WPS Office; Anyone using it?

[gaw]

I was wondering if anyone has experience with WPS Office as an alternative to Microsoft office. I use Word and Excel quite a bit but don't do anything crazy or have complex spreadsheets just a lot of basic stuff. I am wondering if the free software would work OK. I am currently using the 2010 version of the MS products.

[CapeCoaler]

I have used most of them over the course of time...

We have about 10 computers here...

I have settled on MS office for us because of familiarity and no conversion to the outside world...

OneDrive with 1 TB cloud storage, auto backup and large file sending with links for each user...

$70/yr for a single user and 5 devices, $100/yr for 6 users and 5 devices each...

$29/yr single user WPS is fine and converts all the major files...

Free has some limits, paid gets more features...

Open office also converts all the major files, free...

If you are in a business environment or have staff go with office 365...

if it is just you and you don't have to convert everything to Microsoft extensions...

Open office...

WPS is not worth the hassle to learn a different format to operate the software...

Just my personal opinion...

It is the Devil that you know...

[CapeCoaler]

There is the free MS office online...

Just need internet and a MS account...

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/fre ... or-the-web

[lsayre]

The most powerful and MS compatible 'free' office suite, which has versions which will run within Windows, MacOS, Linux, and Unix, is LibreOffice. Scroll down at the link provided below, download, and install the 7.0.4 version, which is the most up to date tested and "stable" version. Version 7.1.1 is from the "testing" branch, and may not be stable, so scroll down to avoid grabbing that one. Many people (like myself) use it exclusively as a full and fully functional replacement for Microsoft Office Suite.

https://www.libreoffice.org/download/download/

[LouSee]

+1 for libreoffice.

i still have office 2010 for clients that send me weird stuff that libreoffice sometimes won't render properly. Oh, and for visio. gotta have visio....

[Richard S.]

Gaw. I would avoid that like the plague, it's a Chinese based company.

I have been using Open Office for more than a decade now. It's developed by Apache which also produces the core software used on a little less that half the worlds web sites. It's open source software company that has been in existence forever.

Libre Office mentioned by Larry is a fork of Open Office which means a few years back someone decided they could do better than Open Office and starting with their source code and created their own product.

Both should be fully compatible with and open most MS Office documents. If you are having trouble opening try saving as different type of file. For Word documents as example .docx or .odt

I've heard good reviews for Libre, no idea how well it stacks up against Open Office. Either should fit the bill for simple spreadsheets etc.

[lsayre]

All I can say is that all of the Linux and Unix versions I'm aware of dropped OpenOffice and transitioned to LibreOffice years ago. And they have never looked back.

[Rob R.]

I have settled on MS office for us because of familiarity and no conversion to the outside world...
OneDrive with 1 TB cloud storage, auto backup and large file sending with links for each user...
$70/yr for a single user and 5 devices,

I have done the same, figured it was worth it just for the cloud storage.

I do use LibreOffice on my linux desktop, it certainly gets the job done - just isn't as familiar to me.

[gaw]

Thanks for the feedback, I'll drop the WPS idea. I like MS Word and Excel but was looking to see if something else might fit the bill a little better. The Microsoft products are constantly updating but maybe that's a good thing. I have a program that I like to use that sends print reports directly to Word when I select preview. This is a nice feature that may be lost if I drop Microsoft so maybe I'll stick with what I know. I see they now offer a Home & Student license for about $150 if I want the latest version.

[LouSee]

what program is that?

[lsayre]

Since it's completely free, and it's as easy to remove as it is to install, everyone should at least give LibreOffice 7.0.4 a look-see. If you don't like it, simply delete it and move on to a pay version of Microsoft Office.

[CapeCoaler]

go with subscription as this is what gets updated continuously...

Cloud storage, large file links for email and the overall integration makes the subscription a good value...

The one time purchase is the same cost as two year subscription...

[lsayre]

Just so everyone knows, my philosophy places life at the pinnacle of all value. Bill and Linda Gates (I.E., Microsoft) are the #1 financiers of Planned Parenthood, and Bill is on record stating that he wants to see a dramatic decline in world population, whereby his hope is that vaccines can play their part in fulfilling his dream. I refuse to financially support anything he is affiliated with, so LibreOffice suites me just fine. As does Linux. Both are robust enough for corporate use, so serve fine for individual use.

[Richard S.]

go with subscription as this is what gets updated continuously...
Cloud storage, large file links for email and the overall integration makes the subscription a good value...
The one time purchase is the same cost as two year subscription...

I would suggest that both the subscription and full price are both unnecessary expenses. The only reason you should really need Word is business environment where compatibility in documents is absolute must. e.g. you don't want to send the boss an important document on million doallr deal that fails to open because your free software used something incompatible with Word.

99.9% of the people in this world will never use 99.9% of the features available in Word or the free alternatives. Open Office/Libre Office should be more than sufficient for everyday use for most people. To help insure compatibility save documents as .docx or .odt, these are standardized open formats that should work in any modern Office type program.

I have a program that I like to use that sends print reports directly to Word when I select preview.

You should be able to do that with Open Office/Libre Office. Don't let the "free" fool you, these are fully functional document programs that can do just about anything Word can. As Larry mentioned install and see how it goes. It's no loss if you decide to stick with Word.

[lsayre]

It is my opinion that OpenOffice has fallen behind LibreOffice in keeping up with MS compatibility since LibreOffice "forked" from OpenOffice in 2010. For example, I developed a spreadsheet within LibreOffice for the amateur beer brewing world which (primarily) assists in the critical adjustment of "mash pH". I distribute it freely from my website. It runs fine within Excel (2007 and later as of the last time I checked) and LibreOffice, but fails to run within OpenOffice, throwing up cell errors all over the place. Every so often my LLC email address receives an email from an OpenOffice user who is disgruntled at my spreadsheets failure to operate. I have pointed each of them to LibreOffice, and received nothing but thanks in return. Not one has (to my knowledge) chosen to return to using OpenOffice. There must be a reason why every Linux distribution (and there must be hundreds of them) eventually abandoned OpenOffice and went with LibreOffice.