Microsoft Word/Office Workaround?? (Windows 8)

[SamR]

Kingsoft Office is pretty much a clone of MS Office, but for free. Pretty good.

 

[deptfordmarmoset]

I might have to re-evaluate my recommendation. OpenOffice was cast adrift by Solaris a while ago and I believe that the core development team branched off the the core coding with LibreOffice. Bug fixes and the like were more likely to come from the LibreOffice team than OpenOffice. I've just looked up Open Office and note that it now lives under the protection of the Apache Software Foundation, the grand daddy of open source web server software.

Most flavours of the opensource office suits have StarOffice DNA present at their cores and their functionality for the average user is very similar. The user interfaces might have variations but the biggest difference is in the additional functionality and the quality of the support forums that each product offers. The support offered by LibreOffice for the network installations was much better than that offered by the slimmed down OpenOffice organisation.

OpenOffice then LibreOffice was at the core of the office suite offering at my school and I managed to hold off the return to Microsoft Office for three years before the staff managed to convince the head teacher that their productivity was seriously impaired by the used of non Microsoft products. To have a quiet life the head bought their silence with a site license for MS Office. It gave me great pleasure to be able to say to the staff struggling the the MS ribbon menu system that I did not have the familiarity with the product to be able to offer any form of support until I had received some training.

While doing a little looking up, I gather from how to geek that Open Office developments are more easily incorporated into Libreoffice than vice versa. So, maybe worth waiting to see what developments come along.

 

[the_mikey]

In fact LibreOffice is a better option. http://www.libreoffice.org/

+1

 

[young Ed]

i always use office live with a free Microsoft account, only problems are that you always need internet connection to use it but most people always have internet these days and it is ever so slightly more basic then normal £££££££ office but i haven't found this to be any trouble
saves all docs to one drive cloud storage so you can access them on any computer windows, linux, mac etc so long as you have internet, a real plus for me as i can do school work at school and at home. or if i urgently need to update my sheep movement records i can do so at school, i of course HAVEN'T done that EVER!
Cheers Ed

 

[smokeysmoo]

[UPDATE] OO now uninstalled due to a virus despite changing the installation options so no bundled bu!!shoot was installed with it

Any links to a safe download source of OO or LO would be welcomed.

 

[Firestorm]

A couple of years ago our IT dept were considering switching from msoffice to open office.
Being the main access and excel user I got to trial run it.
We had access to another companies workbook which had a password protected hidden worksheet.
when I opened it in open office, it displayed a message saying that this is a protected document and asking if I wanted to ignore the protection, I got access to the hidden worksheet and all of its data.
The it manager promptly withdrew the roll out leaving oo on one pc in IT , "in case we may need it"
This was a couple of years ago, so this security issue may have been fixed

 

[deptfordmarmoset]

[UPDATE] OO now uninstalled due to a virus despite changing the installation options so no bundled bu!!shoot was installed with it

Any links to a safe download source of OO or LO would be welcomed.

I've always had clean downloads from cnet - http://download.cnet.com/Apache-OpenOffice/3000-18483_4-10263109.html

 

[subaqua]

I've just got a new PC running Windows 8 but I've got loads of documents that were created on my old PC in Office, (probably Word IIRC), that I now can't open.

I'm loathe to give Mr Gates a fistful of dollars for the latest version of Office, (because apart from anything else I don't have any), so does anyone know any work rounds that will allow me, (or more precisely Miss Smoo with her school work), to open and work on these files?

TIA

what less than a pound a day for Home office premium ( or whatever variant) that updates each year to the newest and means you can log in via the cloud and use MS office online on ANY computer.

oh and thats for 5 licences so 5 PCs - so about 20p per day in reality

 

[smokeysmoo]

so about 20p per day in reality

Sadly you can't pay daily though

 

[shouldbeinbed]

Go to filehippo its a fantastic source for freeware and trial stuff. Can't recommend it highly enough as a resource site.

On there you'll find Kingsoft Office Suite which has none of the compatibility/format problems between Open Office & MS Office and is nicer to look at & use than Libre IMO.

There is also a tablet version

*edit. Just seen SamR's kingsoft recommendation too*

 

[subaqua]

[QUOTE 3392837, member: 259"]I can't imagine why they're not queueing up for it. I can get a licence for 2 users on Mac and PC for four or five years or longer on the home user programme for £8. Or I can get OpenOffice for nowt.[/QUOTE]
Actually I fecked the maths up . It's 80 quid a year for 5 devices . Or if you are lucky enough to work for a company that does home user programme then lots cheaper .

Open office is great til you actually need it to work without issues and formatting problems on large spreadsheets , when it's capabilities are shown for what they are.

 

[marknotgeorge]

What version did you use before? You might be able to reinstall that. Office 2010 (which I got when Software4Students were doing it for less than £40) runs fine on my 8.1 laptop.