Microsoft Office Alternatives - Comments Page 2

I've been using MS Office up and trough 2003. However, I am very disappointed that it take so long for MS Word for example to load.) I now limit the use of MS Word to those occasions where it is necessary and that is becoming less and less frequent. I depend heavily now on Ashampoo Office. It takes Textmaker to loads in 4 seconds vs. MS Word which takes 34 seconds. Textmaker closes in 1 second. Word takes 29 seconds. Need I say more?

Though the "Word Perfect" was not mentioned in this article, I want to say a few words about it. It was first developed in Utah and then sold and re-sold several time. I was testing it from the very beginning alongside with several other word processors, including "Microsoft Word". The "Word Perfect" was leading. It seemed to me the "Microsoft Word" was copying every new thing the "Word Perfect" introduced, trying to catch up wit them. Then, to outdo the "Word Perfect" "Microsoft Word" became so unnecessarly complicated that I simply dropped it. I am still using the "Word Perfect" and I believe it is the best wordprocessor ever made; at least for me it is. And, it is compatible with "MS Word".
Paul K.

Bruce Byfield has written an article for the Datamation trade journal that compares the LibreOffice and Microsoft Office side by side. He focuses primarily on the word processors: LibreOffice Writer versus Microsoft Word. Byfield claims that LibreOffice Writer is the better of the two overall.
He writes: "Far from one having an obvious advantage, in recent years the feature lists of Writer and Word have become closer than ever. Byfield claims that Writer has at least twelve major advantages over Word.
You can read Bruce Byfield's article at http://goo.gl/dg4FV.

Libre Office is excellent (and I believe is now included with ubuntu by default for anyone who wants to try out linux.) It's big, feels maybe a little sluggish but is the only one of the suites with a serious database product included (Base.) There's a portable version too, at portableapps.com.

I haven't tried SoftMaker 2012 but 2010 is very acceptable. The email client (in the Pro version of 2012 only) has been bought in from a third party and I'd be inclined to wait a while before committing to it as I've seen some bug reports. 2010 can be made portable too; not sure about 2012.

Symphony will be worth having if they get around to including Approach; otherwise, it offers little (beyond the IBM badge) that you wouldn't expect of an OpenOffice fork.

AbiWord (a portable version is also available at portableapps.com) is neat, quick but can have compatibility issues.

Jarte is primarily an RTF editor, as you'd expect for something based on the MSWrite engine. For doc(x) support you MUST download the MS converter before Jarte will even open a doc file. However, it's fast, very capable, optionally portable and, unlike almost everything else, appears to have been designed with user-friendliness at its core. (For that reason, I'm extremely fond of it!) However, it's ONLY about word processing and if you want fine control over page layout and formatting, you're going to be better looking to one of the others.

If you want a solution that you can live inside with few if any compatibility concerns and the maximum capabilities, Libre's probably the best option. Ditto if you want the best bang for your buck and don't want to hand over cash. If you don't need database, don't mind spending some money and DO want speed, then SoftMaker Office (or the Ashampoo build of the same product is occasionally available at a better price) will probably work for you. Both have trial versions so you can suck it and see.

Abi and Jarte don't include spreadsheets so can't really be considered "Office" products. Either are good WP-only choices if you don't care about inward compatibility (both either save in or can export to formats that everything can read). Jarte takes a little getting used to but has a clickless mode that's a joy to use.

To Matt who wants to learn Linux- so do I. If you have problems, do a google search. Bob provides a Linux tutorial at http://lowfatlinux.com/.

No one mentioned "Atlantis". I never got used to the expensive Word processors,, so when I actually had a need for one I tried every one I could find - maybe 40 or 50. Atlantis is Shareware, 30 day trial, $35.00 to buy. It does everything I want it to. YMMV :-)

My experience with Word Processing freeware.

KINGSOFT Office is a joy to use.
IBM Lotus SYMPHONY is not as simple to use, nor as intuitive.
ABIWORD just doesn't have the features of Kingsoft or a few others. I know a few people who like it.
JARTE is a nice, but flawed RTF Word Processor. I used it for a long time, especially on a USB portable "thumb" drive. It was constantly freezing up on me, and I got tired of losing things I had typed. One handy thing it has is screen capture. And the ability to have many documents open at once, using tabs. I asked twice for help for the locking up problem, but never heard from them. They brag a lot about themselves on their site, but really don't respond to your needs.
I have since replaced Jarte with POLYEDIT LITE. It does everything that Jarte can do except screenshots. But for printing documents, not very good.
LIBRE Office was just too "clunky" in usage and appearance, and printing was not nearly as easy as with Open Office. Haven't used Libre lately because I am so pleased with Kingsoft freeware.