Alternatives for Microsoft Office That Might Be Perfectly Suited for Your Company

MS Office is far from the only major player in town, but you’d be wrong.

One of the most important pieces of software you must offer to your employees is an office suite. This collection of tools typically includes everything necessary to work with documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and other types of files.

For any company, such a suite of tools is critical for business. Not only will your employees be creating documents for internal use, but they’ll also be creating various files for collaboration with other users, clients, third-party businesses, and even nearshore outsourcing companies.

Of course, everyone knows about Microsoft Office (and their cloud-version Office365). But did you know there were alternatives available, each of which is just as ready to take on the tasks demanded of your staff? We’re not talking about a cobbled together set of mismatched tools, but full-fledged office suites that are perfectly capable of meeting and exceeding your company needs.

And, better yet, most of these tools are cross-platform, meaning they’ll work on just about any operating system you use. If that’s not enough to win you over, all of them are even free to use.

What are these alternative office suites? Let’s dive in and find out what each has to offer.

LibreOffice

LibreOffice is probably the most popular of the non-Microsoft office suites available. This particular take on the tool has been around for some time, so it’s as mature a software as you’ll find in this category. LibreOffice is also open source, so if it doesn’t perfectly meet your needs, you could always task your development team (or an outsourced team of software engineers) to fork it and re-imagine it to be the ideal suite of tools for your business.

LibreOffice includes tools for:

• Documents
• Spreadsheets
• Presentations
• Drawing
• Formulae
• Databases

One very handy feature of the database tool is that it allows you to connect to other types of databases (such as MySQL), so you can create graphical tools for entering data. You’ll also enjoy different file formats. Thus you can save in either the default LibreOffice formats (.odt, .ods, .opd), which strongly comply with the Open Document Foundation specs, or save them in native MS Office file formats (as well as numerous others).

LibreOffice is quite capable of interacting with Microsoft Office and includes all of the features you’ve come to expect, such as track changes, extension support, spell/grammar checking, multiple language support (including complex languages), macro scripting, CMIS protocol, save to remote server, support for ISO standards, PDF export, digital signatures, and password locking.

And for those that like to customize their interface, LibreOffice allows you to select from a number of different graphical options, so you can be sure the tool is exactly right for your needs.

WPS Office

WPS Office is another free alternative to LibreOffice that is also available for most platforms. However, unlike LibreOffice, WPS Office also includes versions for Android, iOS, and even a cloud version.

One of the most impressive aspects of WPS Office is its claim to be one of the most compatible suites with MS Office. With much of the competition, you’ll probably find variations in how the tools handle MS Office documents. Why does this happen? Primarily because Microsoft doesn’t stick to standards like other tools do. Because of this, the alternative tools have to do a bit of reverse engineering to ensure their software is compatible. WPS does this quite well.

With WPS Office you’ll have the basic tools you need to get your work done:

• Documents
• Spreadsheets
• Presentations
• PDF Editor

As for the WPS Office interface, it’s as clean and familiar as any you’ve ever used. So you won’t have to worry about much of a learning curve to get up to speed with this office suite. WPS Office defaults to the MS Office file formats, so you shouldn’t have any problem collaborating with others, and includes all the necessary features you need to be productive.

FreeOffice

FreeOffice is another alternative that claims to be the most compatible with MS Office on the market. And like LibreOffice, FreeOffice is available for Linux, macOS, and Windows.

Of course, as the name implies, FreeOffice is free to use. It also includes all the tools you need to collaborate with MS Office users:

• Documents
• Spreadsheets
• Presentations

You have the option of a classic or ribbon menu interface, both of which have been optimized for touchscreens. FreeOffice also offers numerous dictionary downloads (so you can add support for the language of your choice). And it also offers quarterly service packs, so you can be sure your software is always up to date and patched.

I have used FreeOffice on numerous large documents (300 plus pages), with hundreds of comments and track changes. I can say, without compromise, that this office suite is, in fact, a drop-in replacement for MS Office. Collaborating between FreeOffice and MS Office is extremely compatible (on a level other tools have trouble beating).

Google Docs

Everyone knows Google Docs. It has massive appeal and an even larger user base, so there’s very little that needs to be said about this alternative to Microsoft Office. With the free version of Google Docs (yes, there is a paid version, which is now called Google Workspace) you get all the tools you need to get your work done:

• Documents
• Spreadsheets
• Presentations
• Forms

You’ll also find numerous extensions that can be added to extend the feature set of the suite The only caveat to Google Docs is that it is a cloud-based tool.

However, even though Google Docs does live in the cloud, you can always configure it to work with local copies of files. This makes it possible for you to work when you’re offline. The second Docs discovers you’re back online, it’ll sync the local copies with the cloud copies.

iWork

iWork is Apple’s take on MS Office. This office suite offers everything you need to be productive:

• Documents
• Spreadsheets
• Presentations

One very interesting feature in iWork (that you won’t find in the other alternatives) is the real-time collaboration feature that allows you to work with others on a document at the same time. This feature requires all collaborators to be using iWork, and it performs flawlessly.

Another very nice feature with iWork is that it not only has a client version (that comes pre-installed on your iMac or Macbook), but it also has a cloud-based version that can be accessed through your iCloud account.

There’s also the number of templates iWork offers. You’ll find templates for reports, books, letters, resumes, flyers, posters, newsletters, cards, envelopes, cards, and certificates.

Conclusion

You might think MS Office is the only game in town, but you’d be wrong. There are alternatives that are far cheaper, more reliable, and often considered better than the de facto standard office suite. Give one of these a try and see if you don’t find them an easy replacement for what your company has been using for years.