writer can create anything from quick letters to a full-blown novel, while its spreadsheet tool Calc includes intuitive graphics and charting tools. For more tips and information, or try one of these popular articles: Or enter our for the chance to win a worth £22.99. LibreOffice Windows, Mac LibreOffice is a powerful collection of word processing, spreadsheet, drawing, presentation and mathematics tools. It’s great for professional work – and its interface makes it simple to create professional-looking documents such as brochures, letters and presentations. It is fully compatible with Microsoft Office files, and you can download special extensions and templates to extend its features even further. WPS Office Windows, iOS, Android Fancy editing and creating documents on your iPad or Android tablet? WPS Office is a mobile alternative to Microsoft Office, and it’s free.

It includes word processing, presentation and spreadsheet tools, and allows you to open, edit, create and save both Microsoft Office and Google Doc compatible documents. It’s a tiny app size, so doesn’t take up much storage, and includes PDF tools to boot. Google Docs Windows, Mac Not a full-fledged alternative to Microsoft Office, this free collection of writing, presentation and spreadsheet tools can be accessed from a web browser from any computer, provided you’ve a free Google account. The tools are basic, but it supports the ability to save in Microsoft Office formats.

You’ll need to be connected to the internet to use Google Docs, however. IWork Mac Not to be left out, Apple includes a series of powerful Microsoft Office alternative tools with every new Mac. They include word processing (Pages), spreadsheet (Numbers) and presentation (Keynote) applications. All can open and save Microsoft Office documents, include a great range of tools for even professional use, and you can open and edit documents on your Mac, iPad and iPhone.

Advertisement I used to be that guy who rolled his eyes at MacBook users, then I bit the bullet and bought an iMac. Just buy a Mac, take a couple of days to settle in and never look back. But for Microsoft Office users, the need to buy Office for Mac again can be a hassle. If you work in the traditional office environment that runs on Excel and Word, you might have to bite the bullet. But if you’ve outgrown that world and still need to edit and send Office documents every now and then there are alternative options.

If you’re not ready to buy Microsoft Office for Mac or run your old While Apple provides Bootcamp, a built-in OS X application for installing Windows on your Mac, virtualization program VMWare Fusion 6 allows users to run Windows without restarting their Mac first., these are your best alternatives. Google Suite If you’re going to let go of the Microsoft world, your best bet is to join the Google alliance. Google, and are the three alternatives to Microsoft Office, Excel, and PowerPoint. There’s no real alternative to Outlook beyond Gmail, and you can get OneNote on the Mac for free.

Google’s suite is really quite good. It integrates well if you already have a Google account.

You’ll be able to add and open an Excel file you received via Gmail in Google Sheets by pressing a button. You can easily import Microsoft Office files to work on them, export them once again in Microsoft Office formats to pass them around. And if what you’re doing is fairly basic, and you use fonts and formatting that’s standard these days, you can get away with it. The other party will never find out that you’re not using full-fat Microsoft Office. In some ways, Google Docs is more powerful than Microsoft Word.

There’s an Word-processing for students has long been the domain of Microsoft Word, but the recent release of add-ons is making Google Docs an appealing free option., beautiful templates, there are superior research tools built-in and then there’s Google search capabilities. Plus, there’s the advantage of Google’s cloud prowess. Collaborating with multiple users simultaneously in a document is a pure joy. It’s a little thing but it does wonders for productivity. The entire suite is free and you get 15 GB of storage for free as well. The only problem is that there’s no real desktop app for any of these (you can work offline on documents in Chrome, The downside to cloud-based services and apps is that you always need to be online to use them.

We show you how to take Google Drive offline & what to keep in mind.). Accompanying apps for iPhone and iPad are quite good as well.

LibreOffice is widely recognized as the best open source alternative to Microsoft Office suite, which means it’s completely free and available on a whole host of platforms. If you’re used to the Microsoft Office user interface (pre-ribbon era), it won’t take you long to adjust to LibreOffice. Unlike Google’s apps, LibreOffice suite comes with fully featured offline desktop apps with all the pro features you expect. To make the deal even sweeter, LibreOffice recently added an online component. So you can sync files from Google Drive or OneDrive and edit then right in LibreOffice (there’s no collaboration feature, though).

I bought a $10 cheap version earlier and there is no comparison the El-Gato is the way to go if you want good images. The $10 EZ-Caps may be cheap but their image quality is terrible. Elgato video capture, digitise video for mac.

LibreOffice also does a good job in regards to formatting when importing Microsoft Office documents. Even complex Excel spreadsheets (like mortgage calculators) imported in LibreOffice Calc work like they should. LibreOffice actually grew out of OpenOffice, which used to be the de facto alternative to Microsoft Office. But OpenOffice hasn’t seen any meaningful updates recently and the management is considering retiring the project.

So we advise you to OpenOffice is no longer a free Microsoft Office alternative you can count on. We have compiled the four best options for Windows, Linux, and Mac.

LibreOffice’s track record in the recent past has been great. You’ve got a new Mac and it’s likely you’re never going back to Windows. Included with your Mac was the iWork Suite:, and. These are Apple’s own alternatives to Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. As these are Mac apps, the UI is quite different.

Instead of being top heavy, the options show up in a contextual menu on the side. And you just won’t have as many options as the Microsoft Office suite.

All three apps are now quite mature and all the basics are covered. Once you get used to them, they’re actually a joy to use (something I can’t necessarily say about Microsoft Office). While customization options are limited, everything that’s available is quite polished. When you create a presentation in Keynote, chances are you’ll end up creating something beautiful.

The same goes with Pages, and moving text, images, and graphs around is a seamless experience that doesn’t make you want to pull your hair out. The iWork Suite lets you import and export documents in Microsoft Office formats (it will save to the default iWork format, though). And as long as you don’t use a Mac specific font, doing a back-and-forth with Office documents shouldn’t be a big problem. IWork also has online collaboration options but frankly, I wouldn’t recommend using them. They’re nowhere near as reliable as Google’s offering. Quip isn’t a fully featured alternative to Microsoft Office. But if you were never comfortable with Word or Excel, Quip’s minimal approach to document editing might just be for you.

It’s what I personally use as a Word alternative. In Quip, there are no ugly, complicated menus to worry about.

Formatting happens using shortcodes (kind of like Markdown, but not entirely). A formatting bar shows up when you select text. Common shortcuts are also supported. Quip also shines when it comes to collaboration. While it’s not as feature rich as Google Docs, Quip’s multi-user editing and comment features are still quite good. Quip’s iOS app lets you edit documents on the go.

Quip’s default themes will help you generate beautiful PDF documents. When nothing else will do, just open Office.com. Office Online is Microsoft’s free and basic Microsoft Office service that works online. While the feature set is limited, the basics of document editing, spreadsheet formulas, and presentation options are all covered. You’ll get access to Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote. Edit Office Documents in Dropbox Dropbox’s partnership with Microsoft means you can open a Word, Excel or PowerPoint document shared with you on Dropbox.

You don’t need an Office 365 license but you’ll require a free Microsoft account. Ditch PowerPoint for Better Online Tools, sure but it’s quite outdated. If you want to stand out with your presentations,:.

— This is my personal favorite for creating beautiful presentations easily. The free account lets you create and present documents online. To export, you’ll need to upgrade to a paid account. — This service is geared more towards startups but the visual tools offered by Prezi are beyond anything you can get with PowerPoint.

— Canva is an online image editor but it has an extensive library of presentation templates. Plus, Canva gives you all the important tools for creating a customized presentation. Embrace Markdown Here’s an idea purely out of left field. You’ve given up Windows and embraced the Mac. You must have started appreciating macOS’s simplicity by now. If you want more of that for creating and editing plain text documents, you should try using Markdown. Tired of HTML and WYSIWYG editors?

Then Markdown is the answer for you no matter who you are., like HTML but much simpler. When you use a Markdown app to write, there are no 25 menu options. All the formatting happens using shortcodes. So for example, to make a word italic, you wrap it around with asterisks. You can create a complex formatted document without ever lifting your finger from the keyboard.

Microsoft Office Word For Mac

Plus Markdown exports clean HTML and you can generate beautiful PDFs In 2016, not everyone needs a full-service word processing program, which is why software like Ulysses exists. If You Must, Stick With Microsoft Office 2016 Microsoft Office 2016 is here and it's time for you to make a decision. The productivity question is - should you upgrade? We give you the new features and the fresher reasons to help you. For Mac was a significant one. There’s UI and feature parity with the Windows version. If none of the above alternatives work out for you (I would again suggest you give LibreOffice a good hard look), you might have to drop $229.99 for (or a $9.99 per month subscription).

How do you use Microsoft Office documents on your Mac? What kind of productivity features you just can’t live without? Share with us in the comments below. Explore more about:,.