Alternatives to Microsoft Office

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BUYER'S GUIDE
It's no secret that Microsoft Office dominates the productivity suite market, but that doesn't mean it's the only way to go. Corel and Sun Microsystems offer two alternatives that provide a core stable of programs at a fraction of the price of Microsoft's package. Corel's WordPerfect Office 12 sports interface improvements and one-click PDF, HTML, and XML publishing. Sun's StarOffice 7.0 is a lesser-known name, but it provides all the basic productivity tools and throws in a couple of extras, such as a drawing program. Of course, there are trade-offs. These two suites don't come with email clients, and they're not the best at converting Microsoft Office files. So which to choose? Budget, work habits and necessity will all come into play, but to help get you started, we've created a comparison chart of what the Standard edition of each office suite has to offer out of the box. Read on to see which one is best suited for you. If you want to spend the absolute minimum -- that is, nothing -- on your productivity software, check out ZDNet's downloads channel, where you'll find OpenOffice.org (the open source version of StarOffice) and EasyOffice.
Office suite comparison

Microsoft Office 2003 Standard Edition


WordPerfect Office 12


StarOffice 7.0



Price (inc. VAT)
£326.49 £276.13 £44.99
OS support
Windows Windows Windows, Linux, Solaris
Features
Word processor Word WordPerfect Writer
Spreadsheet Excel Quattro Pro Calc
Presentations PowerPoint Presentations Impress
Email Outlook n/a n/a
Database n/a n/a Base (Adabas D)
Drawing n/a n/a Draw
Support plans
Phone 2 free incidents (toll call); £45 per incident thereafter (toll free); £150 for 5-incident pack £15 per incident (toll free); 10 incidents for £90; 15 incidents for £150; pay-as-you-go, £1.50 a minute 60 days of free support; $25 (~£14) per phone session thereafter
Email 2 free incidents; £29 per incident thereafter unlimited free email enquiries 60 days of free support; $20 (~£11) per email session thereafter

Compare products

Product Date Editors
rating
Member
rating
Price
Product Date Editors
rating
Member
rating
Price
WordPerfect Office 12

WordPerfect Office 12

Corel's WordPerfect Office 12 features a core stable of productivity applications, but suffers from its poor handling of Microsoft files.
17 Jun, 2004 7.3 8.4 £276
StarOffice 7.0

StarOffice 7.0

StarOffice is suitable for education institutions and home users, but its poor Microsoft compatibility limits its business uses.
23 Jun, 2004 8 9 £44
OpenOffice.org 1.1

OpenOffice.org 1.1

This feature-rich, flexible and, above all, free office suite is much more than a refuge for the anti-Microsoft tendency. It works, it's reliable and it's useful.
20 Oct, 2003 8 8.8 £0
Microsoft Office System 2003

Microsoft Office System 2003

Microsoft Office System 2003 is the most complete suite available, but there's no compelling reason for everyone to upgrade.
21 Oct, 2003 8 6.5 £326

Talkback

There's a comment in the document about StarOffice 7.0
having poor support for Microsoft Office formats. That's a bunch of hooey, and I think we could all benefit from the writer's research on this issue. Personally, I have never had ANY trouble using StarOffice 7.0 to both open Word/Excel files and even to save them. I just completed a project using Microsoft Publisher in which StarOffice 7.0 documents were seemlessly imported into Publisher after being saved in doc format. Likewise, documents sent to me in doc format by users of different MS Office versions were imported into StarOffice without any trouble at all. Many other reviews have highlighted the fact that StarOffice is able to read and save in MS formats with almost 90% accuracy. That's anything but "poor". Even more telling for me is the fact that I couldn't open a document I received in MS Office 2003 format using my personal copy of MS Office 2000 but I COULD open the 2003 doc using Star Office 7.0. This is all anecdotal, to be sure, but it speaks to the author's contention that a problem exists when she's flatly mistaken.

via Facebook 24 June, 2004 00:32
Reply

I have to agree with the previous comment. Both StarOffice and OpenOffice.org can work with MS documents as well as (and better than most) other office suites. The only things that do not translate well are macros (which is really a benefit, IMHO, considering the various macro viruses that plague Office) and some complex formatting. Furthermore...why is MS Office compatibility the standard, anyway? You could just as easily say "Microsoft Office is essentially crippled because it does not import WordPerfect documents well, and does not import StarOffice and OpenOffice.org documents at all." Given the outrageous price of Office, the onerous licensing, and its vulnerablity to malicious scripting and code, MS Office seems to be the worst possible choice of the options given. Is your reviewer on the Microsoft payroll or WHAT?

via Facebook 25 June, 2004 01:17
Reply

My wife is not "computer savy," so I think twice before installing a new office suite on her computer. For years she used WordPerfect 4.5 for DOS! Then we went to WordPerfect 7.0 (Windows) and that went seemlessly. After several years, we both went to MS Office 2000. Despite there being a filter, she lost several of her WordPerfect docs, and never seemed quite happy about the switch. I began using OpenOffic.org (OOo) two years ago, when version 1.0 came out. For as long as I used Word 2000, I had problems with system lock-ups that occured about once or twice a week. I never figured why. That disapeared completely when I switched to OOo. Given problems the last time, I hesitated for months before switching my wife's system. I gave her lots of warning, and got her to back up all of her documents. The result was anticlimax. She had no trouble with the switch at all! In common with my own experience, she was productive in OOo immediately, and hasn't told me of any problems.
And oh yes, I like OOo's support sytem better than anybody else's. A mailing list "manned" by a combination of volunteers and Sun employees, I've had every question I ever asked answered accurately, usually within a few hours.
The OOo organization emphasizes giving back to the community. I have done so by answering a few questiions myself. Others have written macros and others submit detailed bug reports. I am told that still others have written some of the code (you can download and comple it if you want). It is an amazing, vibrant and close-knit community.

via Facebook 2 July, 2004 16:34
Reply

I'm still looking. I would like an alternative that runs on LINUX. I had great hopes for OpenOffice. I was very disappointed when I found they were trying to be an Office clone. Maybe I am just a WordPerfect snob, but the Office UI and operation is IMHO, broken beyond repair. OpenOffice mostly cloned that broken UI. When supposed Word "experts" (i.e., instructors and Tech Editors who have been using it for years) can not make it do what they want there is a major problem with the product. And that is the world of MS Word! It is beyond me why ANYONE continues to use that product, unless they never had the opportunity to use a product that actually worked so do not know any better.

I wish someone would buy WordPerfect and start marketing and supporting it again

via Facebook 10 August, 2006 18:54
Reply

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