Comments on: Best MS Office alternative

By: Mathew

Mathew — Sat, 05 Jul 2014 20:33:01 +0000

I tried Softmaker office and was amazed that you can’t open .xls file formated as HTML. We use CRM that exports data to html but it gets renamed to .xls so that it can be opened with Excel. Excel has no problems with such file, Kingsoft Office as well. But Softmaker… does not. It also has strange looking icons, like old Java apps. No ribbon interface as well.

Libreoffice / Openoffice are draining resources and I don’t even bother.
I tried Corel Office but didn’t like it.

I use Kingsoft office on my private computer and I also install it when my friends ask me for MS Office installation. I tell them that it’s the latest version and they don’t even notice. It’s that good.

By: Tienie de Coning

Tienie de Coning — Sat, 05 Jul 2014 18:35:58 +0000

Kingsoft office is not bad.

I run Linux most of the time, and LibreOffice runs pretty good on it. Better even than it runs on Windows.

When testing Kingsoft on Windows I noticed a few quirks. Excited to see where this company and product will be in 2 years time.

By: Bonanza

Bonanza — Thu, 03 Jul 2014 14:56:12 +0000

Honestly, Kingsoft Office looks nice, but it’s full of quirks and oddities. Some examples: wrong date format in most XLS files, wrong decimal point format, insert / overtype apparently not working, ui / dictionaries only in English / Chinese, interface problems in Win XP, autonumbers files when saving (e.g. if I open foo10.10.2013.doc and choose save as, automatically offers to save foo10.10.2014.doc), does not comply to the regional settings already set on the system, changes settings when started causing big problems for other apps, and much more.

My vote goes out for SoftMaker Office, which in comparison to Kingsoft Office works totally reliable, doesn’t confuse any settings, is available for all languages of this planet, has a broad scope of features, and an almost perfect compatibility with Microsoft Office formats. The Professional version includes an excellent Outlook alternative (eM Client 6 Professional).