*Free* MS Office Alternatives

Microsoft’s Office package is to standard go-to option for users wanting an Office suite. However, it also comes at a certain cost, and for many this is either simply out of the budget or seen as too expensive on principle. If you’re not already aware, there are free (and quite safe) alternatives to Microsoft’s own offering. A couple of options follow below (please be aware we’re not responsibile for the content of any 3rd-party site and you visit at your own risk):

OpenOffice: https://www.openoffice.org
LibreOffice: http://www.libreoffice.org

These come with very capable and easy-to-use word processing, spreadsheet and presentation programs. However, Microsoft does still lead the way in terms of a fully featured presentation (PowerPoint) program and it has Publisher, which these free suites lack an alternative for. In these cases, it may be worth looking at the subscription package (Office365), which turned 5-years old recently, and is a way of acquiring the full gamut of the latest programs for a small monthly fee; you never outright own the suite, rather it’s like a ‘rental’ method, but would save you upwards of £100 (even for the basic Home + Student version). Student’s however, using their academic email address on office.com, may be able to acquire a free download of Office for their education, and is worth checking.