Kingsoft Office 2013 (New Free Version)

[djMot]

Kingsoft Office has been discussed here before, but now they have just released the 2013 edition of the suite and it's way better than the previous free edition.

 

Kingsoft Office, for thouse of you who don't know, is an alternative alternative MS Office suite.  I say "alternative alternative" because the "alternative" office suite is often though as being OpenOffice or LibreOffice.  Those are awesome, too, and they contain a few extra apps that are particularly good.  Like the "Draw" program in OpenOffice or LibreOffice.  A great, almost Visio-like application to take care of basic flow charting and other drawing needs.

 

Kingsoft Office, on the other hand, only has the word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation programs.  So in other words, alternatives to Word, Excel, and Power Point.  But the Kingsoft Office versions are smaller (less bloated) than their Microsoft equivalents, and they are faster.  They LOOK great, too.  The previous free version of the Kingsoft suite only let you use the old Office 2000 interface style, but the new Kingsoft Office 2013 suite looks very much like the current edition of MS Office.

 

It might be worth your investigation.  I like it.  I'm not ditching LibreOffice, but when it comes to word processing and spreadsheets, Kingsoft Office is what I like.

 

Check out Kingsoft Office 2013 Free here:  http://www.ksosoft.com/index.html

 

There is a "Professional" version that carries price tag of about $69 or $29 annual, but I'm not sure I see the point in paying for it - other that you just like it and want to support the developers.  It does give you a couple of extra bells and whistles that aren't anything to sneeze at, but I'm guessing most can do without.

[DEEJAYKEG]

When the entities with which one exchanges documents use Microsoft applications, one tends to do likewise.

I am a great fan of PDF, personally.

[djMot]

When the entities with which one exchanges documents use Microsoft applications, one tends to do likewise.

I am a great fan of PDF, personally.

 

Me, too.  Kingsoft Office, OpenOffice, and LibreOffice all create PDFs at this point.  I think MSO does, too, but wouldn't swear by it.  Of course there's always the doPDF or Bullzip PDF printer drivers for times when you can print, but can't otherwise create a PDF natively.  And my print manager, priPrinter Professional, also has the ability to save to PDF.  Pretty much evreything I need to to "print," I save to PDF instead to save the paper (and expensive ink) and to create an enduring format that I can use to access the document at any time in the future.