Software

star office

or open office.

open office free.
star office cheap.
both read/write m$ orifice file format.

http://www.openoffice.org //open office

http://www.sun.com //star office

First, if you can afford the $50 for Think Free why not look at the Academic version of MS Office?

You can usually find it for around $130 (US).

Alternately, take a look at Open Office.
www.openoffice.org

There are several distributions for different operating systems, and it is free to download.

Chas

OpenOffice does all that Office does and more.

You can read and write word and excel files, and you can export to PDF from any openoffice program.


John

I'll admit, I haven't heard of Think Free until I read your post, maybe because it looks like it's been targeted more toward Mac users. It looks decent enough, but I'm not sure it would be worth that money when compared to other products.

OpenOffice http://www.openoffice.org/ is definitely a great alternative, and the beta that's out now includes a relational database tool (compare to MS Access). You will find it very easy to use, especially if you have experience with MS Office programs.

If you're not so comfortable going with open source, not-in-a-box software, then another option to consider is Corel's WordPerfect Office. Corel is refocusing efforts on this product. You can download a trial version. They also offer Student/Teacher ($99) and Home ($89) editions - see the family at http://www.corel.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=Corel3/Products/Display&pfid=1047024307359

Good luck!
-Sharon

go to http://www.openoffice.org/ it's free