Top 5 Free Alternatives That Can Replace Microsoft Office

Along with Internet Explorer, Microsoft Offices is one of must-have softwares of Windows users. However, the pain is: it is not free or we can say it is freaking expensive. The newest version Microsoft Office 2010 will cost you nearly $279.99 for a Home and Business boxed version and about one-third of it for the digital downloaded version. I admit that Microsoft Office is best office tools for Windows operating systems but if you want to consider other free alternatives, you would like those Microsoft Office-alternatives that mentioned below:

OpenOffice.org or commonly known as OpenOffice is an open source product and a complete office suite that provided by Sun Microsystems. It includes variety of office applications such as Writer as word processors, Impression for presentations, Calc for spreadsheets, Draw for graphics and the Base for databases. The user interface is very similar to Microsoft Office 2003 with some advanced components. And the most important thing is: OpenOffice supports all of Microsoft Office file formats such as Microsoft Words formats (.doc, .docx), Excel formats (.xls, .xlsx), PowerPoint (.ppt, .pptx). Which means you can open or save any Microsoft Office supported documents with OpenOffice. The disadvantages of OpenOffice are: it does not have new Microsoft Office ribbon interface and its Impress is not as good as PowerPoint.

Calligra Suite is an office suite that originally was KOffice. It contains applications for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, digital painting and vector graphics. Its default format is OpeDocument (.odt) which is the same as OpenOffice and it also support other Microsoft Office formats. The user interface is very simple but it is somehow different from other office products so it could take time for you to get used to Calligra Suite.

AbiWord is a simple interface and easy-to-use word processor that developed by SourceGear Corporation. My impressions for AbiWord are it has a very small installed file, simple user interface and consume a little resources of the computer. It supports Microsoft Word formats such as .doc and .docx, and Openoffice format .odt. As a result, AbiWord can be a great replacement for Microsoft Word.

Zoho's Office Suite is a totally web-based office suite that includes usual office tools such as word processors, spreadsheets, presentations and many more services like chatting, email or CRM. Because all of them are web-based applications so you do not need to install any programs but you need to have an internet connection in order to use its services. It supports all of common formats including Microsoft Office (.doc, .docx, .xlsx, .pptx), OpenDocument (.odt) and other formats. You can also embedded the media from many video sharing services like Youtube, Flickr and share your documents with your friends or colleagues through social networks. If you are familiar with Microsoft Office 2003 or OpenOffice, you can get used to Zoho's Offcie Suite because it almost has the same interface as them with adding some blogging tools. In my opinion, Zoho's Office Suite is a perfect office suite because I do not have to bring my heavy laptop anytime I go on business trip and I can access to my documents on any computers that have a reliable internet connection.