Program For Mac Like Microsoft Word
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- Sep 01, 2009 A Macintosh, to its user, is more than just another computer platform. When technically-oriented people look at a program, they tend to look at the functionality of that program—what it does and how it does it.
Download and Install office for Mac and get started on your favourite Mac programs in minutes. Free MS Word Alternative Software We often hear people ask: 'My trial version of Microsoft Word has expired, and I was wondering if there was a free word program on the internet?'
It’s fairly easy to leave Windows behind. Just buy a Mac, take a couple of days to settle in, and never look back. But for Microsoft Office users, the need to buy Office for Mac again can be a hassle.
If you work in a traditional office environment that runs on Excel and Word, you might have to bite the bullet. But if you’ve outgrown that world and still need to edit and send Office documents every now and then, you have alternative options.
If you’re not ready to buy Microsoft Office, here are your best Microsoft Office alternatives for Mac that are free.
1. Google Suite
If you’re going to let go of the Microsoft world, your best bet is to join the Google alliance. Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides are the three alternatives to Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. There’s no real alternative to Outlook beyond Gmail, and you can get OneNote on Mac for free.
Google’s suite is really good and integrates well with your Google account. You’ll be able to open an Excel file you received via Gmail in Google Sheets with a quick button press.
You can easily import Microsoft Office files to work on them, then export them again in Microsoft Office formats to pass them around. And if what you’re doing is fairly basic, with standard fonts and formatting, you can get away with it. The other party will never find out that you’re not using Microsoft Office proper.
In some ways, Google Docs is more powerful than Microsoft Word. There’s an extensive add-on gallery, beautiful templates, superior research tools built-in, and Google search capabilities to boot.
Plus, there’s the advantage of Google’s cloud prowess. Collaborating with multiple users simultaneously in a document is a pure joy. It’s a little benefit, but it does wonders for productivity.
The entire suite is free and you get 15GB of storage included. The only problem is that there’s no real desktop app for any of these (though you can work offline on documents in Chrome, using the Offline mode). Accompanying apps for iPhone and iPad are great too.
Visit: Google Docs Google Sheets Google Slides
2. LibreOffice
LibreOffice is widely recognized as the best open source alternative to Microsoft Office suite. This means it’s completely free and available on a host of platforms. It’s the best Office alternative for Mac.
If you’re used to the Microsoft Office user interface (pre-Ribbon era), it won’t take you long to adjust to LibreOffice. Unlike Google’s apps, the LibreOffice suite comes with fully featured offline desktop apps with all the pro features you expect.
To make the deal even sweeter, LibreOffice recently added an online component. So you can sync files from Google Drive or OneDrive and edit them right in LibreOffice (there’s no collaboration feature, though).
LibreOffice also does a good job in regards to formatting when importing Microsoft Office documents. Even complex Excel spreadsheets imported into LibreOffice Calc work like they should.
LibreOffice actually grew out of OpenOffice, which used to be the de facto alternative to Microsoft Office. But OpenOffice hasn’t seen any meaningful updates recently, and its management is considering retiring the project. So we advise you to stay away from OpenOffice. Conversely, LibreOffice’s track record in the recent past has been great.
Download: LibreOffice (Free)
3. iWork Suite
Included with your Mac is the iWork Suite: Pages, Numbers, and Keynote. These are Apple’s own alternatives to Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Pages, for instance, is the best Word alternative for Mac.
As these are Mac-centric apps, the UI is quite different. Instead of being top-heavy, the options show up in a contextual menu on the side. And you don’t have as many options as the Microsoft Office suite. Since all three apps are now matured, all the basics are covered.
Once you get used to them, they’re actually pleasant to use (something we can’t necessarily say about Microsoft Office). While customization options are limited, everything that’s available is quite polished. When you create a presentation in Keynote, chances are you’ll end up creating something beautiful. The same goes with Pages—moving text, images, and graphs around is a seamless experience that doesn’t make you want to pull your hair out.
The iWork Suite lets you import and export documents in Microsoft Office formats (it will save to the default iWork format, though). And as long as you don’t use a Mac-specific font, doing a back-and-forth with Office documents shouldn’t be a big problem.
iWork also has online collaboration options but frankly, I wouldn’t recommend using them. They’re nowhere near as reliable as Google’s offering.
Download: Pages Numbers Keynote (Free)
4. Office Online
When nothing else will do, just open Office.com. It essentially gives you access to free Office for Mac. Office Online is Microsoft’s free and basic Microsoft Office service that works in any browser.
While the feature set is limited, the basics of document editing, spreadsheet formulas, and presentation options are all covered. You’ll get access to Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote.
Visit: Office Online
5. Edit Office Documents in Dropbox
Dropbox’s partnership with Microsoft means you can open a Word, Excel, or PowerPoint document shared with you on Dropbox. You don’t need an Office 365 license, but you’ll require a free Microsoft account. Using this option opens your document in Office Online.
6. Ditch PowerPoint for Better Online Tools
PowerPoint is powerful, but it’s also pretty old-school. If you want to stand out with your presentations, try some more modern online presentation tools:
- Slides: This is my personal favorite for creating beautiful presentations easily. The free account lets you create and present documents online. To export, you’ll need to upgrade to a paid account.
- Prezi: While this service is geared more towards startups, the visual tools offered by Prezi are beyond anything you can get with PowerPoint.
- Canva: Canva is an online image editor, but it has an extensive library of presentation templates. Plus, Canva gives you all the important tools for creating a customized presentation.
7. Embrace Markdown
Here’s an idea purely out of left field. If you given up Windows and embraced the Mac platform, you must have started appreciating macOS’s simplicity by now. If you want more of that for creating and editing plain text documents, you should try using Markdown.
Markdown is a syntaxWhat Is Markdown? 4 Reasons Why You Should Learn It NowWhat Is Markdown? 4 Reasons Why You Should Learn It NowTired of HTML and WYSIWYG editors? Then Markdown is the answer for you no matter who you are.Read More like HTML, but it’s much simpler. When you use a Markdown app to write, you don’t get lost in dozens of menu options. All the formatting happens using shortcodes.
So for example, to make a word italic, you wrap it with asterisks. You can create a complex formatted document without ever lifting your fingers from the keyboard. Plus, Markdown exports as clean HTML and you can generate beautiful PDFs using apps like Ulysses.
If Needed, Use Microsoft Office Without Paying for It
Buying the latest version of Microsoft Office will cost you a few hundred dollars (or a subscription for Office 365). Most of the time, the options listed above will suffice for you. Google Docs works as a great alternative to Word, and the same goes for Sheets and Excel. If you’re looking for offline alternatives, LibreOffice should be more than enough.
But there might be times where you have to use Office for a particular task or for a limited period of time. There are a couple of ways to do this without paying, including using Office Online or one of the mobile apps. We’ve outlined all your options in our guide to using Microsoft Office without paying for it6 Ways You Can Get a Microsoft Office License for Free6 Ways You Can Get a Microsoft Office License for FreeFree Microsoft Office licenses are hard to get, but they do exist. This article covers six ways to get Word and Excel for free.Read More.
And for one more option, take a look at what OnlyOffice has to offerThe ONLYOFFICE Suite Offers Collaboration, Cloud Storage, and ChoiceThe ONLYOFFICE Suite Offers Collaboration, Cloud Storage, and ChoiceONLYOFFICE offers an exciting alternative to Google G Suite and Microsoft Office 365. Here's why it's worth a look.Read More.
Explore more about: Google Docs, Google Sheets, iWork, LibreOffice, Microsoft Office Alternative, Microsoft Office Online, Office Suites. Fillable invoice program for mac.
Try WPS Office: http://www.wps.cn/product/wpsmac/. The Mac version is available on April 8th, 2018. Really good alternatives for Microsoft office with all the features. The only bad thing is that you need to sign in with a wechat account.
Google docs is a total epic fail when it comes to exporting a PDF. It does a completely garbage job of exporting the images and Google is 100% not addressing the problem.
Don’t believe the marketing and PR hype about Office 2016 for Mac being feature and function comparable with the Windows version. It’s like saying a Lexus and a Kia are both comparable cars. I’ll l ave it to you to work out which one is the Kia!
Almost three years in on the Mac version and it is still full of embarrassing bugs and functionality gaping holes.
I wish Microsoft well, I really do, but its upgrade to Word 2016 for the Mac increases the steps I need to take for common operations. When 2008 came out with .docx, I discovered that single-spaced lines I typed—the only spacing used since I got Word, perhaps in 1991—appeared as double-spaced. Single-spaced files copied from .doc files came out double-spaced, as did files copied from files on the Internet. So also Word 2011 and Word 2016. However, in several tests with 2016—original typed work, files copied from other Word files, and files copied rom the Internet, I once got two typed lines single-spaced. That did not recur.
In 2008, I found a way to continue creating .doc files. However, 2016 requires that I convert from .doc to .docx to insert files, graphs, and charts. A workaround: Copy a picture, graph, or chart from a dummy .docx document and copy it into a .doc file. Unfortunately, the same conversion is needed when one adds a page to a document. Perhaps I could work around that as well, but I stopped trying, discouraged with Word 2016.
I deleted 2016 from my computer, fearing a malign influence, even if caged in Trash. So I have to trust my memory that I could no longer swipe across Insert to Page Break, on the top line, which includes Word, File, Edit, etc. In 2016, as I did in 2011. With 2016, I had to go halfway down Insert to get to the Page Break choice. I use Page Break sometimes more than 10 times a day, as I import files from the Internet and add them to existing files. I have well more than 50 files from some writers and even seven by the UK’s Melanie Phillips. Microsoft staff, introducing Word 2016, wrote that one go to a Paragraph menu in the ribbon to add a Page Break, the most inefficient way to do that. (One can also use Pages, to the left of Paragraph, and choose Page Break there.) One suspects that logical engineers redid Word to suit a certain orderliness, with little regard to what actions users most commonly use.
That new files in Word 2016 opened 5 ½ inches deep on my 27-inch (about 13 vertical inches) computer, with an inch or so of gray or grey space aside the file, seemed merely annoying and stupid. Perhaps that was to conform to smartphone use.) Why can’t a user determine what the standard file length of new files should be, in any version of Word? (I prefer a page plus three lines of another page.)
Worst, perhaps, the 2016 version of Word does not automatically reopen files that open when one quits Word, voluntarily or forcibly. That could present a major problem if changes to an open file had not been saved before a Quit. Word 2011 does automatically reopen files. One suspects that Microsoft people did not let Apple provide that automatic reopening feature.
I have read that Windows apps do not provide automatic reopening. Impossible to believe!
I had also read that one needs Word 2016 in High Sierra, which prompted my upgrade. I have since been advised that Microsoft will not support 2011 in High Sierra. I do not know what that implies for Word 2011 if I upgraded to High Sierra. with Word 2011. would do to Word 2011 if I upgraded to High Sierra. Would I lose automatic reopening of files in Word? So I have to stick with Sierra.
I have nearly 30,000 Word files since 1991 or so, which take up nearly 9 gigabytes on my computer. I spent four intense days trying to make Word 2016 work, with the continuing nastiness of forced format conversions. The leaders at Microsoft and the leaders of ISIS think alike on forcing conversions.
Now, I must change much, fixing on a major project that has consumed years, try to find some way to insulate my Word files from malicious people, and hope that intelligent, humane people interested in serving individual computer users will soon lead Microsoft and Apple.
My friends recommend me to google 'aakeys' to get a genuine key. I got one, works so well, and will get another one very soon.
My issue is that I am living in a world where MS-Office is standard. And I have noticed that you loose a lot of formatting and functionality (sequence fields..) when converting from MS to Mac and back. I would have liked that issue to be addressed more directly.
If you're a Mac user, you should look at Nisus Writer Pro or Lite first of all, even before Pages. Pages is nice, but too 'lite.'
Nisus has the mostest wonderfulest interface, and I dearly miss it, having moved on to Windows. It really deserves its own post, to be honest.
Best free office software
While Microsoft Office continues to dominate the world of office productivity suites, some users and businesses may be put off by the idea of monthly fees.
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Additionally, over the years a number of other companies have launched their own versions of office software, covering documents, spreadsheets, and email, to rival Microsoft's flagship service.
Some of these alternatives come at a more competitive price - but even better, some are free to use. This will almost certainly be of interest to those consumers and businesses looking to minimize costs while retaining the ability to work with office files.
However, not all office suites are created the same, and come with limitations, especially in free versions that come with a paid-for upgrade to unlock features.
Additionally, you also need to bear in mind that formatting can be saved in different ways for the same file type for different programs, which can cause problems when sharing files with users who use different software. Therefore it's important to note if the formatting will be retained accurately.
On top of that, you also need to ask which office software types you actually need. Most packages offer documents and spreadsheets as standard, but some providers may not provide database or presentation software in a bundle, so it's important to check what you need against what providers will actually supply.
Regardless of all that, here we'll list the best in free office software as alternatives to Microsoft Office, for both home and business users.
- Want your company or services to be added to this buyer’s guide? Please email your request to desire.athow@futurenet.com with the URL of the buying guide in the subject line.
1. LibreOffice
Everything you could want from an office suite, fully compatible with Microsoft formats and totally free to use – even commercially
Programs Like Microsoft Word
Word Of Mac
LibreOffice is so good, you'll wonder why you ever paid for office software. It's compatible with all Microsoft document formats, and has almost every feature you'll find in the latest versions of Word, PowerPoint and Excel.
The suite contains six programs to cover every common office task: Writer, Calc, Impress, Draw, Math and Base. The last three are tools you won't find in many other free office suites, and are designed for vector diagrams, mathematical functions and databases, respectively. The latter is particularly useful; free alternatives to Microsoft Access are hard to find.
LibreOffice is an open source project maintained by a huge and enthusiastic community of volunteers constantly working to improve stability and add new features. There's a great selection of extensions and templates to make it even more flexible, and it's free for businesses as well as home users.
LibreOffice is a fork of Apache OpenOffice, and the two are extremely similar, but we’d opt for LibreOffice thanks to its more frequent update schedule and more modern interface. The latest release (version 6) adds a huge array of new features and fixes, including more interface customization options, improved file import and export compatibility, and new online help pages.
LibreOffice is available for Windows, Mac and Linux, but there are no official mobile versions available except for a document viewer for Android. It has some editing features, but they're experimental and we wouldn't advise relying on them.
2. Google Docs, Sheets and Slides
For working across platforms and sharing documents, Google's excellent collection of online office apps is hard to beat
If you work collaboratively, or switch between a PC and a Mac, Google Docs, Sheets and Slides should be your first port of call.
For anyone who's already deep into the Android/Google ecosystem, this suite will be a natural choice. The three key tools run happily in any web browser, and are available as mobile apps for Apple and Android devices.
Google's free office suite doesn't offer the advanced tools you'll find in desktop software like LibreOffice (there are no pivot tables, for example, and there's no database tool) but everything is laid out in a clear, logical way and all your files will be saved and synced automatically so you don't have to worry about transfers and backups.
The chief disadvantage of Docs, Sheets and Slides is that opening files created using other office software is a cumbersome process and files aren't always converted perfectly.
This is partly because Google's office tools use web fonts rather than ones stored locally on your device, and partly because Microsoft documents sometimes contain features not supported by Google. If that's a dealbreaker for you, read on..
3. Microsoft Office Online
Microsoft is taking the fight to Google with slimmed-down versions of all its usual applications, available to use free online
Free Word Programs For Mac
Microsoft's desktop software carries a subscription fee, but the company has noticed the threat posed by G Suite and created its own set of free online apps.
Microsoft Office Online looks and works just like its desktop equivalent, and although advanced tools like pivot tables are out of reach, but aren’t offered by Google either.
If you generally use Microsoft document formats, Office Online is a brilliant choice. Unlike Google's free office suite, it doesn't need to convert your files before you can work on them, and you can share them easily through your Microsoft OneDrive account. Just log in using your Microsoft account (the same one you use to log into Windows 10) and you're ready to go.
There's a version of Office Online for Chrome, plus mobile editions of Office for iOS and Android.
4. WPS Office Free
A feature-packed free office suite for Windows, Linux and Android
WPS Office Free is a slimmed down version of a premium office suite, but you'd hardly know it. Each of its three programs looks just as slick as the latest versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint, and is packed with just as many features.
File format support is excellent, and you can save your work in native Microsoft formats for easy sharing with Office users. There's no database software, but WPS Office comes with an excellent free PDF reader that's a great replacement for Windows' built-in app.
There's the occasional ad, but these are few and far between. They certainly won't get in the way of your work, and you'll easily forget that everything in this suite is completely free.
There are versions of WPS Office Free for Windows and Linux systems, as well as apps for Android devices, but Apple device users will need to look elsewhere.
5. Polaris Office
A cross-platform office suite that keeps your work in the cloud
Openoffice
If you own a Samsung phone, you might already be familiar with the mobile version of Polaris Office. This cross-platform free office software is available for Windows, macOS, Android and iOS, and comes pre-installed on some Samsung handsets. It’s compatible with all Microsoft document formats, and offers a slick ribbon-based interface with some basic customization options.
Take care if you choose to install Windows version, you’ll see various additional pieces of bundled software, which could potentially include a browser extension from McAfee called WebAdvisor, a market research tool called PremierOpinion, and an antivirus suite. You can decline all of these – just keep an eye out.
You’ll then need to sign in with Facebook or Google, or create an account. This is necessary because Polaris Office is a cloud-based service. Your free Polaris account comes with 60MB monthly data transfer, 1GB cloud storage, and can be used across three devices (one desktop and two mobile). If that’s not enough space, you can connect Polaris Office to Google Drive, Dropbox, Box, Microsoft OneDrive and Amazon Cloud Drive – or save work locally to your device.
Upgrading to a premium Polaris account gives you access to extra features including a PDF editor, removes ads, and the ability to search within a document.
6. SoftMaker FreeOffice
A free version of a premium suite, with most pro features intact
Like WPS Office Free, SoftMaker FreeOffice provides analogs for Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint (TextMaker, PlanMaker and Presentations respectively).
As with all the free office suites in this roundup, there's support for Microsoft file formats from 1997 onwards. It also offers effortless conversion to both PDF and Epub formats, which is a welcome addition.
Unfortunately, some key features are exclusive to the premium version of the software. Some of these (like tabbed browsing) are nice to have but non-essential, but the lack of a thesaurus is a real drawback for anyone who writes on a regular basis.
FreeOffice doesn't look quite as smart as WPS Office, but if you dislike the Microsoft ribbon and find it unintuitive then you'll prefer the slightly more old fashioned approach to navigation.
7. Open365
Open365 is more than just an office suite – it's a full cloud desktop that drags in a selection of great open source (usually desktop-based) software and puts it right in your browser. It includes the key components of the LibreOffice suite (Writer, Calc and Impress) along with Photoshop-esque image editor GIMP, Linux email package Kontact, and cloud storage by Seafile. Everything the desktop versions of those packages do can be done here, and every format they support is supported.
There's a desktop client to handle file transfers and mirroring your cloud storage to your hard drive, although you'll still need to run the software itself in-browser. Being full-on desktop software it's reasonably heavy both in terms of load times and the stress it puts on your system.
But get your whole team on board and its collaborative tools could make this an essential component of your workflow, particularly if you're hotdesking or using a variety of hardware.
8. Zoho Workplace
A genuinely exciting alternative to Google Docs
While Google Docs is, thanks to the strength of its brand, probably more widely used, Zoho's online office solution is very good in its own right. It's certainly closer to a desktop office package, and it's strong enough to have attracted businesses like the BBC and Nike as regular users.
Zoho's new-look word processor (which ditches the classic Word-style interface in favour of a formatting sidebar) is very well-presented and capable of producing professional-looking docs, and it has a sterling spreadsheet and reasonable presentation package alongside it.
They're just the tip of the iceberg, however – Zoho Workplace includes a powerful site creation tool, a file management solution and many collaborative tools. Some are on the simplistic side, so they'll likely not replace anything you might already have in place, but if you're starting out as a small business Zoho is probably a good jumping-off point.