Anyone recommend free alternatives to Ms office suite? Libre office etc

EdwardTeach · 6 Oct 2013 at 16:29

My mum's just got a new laptop, she needs something along the lines of Ms office to do her work. In office terminology she would use word, Excel and Outlook.

I had ordered her home and business office 2013 from zoom4u, however they are entirely useless and never sent anything in 2 weeks, I contacted safebuy website validation and we should be getting a refund.

I was going to try and order her office from a more reputable supplier, but then I started thinking maybe she doesn't need office at all.

She is far from a power user and really uses pc +word as a glorified typewriter. Does anyone have any experience of free software like libre office? Would you recommend it? Is there any issues with file format compatability? My mum does expert witness work, and will exchange documents with solicitors etc so it is important that she can open their files and vice versa.

What is the best free alternative to Outlook?

quish · 6 Oct 2013 at 18:23

I use Libreoffice and can't fault it and it is compatible with Microsoft docs, download it and give it a try, after all it's free

paradigm · 6 Oct 2013 at 18:26

Outlook.com is the best alternative to the Outlook client.

Ryan-3 · 6 Oct 2013 at 18:32

Only one I've tried is OpenOffice and it does the job rather well. As said, you're free to try the office suites, so see which suits her best.

theheyes · 6 Oct 2013 at 19:53

Try the Office Web Apps, which are free with a Microsoft account. You can just start creating documents in SkyDrive.

Raumarik · 7 Oct 2013 at 09:37

LibreOffice is very good if you need a fat client, other than that I'd say go with theheyes suggestion as those web apps are nice.

Don't worry about file compatibility, LibreOffice is pretty darn good that way.