Alternatives to Microsoft office for Windows 8

[scottmandue]

Inherited my dad's old (newer than mine) Windows 8 computer.
I refuse to 'lease' software from Microsoft so:
We need a word processor and a spread sheet (Ala Excel) program, in days of ole you just bought a Office disk and away you go... nowadays not so much.

I'm sure there are alternatives but I know we have a bunch computer guru's so thought I would ask before wading into long list of software alternatives.

If there is something we could import our old word and excell documents it would be a plus but that is not critical.

What say ye?
TIA

[stealthn]

Not sure if it works with 8 but

https://www.libreoffice.org

[id10t]

Yup, OpenOffice and/or LibreOffice

And as long as you are refusing to license MS products... https://linuxmint.com/

[biosurfer1]

OpenOffice is what I use most of the time

https://www.openoffice.org

[LakeCleElum]

After my terrible experience with the FREE Win 10, I've bought both a new desktop and a new laptop. Ordered both online to come with Win 7.......

Loaded my old Office 2000 Professional. For the laptop, later updated to Office 2007 for $19 bux off ebay.......

I guess you are saying Win 8 won't let you load older versions?

[RANDY P]

I swear, had it not been for Excel and Visio I wouldn't even KNOW what MSFT is...Wouldn't even exist in my world.

Excel is their only saving grace, and I HAVE to use a PC because of Fuzzy Lookup. UGH.

rjp

[cabmandone]

My kids use google docs.

[wildthing]

Google Docs.

Now, if you happen to work in a semi-large company that has standardized on Windows and Office (> 1000 employees maybe), or have a friend who does, you can buy Office for 10 bucks. Ask whether they participate in the "Home Use Program". I've purchased twice already. Once back in 2011, and that software still works for my needs (Office 2011 for Mac). I don't need the latest features. So no real need to keep upgrading.

Only reason I bought another is I got a new computer.

[Vipergrün]

OpenOffice...

[scottmandue]

Searching the net and Free FreeOffice and LibreOffice seem to be the most common.
Anyone heard of FreeOffice.

[scottmandue]

Originally Posted by LakeCleElum

I guess you are saying Win 8 won't let you load older versions?

Oh I can load it, but microsoft won't validate it online.

Originally Posted by id10t

Yup, OpenOffice and/or LibreOffice

And as long as you are refusing to license MS products... https://linuxmint.com/

Already have two mint machines I setup with your help (thank you!)

[Brando]

At my day job we use a combination of Office 365 ($10/mo per user) and G-Suite ($5/mo per user) with some shared accounts. I think for a total of $150/mo we have full coverage of our team which is pretty inexpensive. For my consulting biz, 1 Office 365 license covers 3 "devices" and G suite for 5 of us, comes out to about $20/mo for full coverage.

Depending on what level of professional quality presentations you need and how willing your team is to learn new things, there are inexpensive (by comparison) and "freemium" versions of these apps out there. For example:

• Vimeo for video sharing or presentations
• SlideShare for online presentations
• Join.me (free) or GoToMeeting for screen sharing
• Slack, Skype, Discord, Google Hangouts for free/freemium meeting conferencing
• OpenOffice + G-Suite for office documents

[sugarwood]

Google Docs.
You can upload your entire repository of existing Office files.
Then create new ones there.

In other words, no more desktop based software.
Welcome to the cloud!

[scottmandue]

Originally Posted by Brando

At my day job we use a combination of Office 365 ($10/mo per user) and G-Suite ($5/mo per user) with some shared accounts. I think for a total of $150/mo we have full coverage of our team which is pretty inexpensive. For my consulting biz, 1 Office 365 license covers 3 "devices" and G suite for 5 of us, comes out to about $20/mo for full coverage.

Depending on what level of professional quality presentations you need and how willing your team is to learn new things, there are inexpensive (by comparison) and "freemium" versions of these apps out there. For example:

• Vimeo for video sharing or presentations
• SlideShare for online presentations
• Join.me (free) or GoToMeeting for screen sharing
• Slack, Skype, Discord, Google Hangouts for free/freemium meeting conferencing
• OpenOffice + G-Suite for office documents

Um this is for our home computer... I'm not going to pay a monthly fee for software to balance our budget and print out resumes. May seem cool to you but for a guy who has been working on computers for +20 years 'renting' software seems absurd.

Now get off my lawn!

[spuggy]

Originally Posted by id10t

Yup, OpenOffice and/or LibreOffice

Libreoffice had many more developers after the fork from OpenOffice (including the original team), plus the license is different:

In the long run, this means that big improvements to OpenOffice can be incorporated into LibreOffice, while big improvements to LibreOffice can’t be incorporated into OpenOffice.

From: https://www.howtogeek.com/187663/openoffice-vs.-libreoffice-whats-the-difference-and-which-should-you-use/.

Google office suite stuff was always pretty functional; only gets better; I still do "big" spreadsheets locally in LibraOffice, but using GD for work for the last 3 years ('coz cross-platform/team collaboration). Have cursed it a lot less than Orifice or Outhouse, that's for sure...


Seems to me that Microsoft is just becoming more irrelevant all the time.. Be interesting when they EOL Win 7, seeing that ~40% of the internet managed to avoid the dirty tricks campaign to sneak-upgrade them to 'Doze 10 and is still running it...

Especially with dirt-cheap Chromebooks, I wonder how many people clinging to laptops out of habit just don't realize there are only a few good reasons remaining to (none of which are actually applicable for - e.g. - my mom)?

Wife was thrilled with the $150 factory-refurb Samsung Chromebook (weighs 2 pounds with an insane battery life) when she traveled recently. Been trying to get her to give it a go for nearly a year, now she won't put it down...

Originally Posted by id10t

And as long as you are refusing to license MS products... From: https://linuxmint.com/

A fine choice for someone who wants their application/browser platform to Just Work. If you really need to run something that a Chromebook can't do...

And if there's a 'Doze app you really can't do without that needs to run natively (iTunes, MoTeC's ECU manager/i2 logger all I care about- even PET runs under WINE), just convert the original 'Doze install to a VM and run under KVM or VMplayer.

[scottmandue]

Installed OpenOffice, threw a Word and Excel document on there, open-edited-save.

Free is good, Thanks guys.

This is a computer that will be used store recipes, cat pictures, edit our budget. Probably get turned on once a week so we don't need the newest/fastest/bestest .

Of course we are all on the MS hit list now

[scottmandue]

Okay now, form a circle join hands and sing along with me... we shall over commmme, we shall over commmme

[HardDrive]

Originally Posted by id10t

Yup, OpenOffice and/or LibreOffice

And as long as you are refusing to license MS products... https://linuxmint.com/

I vote Ubuntu for newbs, but mint works too.

[id10t]

Originally Posted by HardDrive

I vote Ubuntu for newbs, but mint works too.

Mint is Ubuntu with a better configuration for the Desktop. Same same under the hood, just a better implementation of the default desktop settings and package selection. Oh, and not of that commercial partner selling crapware either