10 free alternatives to Microsoft Word and Excel (free PDF)

Don’t want to pay for an expensive Microsoft Office subscription? This ebook looks at 10 free options that can stand in for Word and Excel.

From the ebook:

Microsoft Word has its devotees, but find one person who loves it and you’ll probably find several who don’t. From redesigns that hide familiar menu items to overly complicated (and often unused) features, there’s a lot to be desired in a simple word processor that Microsoft Word doesn’t deliver, due to its complex nature. In addition, Microsoft Word and the rest of Office is expensive.

If you don’t need all the features Microsoft Word offers, it can be hard to justify paying that price, especially in a small business environment where you just need a word processor. Don’t pay for what you aren’t going to use—take a look at one of these five free Microsoft Word alternatives instead.

Google Docs
Google Docs, which is easily the most popular Microsoft Word alternative on this list, is free to everyone with a Google account.

If you want the basic features of Microsoft Word, you don’t need to look any further than Google Docs—it handles all your basic word processing needs, and it’s tightly integrated with Google Drive and other products.

Since everything is saved in Google’s cloud, you don’t need to worry about losing your work, either. Docs autosaves after every single keystroke, so in the event of a crash you should be able to pick up right where you left off, down to the letter.

Google Docs also supports Microsoft Word’s .doc and .docx formats, so you shouldn’t have any problems importing and editing those files.

One of its best features for business users is real-time collaboration. If you share a document with another Google user, both of you can be in the document at the same time, see the other user’s cursor position, watch what they’re typing, and chat to each other as well. It’s a great collaboration tool that stands out among word processors.

However, advanced users may find the features lacking It really is a bare-bones word processor.

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Topic:
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PDF