For over a year now I’ve championed Kingsoft Office Free of charge 2012 as one of many best Microsoft Workplace alternatives for Windows, and with superior cause: It really is among the list of best-looking clones out there, with excellent file-compatibility to boot.
Yesterday, Kingsoft unveiled Workplace Absolutely free 2013 (Windows). (Please see under before you set up it.) I’ll go out on a limb and say it’s now the single most effective no cost replacement for Microsoft Workplace, to get a couple of really great reasons.
Opt for between two Office 2010-style skins or possibly a far more old-fashioned interface.
Opt for involving two Office 2010-style skins or perhaps a far more old-fashioned interface.
Screenshot by Rick Broida/CNET
In case you happen to be unfamiliar with it, Kingsoft Office includes 3 modules: Writer, Spreadsheets, and Presentations. Needless to say, these aim to take the place of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. For one of the most element they do an impressive job — beginning with how they appear.
Office No cost 2012 borrowed heavily from the old Microsoft Workplace 2003 interface you see in most other clones: LibreOffice, OpenOffice, and so on. Kingsoft actually did provide a additional Office 2007/2010-like “Ribbon” interface, but to have it you had to spring for Kingsoft Office Common or Experienced.
In Office Free 2013, it is possible to decide on amongst “2013 Elegant Black” and “2013 Water Blue,” both of which do a fine Ribbon impression. It’s not an exact replica, however it comes close — for the point where I’d call this probably the most desirable Microsoft Office clone ever. (Interestingly, you can simply switch to “Classic Style” in the event you do prefer the a lot more old-fashioned menu-style interface.)
Kingsoft’s item also does something that has somehow nonetheless managed to elude Microsoft following all these years: tabbed documents. Rather than possessing to switch windows just about every time you need to switch involving a number of open documents, you simply switch tabs. One more incredibly cool amenity: a paragraph-adjustment tool that lets you modify indent and line-spacing just by dragging handles.
Workplace Totally free 2013 brings a handy paragraph-adjustment tool to word processing.
Workplace Totally free 2013 brings a handy paragraph-adjustment tool to word processing.
Screenshot by Rick Broida/CNET
As for compatibility, the suite had no difficulty opening the smattering of sample documents I threw at it, like these formatted as docx, xlsx, and pptx. Even so, I should note that it can not save to these formats, only the older doc, xls, and ppt. That can be a deal-breaker for some customers.
Likewise, Workplace Totally free 2013 does lack several of Microsoft Office’s more sophisticated characteristics, most notably Outlook and any sort of cloud integration. But that is accurate of nearly all of the other freebies as well. In case you require Outlook, effectively, there is usually Outlook.com.
To have the system, you are going to need to have to download and run CNET’s software program installer.
Yesterday, Kingsoft unveiled Workplace Absolutely free 2013 (Windows). (Please see under before you set up it.) I’ll go out on a limb and say it’s now the single most effective no cost replacement for Microsoft Workplace, to get a couple of really great reasons.
Opt for between two Office 2010-style skins or possibly a far more old-fashioned interface.
Opt for involving two Office 2010-style skins or perhaps a far more old-fashioned interface.
Screenshot by Rick Broida/CNET
In case you happen to be unfamiliar with it, Kingsoft Office includes 3 modules: Writer, Spreadsheets, and Presentations. Needless to say, these aim to take the place of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. For one of the most element they do an impressive job — beginning with how they appear.
Office No cost 2012 borrowed heavily from the old Microsoft Workplace 2003 interface you see in most other clones: LibreOffice, OpenOffice, and so on. Kingsoft actually did provide a additional Office 2007/2010-like “Ribbon” interface, but to have it you had to spring for Kingsoft Office Common or Experienced.
In Office Free 2013, it is possible to decide on amongst “2013 Elegant Black” and “2013 Water Blue,” both of which do a fine Ribbon impression. It’s not an exact replica, however it comes close — for the point where I’d call this probably the most desirable Microsoft Office clone ever. (Interestingly, you can simply switch to “Classic Style” in the event you do prefer the a lot more old-fashioned menu-style interface.)
Kingsoft’s item also does something that has somehow nonetheless managed to elude Microsoft following all these years: tabbed documents. Rather than possessing to switch windows just about every time you need to switch involving a number of open documents, you simply switch tabs. One more incredibly cool amenity: a paragraph-adjustment tool that lets you modify indent and line-spacing just by dragging handles.
Workplace Totally free 2013 brings a handy paragraph-adjustment tool to word processing.
Workplace Totally free 2013 brings a handy paragraph-adjustment tool to word processing.
Screenshot by Rick Broida/CNET
As for compatibility, the suite had no difficulty opening the smattering of sample documents I threw at it, like these formatted as docx, xlsx, and pptx. Even so, I should note that it can not save to these formats, only the older doc, xls, and ppt. That can be a deal-breaker for some customers.
Likewise, Workplace Totally free 2013 does lack several of Microsoft Office’s more sophisticated characteristics, most notably Outlook and any sort of cloud integration. But that is accurate of nearly all of the other freebies as well. In case you require Outlook, effectively, there is usually Outlook.com.
To have the system, you are going to need to have to download and run CNET’s software program installer.
