Microsoft Office Alternative

[skywalka]

Hi guys.

I'm really over bloated programs.  I can't believe how much junk they store in the registry.  So I'm gonna do something about it!

I was thinking  the only things I personally use Microsoft Office for is 1 or 2 personal spreadsheets (Excel).  I might open the occasional Word document.  Anything else I open is generally just from joke email attachments (PowerPoint slideshows etc).

So I need Office functionality for a minor number of uses but Office is easily the largest program on my PC.

I did a search for an alternative & found http://www.openoffice.org/

Has anybody tried this program or something better?

Thanx 4 looking.

[tinyvillager]

Never used Microsoft Office so i can't compare,but i tried Openoffice and it's decent but also
bloated imho 

AbiWord is a good free word processor

It's got a few bad reviews here but in my opinion you should try it yourself.
http://fileforum.bet...Windows/1023303864/1



I'm not bashing Openoffice,just saying it's a bit of beast too.

[skywalka]

I'm not bashing Openoffice,just saying it's a bit of beast too.

-tinyvillager (April 13, 2006, 12:19 AM)

That's what I was afraid of!

Thanx 4 the tip.

[zridling]

sky, check out 602 PC Suite.

It's a variant of Microsoft Office and highly compatible with MS Office 2003 and earlier versions, too. I buy this program for my relatives who rarely if ever have a need to use an Office suite. 602PC Suite has some elegant, if not brilliant ideas they've implemented that others have sometimes copied. Two such ideas are word count and bar codes. While its toolbars are highly customizable, its keyboard shortcuts are not, but it does have accurate PDF export capability. If you're willing to use this program, be willing to go a little further and spend the $40 for a license. The program is quite advanced, and it's coded efficiently, so that there are very, very few bugs in each release. If you know how to use Microsoft Word and/or Excel, then you already know how to use most of the 602PC Suite. Besides, it's been around since 1989!

[lanux128]

yes, i used to think of cutting down the Office-bloat too. then after trying-out a few alternatives, i sort of gave-up. this is mainly due to documents' incompatibility between different versions of Office and the proprietary format used by Microsoft, making it impossible for developers of these Office-alternative programs to keep up with Microsoft. nowadays, i would only suggest these alternative suites to only those with budget constraints...

in any case, these individual programs deserve a mention.
Atlantis -  a word processor with extensive support for MS Word files.
Spread32 - a fairly competent MS Excel clone.
Powerbullet - for creating presentations in the Flash™ format.

[zridling]

Wow, nice find on Spread32, lanux. Thanks.

[lanux128]

Wow, nice find on Spread32, lanux. Thanks.

-zridling (April 13, 2006, 03:52 AM)

you're welcome, zridling.
btw, the download is only 508 KB (no, that's not a typo).

[f0dder]

I currently use OpenOffice myself, but I'm tiiiiired of it's extremely long startup time and bloat. Java, bleh. Once it's started, it's sorta okay though - but of course I do have a AMD64x2 4400+ w/2gig of ram.

At work we're forced to use MS Office, the alternatives just don't handle the Office file formats well enough... and, well, Office is pretty darn fast compared to OpenOffice, and that's *without* those silly boot-time preloaders.

[m_s]

I have used Word for ages and ages, since migrating from Wordperfect.  I run Portable OpenOffice (http://portableapps..../portable_openoffice) from a USB stick when on the road, and that really is pretty good. That said, I think I would prefer to use one of the online word processors - most likely http://www.writely.com - when away from home and online.  In fact, if you have an always-on internet connection, using Writely might be a way to reduce system drag, since all you need to have open is your browser...

[Darwin]

Ashampoo (http://www.ashampoo....=2&idstring=0038) has a suite called Office 2005 that I've not tried. At $70, it's pretty expensive, given the cost of other alternatives (ie FREE!), but is worth a look. There is also Ragtime (http://www.ragtime-online.com/ - version 6 is in beta) which is free for home use but it's a bit bloated too, I think. I've done some minimal "playing" with it and it imports and exports word and excel files well but is a bit annoying in that it does so a bit slowly. This may be because it is in beta... I didn't keep the latest official release of 5 loaded long enough to remark on how quickly it does the same thing.

Looks like the suggestions from lanux are the way to go, though! I'll be checking those out myself...

[skywalka]

Thanx guys.

[JohnnyBee]

I've used Open Office and 602 Suite free edition, and they both work OK for me; the only problem is the nag screen that asks you to pay for the pro version - anyone know of a good registry hack that can get rid of this annoyance?

[brotherS]

http://www.lifehacke...office-20-167785.php

Office 2.0

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