Hello everyone, how are you all doing today? I hope you are all having a great Sunday. My Saturday wasn’t good and my Sunday isn’t any better, but that’s life sometimes right? I think I will be alright lol, anyway read on…
Apache OpenOffice for MacOS X Fully developed and supported since OpenOffice.org 3.3! Apple MacOS X requirements. The current Apache OpenOffice supports Apple MacOS X. Collaborate for free with online versions of Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and OneNote. Save documents, spreadsheets, and presentations online, in OneDrive.
Today we are focusing on the best Microsoft Office replacements on Mac. Why? Well not everyone likes MS Office and it’s apps including Power Point, Excel or even Microsoft Word so for those people, and those who simply can’t afford Microsoft Office, we have decided to list some good alternatives for those of you running on OS X. I personally recommend you check out at least 3 choices before you make a decision, all of these apps are great or rather good enough.
Can I run Microsoft Office in OS X?
Yes, you can actually run Microsoft Office on a Mac! Not too long ago, Microsoft never bothered to translate their popular software for Apple’s Mac users mainly because Apple is still their #1 competition. But now since Apple pretty much dominates the phone market, MS had no choice but to start porting their software to work on Apple. MS office is already available for iOS and it is now available Mac OS X. But forget about all that, lets look at the Office 365 alternatives for Mac.
#1. Download Google Docs For OS X
Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides are productivity apps that let you create different kinds of online documents, work on them in real time with other people, and store them in your Google Drive online, all for free. You can access the documents, spreadsheets, and presentations you create from any computer, anywhere in the world. (There’s even some work you can do without an Internet connection!) This guide will give you a quick overview of the many things that you can do with Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides.
What Is Google Docs?
Google Docs is an online word processor that lets you create and format text documents and collaborate with other people in real time. Here’s what you can do with Google Docs:
- Upload a Word document and convert it to a Google document
- Add flair and formatting to your documents by adjusting margins, spacing, fonts, and colors — all that fun stuff
- Invite other people to collaborate on a document with you, giving them edit, comment or view access
- Collaborate online in real time and chat with other collaborators — right from inside the document
- View your document’s revision history and roll back to any previous version
- Download a Google document to your desktop as a Word, OpenOffice, RTF, PDF, HTML or zip file
- Translate a document to a different language
- Email your documents to other people as attachments
This is my personal favorite Microsoft Office alternative because it literally has everything MS Office has and also it works perfectly fine online. What more can you ask for?
Google Docs Screenshot
#2. Download LibreOffice For OS X
Install LibreOffice For Mac
LibreOffice is a powerful office suite; its clean interface and powerful tools let you unleash your creativity and grow your productivity. LibreOffice embeds several applications that make it the most powerful Free & Open Source Office suite on the market: Writer, the word processor, Calc, the spreadsheet application, Impress, the presentation engine, Draw, our drawing and flow charting application, Base, our database and database front-end, and Math for editing mathematics.
LibreOffice is compatible with many document formats such as Microsoft® Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Publisher. But LibreOffice goes further by enabling you to use a modern open standard, the OpenDocument Format (ODF).
• Enterprise hardened through relentless independent testing
• Stable six-monthly release cycle of feature updates
• Backported key features from LibreOffice Vanilla
• Improved OOXML file support (.docx, .docm)
• Enterprise-wide: one Office suite common to your entire environment
• One app serving as a complete suite, does the work of six apps
• Includes advanced word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation software
• Reads and writes Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint files (including OOXML)
LibreOffice Screenshot
#3. Download Apache OpenOffice For OS X
Apache OpenOffice is free to download, use, and distribute. Download it now, and get:
- Writer a word processor you can use for anything from writing a quick letter to producing an entire book.
- Calc a powerful spreadsheet with all the tools you need to calculate, analyze, and present your data in numerical reports or sizzling graphics.
- Impress the fastest, most powerful way to create effective multimedia presentations.
- Draw lets you produce everything from simple diagrams to dynamic 3D illustrations.
- Base lets you manipulate databases seamlessly. Create and modify tables, forms, queries, and reports, all from within Apache OpenOffice.
- Math lets you create mathematical equations with a graphic user interface or by directly typing your formulas into the equation editor.
Why Apache OpenOffice?
Apache OpenOffice is synonymous with quality:
- The roots of Apache OpenOffice go back twenty years, creating a mature and powerful product
- Many millions of users
- Independent reviewers around the world have recommended the product
- With a fully open development process, Apache OpenOffice has nothing to hide – the product stands or falls on its reputation.
- The software looks and feels familiar and is instantly usable by anyone who has used a competitive product
- It’s easy to change to Apache OpenOffice – the software reads all major competitors’ files
- Few language barriers – if it’s not yet available in your language, the chances are it will be soon
- Apache OpenOffice is supported by a global community of friendly volunteers, happy to provide assistance to newcomers and advanced users alike
Apache OpenOffice Screenshot
#4. Download Keynote For OS X
Install Keynote App on Mac
Easily create gorgeous presentations with the all-new Keynote, featuring powerful yet easy-to-use tools and dazzling effects.
The Theme Chooser lets you skim through an impressive collection of 30 new and updated Apple-designed themes. Once you’ve chosen the perfect canvas for your presentation, simply replace the placeholder text and graphics with your own words and images. Easy-to-use tools let you add tables, charts, shapes, photos, and videos to slides—and bring it all to life with cinematic animations and transitions that look as though they were created by your own special effects team. Animate your data with new interactive column, bar, scatter, and bubble charts.
Use iCloud to keep your presentations up to date across all your devices. You can instantly share a presentation using just a link, giving others the latest version and the ability to edit it directly with Keynote for iCloud beta from www.icloud.com using a Mac or PC browser.
With Keynote, you have all the tools you need to make an amazing presentation quickly and easily.
Get started quickly
• Choose from 30 Apple-designed themes to give your presentations a beautiful start
• Use the slide navigator to quickly skim through your presentation, add new slides, and reorder slides
• Engage your audience with new interactive charts and chart animations
• See live on-canvas previews as you animate your slides
• Use gorgeous preset styles to make your text, tables, shapes, and images look beautiful
Keynote App Screenshot
#5. Download ThinkFree Office For OS X
Install ThinkFree Office for Mac
ThinkFree Office is the most accurate MS Office-compatible productivity suite on the market today. Use ThinkFree Office to create word processing documents, spreadsheets, and graphic presentations, or open and edit Word, Excel, and Powerpoint documents in ThinkFree Office. You will be amazed by our faithful recreation of the Office user interface — new users are immediately productive.
- ThinkFree Write: is a powerful word processing application that has all the features you expect with the same look-and-feel you already know. Create rich, professional-quality documents and web pages. Write’s seamless compatibility lets you to share documents and collaborate with MS Word users.
- ThinkFree Calc: lets you create spreadsheets just as you do with MS Excel™, or open and edit existing Excel files. Calc has every feature Office users expect and allows you to tackle the most complex analytical tasks
- With ThinkFree Show: you produce the same high-impact presentations as Powerpoint. Use existing .ppt files, templates, and animations, or create compatible presentations from scratch.
ThinkFree Office Screenshot
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Other macOS alternative software: Best Photoshop Alternatives on Mac, Best BitTorrent Apps on Mac & Best Mobile Device Management Apps
Microsoft has released Office for Mac 2011. The latest version of the Office Suite aims to bridge the divide between the Mac and PC, and it packs a ton of new features, including Microsoft Outlook, collaborative sharing and editing, and an updated interface.
Microsoft decided to forego upgrade pricing this year, charging everyone the same regardless of whether they have a previous version. Are the new features and additions worth the price? Read our hands-on review to find out.
Outlook 2011
With Office for Mac 2011, Outlook makes its triumphant return to the platform. The last time Microsoft made Outlook available on the Mac was with Office 2001 — and that version was only for Exchange users. Instead, Microsoft introduced Entourage.
Three years ago, when I switched to OS X full-time, not having Outlook was a large barrier for me to overcome. Apple Mail was a chore. Since then, Mail.app has improved, gaining native Exchange support and native interoperability with Gmail and other IMAP services. My e-mail needs have also changed and I no longer find myself in need of full Exchange server functionality — and I know I'm not alone. The need for robust Exchange support has dwindled as more businesses continue to move from managed domain-based e-mail to services like Google Apps.
When Office for Mac 2008 was released, many questioned whether Entourage was as good as Outlook 2007. The answer was no. Two years later, the question has shifted only slightly: Is Outlook for Mac as good as Outlook 2010? The context on the other hand is dramatically different.
After several weeks of testing, I feel confident in saying that Outlook 2011 for Mac is the first Mac e-mail client that is on par with its Windows counterpart. Not every feature of Outlook 2010 is in Outlook 2011 for Mac, but it's extremely close.
So how is the transition from Apple Mail to Outlook? To test Outlook 2011's prowess, I did something I wouldn't recommend doing under most circumstances: A bulk import of all e-mail messages, accounts and signatures from Apple Mail.
To be clear, I'm a heavy e-mail user. I maintain three active e-mail accounts, each with intricate sets of rules and filters and large volumes of messages. During past attempts, Entourage simply froze, so I was curious whether Outlook would be up to the abuse.
To its credit, Outlook managed to import gigabytes of data without crashing, while keeping my rules intact — though I did have to run them on my various inboxes after the process was finished. I was also able to sync my address book with Address Book for Mac and it pre-populated my work calendar using e-mail invitations.
The one thing that kept the process from being seamless was importing/exporting other calendar events. If you already have calendars setup through Google, MobileMe or iCal, you have to export the calendars and then manually import them into Outlook. Still, any invitations from your inbox will populate themselves in a calendar associated with that account.
The default presentation is three vertical columns, but you can switch to two columns or to a split-column view similar to what Mail.app uses. You can also check the status of sending/receiving mail, and you can view local folders and IMAP mapped folders with ease.
The integration of alarms and alerts for upcoming appointments or events is a really nice touch. I also like how you can have a tear-off 'Today' column for to-dos and upcoming events.
The threaded conversation view is really nice — but it isn't fool proof. It groups together all items sharing the same subject. The problem is that sometimes it confuses itself with the same subjects from different threads. It would be nice if this could be more granulized.
Outlook 2011 is fast, though I'm not sure it's as fast as Apple Mail with the same accounts setup. It also has support for Exchange Server 2007 and 2010 accounts worked without a hitch, even over a VPN. Plus, Microsoft has fixed the way Time Machine backups and Spotlight indexing works, meaning that you don't have to worry about backups taking six times longer (like you did with previous versions of Entourage).
Word 2011
Microsoft Word 2008 for Mac was a solid offering. The improvements to Word 2011 are less visible than the inclusion of Outlook, but they are noticeable.
There are now more templates and document types available, and many of the features from Microsoft Publisher are added directly to Word 2011.
You can now use the Word co-authoring tool that was introduced in Office 2010 for Windows. It allows teams to collaborate by sharing files using Windows Live SkyDrive or SharePoint.
Microsoft has also improved its Automator support for creating Automator Workflows in Word and other Office 2011 products.
Perhaps the best feature, though, is the new distraction-free writing mode, which long-form writers may enjoy.
PowerPoint 2011
Office For Mac Free
We're just going to come right out with this: Keynote is better. Having said that, the professional world runs on Powerpoint, and there are some promising additions in PowerPoint 2011.
For instance, the ability to collaborate and access files from various locations is a huge win — especially if you are a SharePoint user. This also makes it easy to broadcast presentations online.
Apple has toyed with some of these features in iWork '09, but it hasn't taken it as far as Microsoft with Office 2011.
We would love to see some iOS options for PowerPoint, because the ability to control a presentation from an iPhone or iPad and make edits on the go has become a key feature for Keynote. Microsoft already has the cloud computing aspect with SkyDrive, so it wouldn't be a stretch to release an app.
Excel 2011
Excel 2008 removed some of the macro support for files created in Excel for Windows, specifically those created with Visual Basic. Visual Basic support is back for Excel 2011 and there are new features that work across platforms.
Like Word and PowerPoint, you can access files using SharePoint or Windows Live SkyDrive.
There are also new tools for managing tables and conditional formatting. Like Word, Excel is just more polished than its already shiny offering.
Performance
The first time you run an Office program, it might take a few seconds to launch, though subsequent program launches get faster. Every time you logout or restart your computer, the process starts over, but launching remained quick. For us, it was a big improvement over Office 2008.
As we said, Outlook did seem a bit slower than Apple Mail, but it wasn't slow and we didn't have any crashes.
Excel and Word seem on par with Pages and Numbers, though we would still give a speed/performance edge to Keynote over PowerPoint.
Interface
Call me crazy, I like the Ribbon. I think Microsoft nailed the concept in Office 2011. It managed to take the best elements from the Windows version but still keep the Mac functionality that makes a Mac a Mac.
Overall
Microsoft Office for Mac 2011 is not only a great Mac release, it's a great Office release. It seems that finally as much care has gone into creating Office for Mac as goes into Office for Windows.
Despite the move to the cloud, many of us still use an office suite to do much of our work. Office for Mac 2011 is a great way to get more done on your Mac.
Office for Mac 2011 is $149.99 for the Home & Student edition (three installs), which does not include Outlook 2011. Office for Mac 2011 for Home & Business users is $279.99 (also three installs).
Best Office Software For Mac
Reference: Our testing conducted on a late-2009 27-inch iMac with an Intel i7 and 8GB of RAM, running Mac OS X 10.6.4.