How to Find Free Alternatives to Installing Microsoft Office Applications

One alternative to Microsoft Office is Google Apps.

An eHow user asked for an article explaining how to install Microsoft Office products for free. Sadly, it's not possible to get Microsoft products free. But there are alternatives that are just as good.

Difficulty:

Moderately Easy

Instructions

The Alternatives

1. The first alternative to check out is Open Office. (See the Resources list at the end of the article for links for all software mentioned.) This is completely free software developed by the Open Source community.

   It contains a word processing application, a spreadsheet application, a presentation application and more. All Open Office applications can open and use Microsoft Office documents. Likewise, a document created in Open Office can be used by anyone who has Microsoft Office. Open Office acts and works very much like Microsoft Office, so the menus and options will be familiar to anyone who has used Microsoft Office.

   Open Office works on Windows and Mac.

2. Also consider Google Apps. Google provides free word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation applications. All you need is a Google account. These are free software tools.

   A distinction for users of Google Apps is that the files are stored online (not on your computer). This means you can work on your documents from any computer. And, since it's online, it isn't dependent on any particular operating system such as Windows or Mac.

3. The final alternative is not free, but it's under $70. It is Star Office.

   Like the other two, Star Office integrates perfectly with any document you might want to exchange with a Microsoft Office user.

   Star Office is only for people running Microsoft Windows, Linux, Sun Solaris SPARC or Sun Solaris x86 Platform Editions.

Resources

• Open Office
• Google Apps
• Star Office