Options to avoid ultra-expensive Microsoft Office
If you’ve recently tried to upgrade to a new version of Microsoft Office, you might be astounded by the price that it commands. It can cost over $400 for the professional version. Quite a pretty penny to pay.
Rather than paying Microsoft’s rather hefty fees, you might be more interested in looking at some of the alternatives that are out there.
One very reasonable alternative would be Microsoft’s own Works package. Essentially an entry-level office productivity suite that has older versions of Microsofts own products. For instance Microsoft Works 2006 has Microsoft Word 2002 in it. You’ll find that many new computers have Microsoft Works installed on it automatically. However, you can purchase the software package for under $50. And it is quite functional.
Many people are being drawn to the alternative of Open Office. Open Office is something truly revolutionary. It’s been created by developers as Open Source software. What that means is that programming is not done by a corporation for profit, but rather by independent programmers from around the world.
Many users have found that Open Office is a good alternative to Microsoft’s Office products. It offers free alternative versions to Word, Excel, Powerpoint and Access. And the best part is that it’s completely free. There is no charge for using Open Office, it remains free for all users whether personal or corporate. It remains very compatible with most versions of Microsoft Office. Which means that if you create a document in Open Office and mail it to a friend or coworker with Microsoft Office that the document will open fine for them, and vice versa. However, many users have complained that Access isn’t very forgiving of the differences between the programs.
My personal favorite however is Google Documents. When you log in to your Google account, you get access to Google Documents, where you can create word documents, excel documents very similar to how it works in Microsoft Office.
If you’ve ever had a hard drive go bad, you’ll like the fact that Google Documents is web based. Which means that all of your documents are saved online. That means that Google has all of the files on their servers, which means they are backed up by all of the power of Google.
Also with Google documents it’s very easy to share and co-edit the same documents right online. We use Google documents almost exclusively in our office, and love how easy it is to collaborate on projects together.
Even though Microsoft Office is the leader in office productivity suites, there are cheaper alternatives. It’s possible to create compatible documents for others and save money at the same time.
Filed under: Computers & Technology