Best FREE MS Word and Excel Replacements?
Discussion
Back in the day, when I was taller, thinner and funnier, and the Doctors did not make as many odd noises when they seen me, the company I worked for had a deal with Microsoft that as a dedicated employee, I could send Microsoft a few pounds (seem to remember £17 (ish) about 15 years ago) and they would send us a CD or two (might have been a DVD) containing MS office for use on my home computer and that was all legal and above board (I think I might have had the same deal with another company where I simply downloaded it for less than £10). Nothing dodgy they were big multinational companies.
Since leaving those companies and a few faithful laptops dying a death I have used a few other free alternatives for Word and Excel, things like Open Office which were good enough (and most importantly FREE!!!), I would happily buy a copy of Office from Microsoft for a few pounds as before, but so far they seem to be offering subscriptions
So what is best for free (or very few GBP) now? I would prefer something that doesn't need the internet to work, as the internet is still not great around here (no advice on a mobile Hot spot spot please, that is for a different evening), and just in case I need to take my own laptop into work, their wi-fi is terrible. I don't want to use office 365 on the internet; I don't want any spreadsheets leaving my computer! So know anything good?
Open office allowed me to keep they in Microsoft file formats which I did like
Thanks in advance.
Since leaving those companies and a few faithful laptops dying a death I have used a few other free alternatives for Word and Excel, things like Open Office which were good enough (and most importantly FREE!!!), I would happily buy a copy of Office from Microsoft for a few pounds as before, but so far they seem to be offering subscriptions
So what is best for free (or very few GBP) now? I would prefer something that doesn't need the internet to work, as the internet is still not great around here (no advice on a mobile Hot spot spot please, that is for a different evening), and just in case I need to take my own laptop into work, their wi-fi is terrible. I don't want to use office 365 on the internet; I don't want any spreadsheets leaving my computer! So know anything good?
Open office allowed me to keep they in Microsoft file formats which I did like
Thanks in advance.
I think Office EU is due for release soon and is going to be free.
https://office.eu/
Be interesting to see if it’s any good as I would happily cancel my Microsoft subscription.
https://office.eu/
Be interesting to see if it’s any good as I would happily cancel my Microsoft subscription.
barryrs said:
I think Office EU is due for release soon and is going to be free.
https://office.eu/
Be interesting to see if it s any good as I would happily cancel my Microsoft subscription.
I believe Office EU will be cloud based, and I just want to keep everything as mine; I just don't have enough trust to save to the cloud anymore.https://office.eu/
Be interesting to see if it s any good as I would happily cancel my Microsoft subscription.
A vote here for Ecokeys, Groupon, etc, selling legit licences for MS Office 2026 for around the £20 mark.
And it's the full version - including Access, and it's perpetual (not a subscription), copy.
I used Ecokeys & it all worked fine, complete with step by step instructions, no hassle.
Nothing wrong with Google Drive / Docs & Sheets or Libre Office, but for many familiarity with MS makes them second choice. (Although I'm keeping a weather eye on the EU alternative idc as it has the advantage of not being subject to Uncle Sams oversight).
And it's the full version - including Access, and it's perpetual (not a subscription), copy.
I used Ecokeys & it all worked fine, complete with step by step instructions, no hassle.
Nothing wrong with Google Drive / Docs & Sheets or Libre Office, but for many familiarity with MS makes them second choice. (Although I'm keeping a weather eye on the EU alternative idc as it has the advantage of not being subject to Uncle Sams oversight).
Vsix and Vtec said:
If you really can't afford Office, use Google Docs, and Google Sheets. Frankly, for how much use Office gets, it's the one bit of software I don't begrudge paying MS for.
This is not a "It is too expensive" request for help, I use this software occasionally on a laptop at home (Work Laptop has everything, and gets used 40+ hours doing everything) but free feels like good value, I have Open office in the past, and it did the job, but I am asking around what is better. I dislike subscriptions as they might seem reasonable initially, then you realise you have barely used it in a few months, and it starts to look terrible value. A few years down the line you question your choice, 5 years down the line the laptop is old but functional, and then the subscription feels like a rip off! So think of this as want to pay as little as possible, I won't be drafting another PhD on this, so it just needs to function for the basics.Mazinbrum said:
Office 2024 is 11.99 at Groupon.
That sounds more like it, a one off £12 (OK, free would be better, but I spend £12 on biscuits for the office when it is my turn).Callerton said:
A vote here for Ecokeys, Groupon, etc, selling legit licences for MS Office 2026 for around the £20 mark.
And it's the full version - including Access, and it's perpetual (not a subscription), copy.
I used to use SQL via MS Access daily, those were the days. However, I will ask the stupid question, why are they selling a full copy of MS office for £20? when Amazon are asking a lot more; there has to be something suspicious there, an old version is not a problem (like Office 2024 mentioned above) as I would only be using VBA or SQL on the work laptop, any word and excel will be light.And it's the full version - including Access, and it's perpetual (not a subscription), copy.
If something sounds too good to be true...?
I've got MS Office on several systems, 2 perpetual and one 365 (supporting clients on various versions). My teenager has both 365 and LibreOffice on a laptop that works very well - so happy to recommend the latter, it's free and Open Source obviously: https://www.libreoffice.org/ IMO it's the best of the free ones at the moment and very capable. I've only used Writer (word processor) and Calc (spreadsheet) app In LibreOffice and both are fine for general use.
I'm planning to slowly migrate away from Office on my other systems (just generally fed up with MS, their bloatware, tracking and AI garbage that's infected everything), especially now I don't heavily use Access/SQL/VBA for front ends. Only Outlook and Excel keep me clinging on, because I've been using them since the early 1990s and use a lot of advanced features which aren't available elsewhere. I'm running Thunderbird in parallel for e-mail at the moment and it's pretty good, much faster and way better for managing multiple accounts than Outlook "Classic" (not to be confused with the awful "new" Outlook on 365).
I'm planning to slowly migrate away from Office on my other systems (just generally fed up with MS, their bloatware, tracking and AI garbage that's infected everything), especially now I don't heavily use Access/SQL/VBA for front ends. Only Outlook and Excel keep me clinging on, because I've been using them since the early 1990s and use a lot of advanced features which aren't available elsewhere. I'm running Thunderbird in parallel for e-mail at the moment and it's pretty good, much faster and way better for managing multiple accounts than Outlook "Classic" (not to be confused with the awful "new" Outlook on 365).
I've been using FreeOffice for the last couple of years: https://www.freeoffice.com/en/
On the whole, it seems to have fewer layout/compatibility issues than others.
Often overlooked as an MS Word/Excel alternative, but it's worth checking out.
On the whole, it seems to have fewer layout/compatibility issues than others.
Often overlooked as an MS Word/Excel alternative, but it's worth checking out.
GrizzlyBear said:
I will ask the stupid question, why are they selling a full copy of MS office for £20? when Amazon are asking a lot more; there has to be something suspicious there, an old version is not a problem (like Office 2024 mentioned above) as I would only be using VBA or SQL on the work laptop, any word and excel will be light.
If something sounds too good to be true...?
The last reason I heard where that these where technically grey market licenses. Mega-Corp A somewhere bought 100,000 licenses, after a spin off, and some redundancies they only need 50,000 now. So they sell those spare 50,000 to EcoKeys and simlar (Groupon piggy back on one of those). The grey bit is that Mega Corp's licenses says they can't resell. But they do anyway. Similar if they upgrade everyone and have old licenses left over.If something sounds too good to be true...?
The downside to this, though rare is that MS get wind and pull the keys, your copy of office then stops working as the key isn't valid.
phil4 said:
GrizzlyBear said:
I will ask the stupid question, why are they selling a full copy of MS office for £20? when Amazon are asking a lot more; there has to be something suspicious there, an old version is not a problem (like Office 2024 mentioned above) as I would only be using VBA or SQL on the work laptop, any word and excel will be light.
If something sounds too good to be true...?
The last reason I heard where that these where technically grey market licenses. Mega-Corp A somewhere bought 100,000 licenses, after a spin off, and some redundancies they only need 50,000 now. So they sell those spare 50,000 to EcoKeys and simlar (Groupon piggy back on one of those). The grey bit is that Mega Corp's licenses says they can't resell. But they do anyway. Similar if they upgrade everyone and have old licenses left over.If something sounds too good to be true...?
The downside to this, though rare is that MS get wind and pull the keys, your copy of office then stops working as the key isn't valid.
craigjm said:
Yeah thats how they come about. Cant say i have ever heard of anyone having their key pulled though although im sure there will be someone here whose friend of a friend of a friend had it happen to them
Not the same but a few times I hit the "too many activations" lockout with office licenses.barryrs said:
I think Office EU is due for release soon and is going to be free.
https://office.eu/
Be interesting to see if it s any good as I would happily cancel my Microsoft subscription.
The OP said he didn't want a subscription model.https://office.eu/
Be interesting to see if it s any good as I would happily cancel my Microsoft subscription.
I've been using Apache Open Office (now Libre I believe) for years and have found it fine for basic stuff but it can be unstable with large spreadsheets, and has sometimes crashed losing the latest data, and in some cases irretrievably corrupted the whole file in the process. I've recently switched to using Google Docs but agree I'm not entirely happy with relying on cloud storage. I'm also reluctant to go with the cheap 'grey licence' route, after getting my fingers burnt buying a perpetual licence for InDesign on Wowcher, which turned out to be a pure scam.
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