neooffice

The office suite NeoOffice for Mac is no longer free as of version 3.2. The popular package, which is based on OpenOffice but has been modified for Macs, has always been free up until now but those that want to download the latest version are required to make a donation before doing so. The developers have posted a message on their download page saying:

The NeoOffice project is funded solely by donations from NeoOffice users like yourself. As a way to thank our donors who make the NeoOffice project possible, NeoOffice 3.2 can be downloaded by all NeoOffice donors who have donated US$10 (or €7 or £6 or CA$10 or AU$10 or ¥834) or more within the last year.

$10 is still a very modest contribution to what is an excellent alternative to Microsoft Office. However, version 3.1.2 is still free although unlike 3.2.0, it's not prepared for the forthcoming release of Lion so don't be surprised if it stops working when you upgrade.

A download link for NeoOffice 3.1.2 and 3.2 is available here.

Built on the same architecture as OpenOffice, this free word processor offers all the tools you need to leave Microsoft Word behind. NeoOffice works with the Mac Spellchecker and Address Book and lets you edit, save and print your files. The application also reads Excel and other popular office files.

MS Office has been the leading Office suite for as long as I can remember. The problem with it is that it doesn't come cheap at anything up to almost $500 depending on the version and license you want. In the old days, there wasn't much you could do but shell-out the cash but nowadays, there are several free or cheap alternatives out there. Here are 5 of the best. Note that they're all also available on Windows, except NeoOffice and iWork which are Mac only.

OpenOffice

Whenever people ask me what I can recommend as a free alternative to Microsoft Office, I'll frequently recommend OpenOffice. OpenOffice is a multi-platform and multilingual office suite that is compatible with all other major office suites (meaning it will open and edit Word, Powerpoint documents etc) and best of all, its absolutely free to use.

ThinkFree Office

ThinkFree Office looks and feels very similar to MS Office and in some aspects seems to have copied it directly, especially in the way the word processor looks. ThinkFree Office consists of three segments. Write (word processor), Show (presentation tool) and Calc (a spreadsheet tool) and allows you to export to PDF. Unfortunately, despite the name Think Free Office isn't free but it's cheaper than MS Office.

Windows: Tumblr is a cool micro blogging site, where you can quickly and easily share all sorts of content, from simple text to rich media like video and audio. Tumblr Post is a fantastic Firefox add-on that sticks a little icon in the system tray of your browser. All you have to do to post blogs in Tumblr is drag things over the icon. Text, YouTube links, image and audio files can all just be dropped in and blogged automatically. It's a great way to get into Tumblr!

Mac: NeoOffice is a welcome open source alternative to the pricier Microsoft Office and iWork'08 office suites. The application carries with it all the applications that you'd expect: word processing, spreadsheet, presentations, database and drawing. You'll find the interface of NeoOffice and the range of tools in the office suite very similar to what you'd find in Microsoft Office but without the price tag.

Since switching to Mac, I've abandoned almost all of the programs that I used on Windows with the exception of Microsoft Word. This is mainly because Word is so widely used by others that I've effectively been "forced" to install it even though I hardly use any other application in Microsoft Office. This is annoying for two main reasons: Office is expensive and takes up over 500MB of my hard drive. However, there are a selection of free and highly accomplished alternative word processing applications for Mac, some of which not only handle Word documents, but that you may even find improve on Word itself.

Writer Part of OpenOffice which is a cross platform multilingual Java based office suite that's designed as a free replacement for Microsoft Office. Writer is the word processing component and allows you to open and edit Word documents (including .docx), export to PDF and even use it as a WYSIWYG editor for creating web pages. Some prefer to install NeoOffice which has taken OpenOffice and customised the interface for Mac.

AbiWord A better solution than Writer for those working on slower Macs. Like Writer, it allows you to open Word documents, save to .doc format and export to both PDF and HTML. The disadvantage is that it doesn't support .docx format and may sometimes alter the formatting in Word documents so that they appear a bit messed-up. For those working on older Macs though, it's an excellent alternative.

Bean Designed specifically for Macs, Bean is based on Cocoa so it looks great. Bean can also open and save in Word format but note that it can't handle footnotes, images or pre-defined styles and is only partially compatible with Word's file formats. In addition, it doesn't work with .docx, hyperlinks are imported as text and exporting of tables doesn't work well. However, in terms of speed and interface, Bean is excellent.

Google Docs Google's online office suite is handy replacement for opening and saving Word documents. All you need is a Google account to get started. Google Docs features a clean interface, autosave feature, spell check and it can save your documents either to your account, publish it as a web page or automatically e-mail it as a Word document. You can even invite others to collaborate with you on a document.

ThinkFree Online The ThinkFreeOffice suite isn't free but it's online counterpart ThinkFree Online is. It only allows you to open and view any kind of Office document, including .doc and .docx and then embed, convert, share, upload or search them for free. You can perform basic functions for free but you have to sign-up for extra features such as the offline file management "Power Tool".