On a whim (a whim I tell you!) I downloaded and installed ThinkFree Office. I had heard that it was completely compatible with Microsoft Office and the only complaint was that since it is Java-based, it tends to run a little slow. The up-side is that it is only $50.00 while Microsoft Office X.v is in the range of $400.00. I’m currently using Microsoft Office 2001 which runs under OS 9 only so I have to fire up the Classic layer. It is getting old.
So far I like what I see. Yes, ThinkFree Office is a little slow but what it does, it does well. The only thing I’ve really used it for so far was making my business cards. I bought card stock and set up the document in Word. I then imported it to ThinkFree and it came over without any formatting errors (although the lines on the table did get turned on which made printing that first time a bit tedious.) ThinkFree doesn’t have a tool to automatically set up labels and envelopes (yet?) but it does give you a bit more freedom with what you can do inside a cell of a table.
The demo is 100% functional but expires in 30 days. I plan on using it for all of those 30 days before I decide. It comes with a word processor (Word compatible), presentation software (PowerPoint compatible), and a spreadsheet (Excel compatible). The controls are pretty much where they are in Word so there hasn’t been a steep learning curve here. Plus they throw in 20MB of web-based Cyberdrive storage for a year.
ThinkFree Office is available for Windows, Mac OS X, Mac OS 9, Mac OS 8.6 and Linux.
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[…] The other day I commented upon Microsoft’s threat to stop producing Office for OS X. I was pleasently surprised by Apple’s “Fine, take your ball and go home” reply. Well it turns out that Apple had good reason for being a bit cocky. They’re teaming up with Sun to produce an OS X version of StarOffice. It is compatable with Office file formats and the kicker is that “Sun is also considering offering StarOffice for free, where Office v .X typically costs $300 to $500.” Ha! […]