Everyone needs reliable office software, and some of the very best suites are completely free – whatever operating system you use. New Windows 10 PCs come with a trial of Microsoft Office installed, but this will soon expire, leaving you in need of a replacement. Macs come with Apple's own office suite, but if most of your colleagues are PC users, you might be better off trying a cross-platform suite instead. Here, we've put the very best free office software suites through their paces – both downloadable desktop software and browser-based applications – so you can pick the one that's best for you. Completely free is so good, you'll wonder why you ever paid for office software. It's compatible with all Microsoft document formats, and has almost every feature you'll find in the latest versions of Word, PowerPoint and Excel. The suite contains six programs to cover every common office task: Writer, Calc, Impress, Draw, Math and Base.

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The last three are tools you won't find in many other free office suites, and are designed for vector diagrams, mathematical functions and databases, respectively. The latter is particularly useful; free alternatives to Microsoft Access are hard to find. LibreOffice is an open source project maintained by a huge and enthusiastic community of volunteers constantly working to improve stability and add new features. There's a great selection of and to make it even more flexible, and it's free for businesses as well as home users. LibreOffice is a fork of Apache OpenOffice, and the two are extremely similar, but we’d opt for LibreOffice thanks to its more frequent update schedule and more modern interface. LibreOffice is available for Windows, Mac and Linux, but there are no official mobile versions available except for a for Android.

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Opening older files is tricky If you work collaboratively, or switch between a PC and a Mac, should be your first port of call. For anyone who's already deep into the Android/Google ecosystem, this suite will be a natural choice. The three key tools run happily in any web browser, and are available as mobile apps for Apple and Android devices.

Google's free office suite doesn't offer the advanced tools you'll find in desktop software like LibreOffice (there are no pivot tables, for example, and there's no database tool) but everything is laid out in a clear, logical way and all your files will be saved and synced automatically so you don't have to worry about transfers and backups. The chief disadvantage of Docs, Sheets and Slides is that opening files created using other office software is a cumbersome process and files aren't always converted perfectly. This is partly because Google's office tools use web fonts rather than ones stored locally on your device, and partly because Microsoft documents sometimes contain features not supported by Google. If that's a dealbreaker for you, read on. Lacks some advanced tools Microsoft's desktop software carries a subscription fee, but the company has noticed the threat posed by G Suite and created its own set of free online apps.

Looks and works just like its desktop equivalent, and although advanced tools like pivot tables are out of reach, but aren’t offered by Google either. If you generally use Microsoft document formats, Office Online is a brilliant choice.

Unlike Google's free office suite, it doesn't need to convert your files before you can work on them, and you can share them easily through your Microsoft OneDrive account. Just log in using your Microsoft account (the same one you use to log into Windows 10) and you're ready to go. There's a version of Office Online for, plus mobile editions of Office for and.

Contains some ads is a slimmed down version of a premium office suite, but you'd hardly know it. Each of its three programs looks just as slick as the latest versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint, and is packed with just as many features. File format support is excellent, and you can save your work in native Microsoft formats for easy sharing with Office users. There's no database software, but WPS Office comes with an excellent free PDF reader that's a great replacement for Windows' built-in app. There's the occasional ad, but these are few and far between. They certainly won't get in the way of your work, and you'll easily forget that everything in this suite is completely free.

There are versions of WPS Office Free for Windows and Linux systems, as well as apps for Android devices, but Apple device users will need to look elsewhere. No thesaurus Like WPS Office Free, provides analogs for Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint (TextMaker, PlanMaker and Presentations respectively). As with all the free office suites in this roundup, there's support for Microsoft file formats from 1997 onwards. It also offers effortless conversion to both PDF and Epub formats, which is a welcome addition. Unfortunately, some key features are exclusive to the premium version of the software. Some of these (like tabbed browsing) are nice to have but non-essential, but the lack of a thesaurus is a real drawback for anyone who writes on a regular basis.

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FreeOffice doesn't look quite as smart as WPS Office, but if you dislike the Microsoft ribbon and find it unintuitive then you'll prefer the slightly more old fashioned approach to navigation. Do it yourself approach Open365 is more than just an office suite – it's a full cloud desktop which drags in a selection of great open source (usually desktop-based) software and puts it right in your browser. It includes the key components of the LibreOffice suite (Writer, Calc and Impress) along with Photoshop-esque image editor Gimp, Linux email package Kontact, and cloud storage by Seafile. Everything the desktop versions of those packages do can be done here, and every format they support is supported. There's a desktop client to handle file transfers and mirroring your cloud storage to your hard drive, although you'll still need to run the software itself in-browser.

Being full-on desktop software it's reasonably heavy both in terms of load times and the stress it puts on your system. But get your whole team on board and its collaborative tools could make this an essential component of your workflow, particularly if you're hotdesking or using a variety of hardware. Can be daunting at time While Google Docs is, thanks to the strength of its brand, probably more widely used, is very good in its own right. It's certainly closer to a desktop office package, and it's strong enough to have attracted businesses like the BBC and Nike as regular users. Zoho's new-look word processor (which ditches the classic Word-style interface in favour of a formatting sidebar) is very well-presented and capable of producing professional-looking docs, and it has a sterling spreadsheet and reasonable presentation package alongside it. They're just the tip of the iceberg, however – Zoho Workplace includes a powerful site creation tool, a file management solution and many collaborative tools. Some are on the simplistic side, so they'll likely not replace anything you might already have in place, but if you're starting out as a small business Zoho is probably a good jumping-off point.

You’re an author, and you want to. After all, the juice seems to be flowing toward self-publishers, more authors are rethinking their approach to publishing, and new opportunities seem to be opening up to self-publishers every day.

The indie spirit in self-publishing leads lots of authors to want to take ownership of the entire process of book making, not just the writing. For most people trying to create a truly professional-looking book, the best solution will be to simply hire a professional. But there’s no reason you can’t produce a reasonable-looking book if you’re willing to put in the time and educate yourself about books, and about the software you’ll use to create your book. Here’s a guide to help you get oriented to this task if you decide to do it yourself.

Guide to Book Design & Page Layout Software There are three levels of software generally available to you if you decide to go the do-it-yourself (DIY) route:. Word processors— has long had a chokehold on the word processing market due to its complete domination of the corporate environment.

And don’t forget all those PCs that came with MS Office pre-installed on them. Most people use Word, and we also have the useful open source that reads and writes Word files, too. Other choices in this range include Apple’s; and, word processors that are also story development tools;, the old PC warhorse still in production, and a host of others.

These are the programs writers are most familiar with, and in which you’ve probably spent the last couple of years writing your book. Layout programs—Since the advent of “desktop publishing” programs have been available that perform the functions usually taken care of by a layout artist. Now we have programs like and to perform these functions. They allow you to bring together all the parts of a publication and manipulate them, then output the resulting job to a variety of devices for reproduction.

Hybrids—There is also a midrange type of software that attempts to combine the word processing functions with layout functions. For instance, Microsoft Publisher is popular for flyers, business brochures and similar projects, and there are a lot of templates available to make creating jobs easier.

Likewise, Apple’s Pages is really a hybrid and can be used either as a word processor or as a layout engine, depending on the type of document you create. This category is showing the most growth in recent months, with more programs coming onto the market that attempt to be “all things to all people.” Now Pages offers, as does Storyist. Any program that provides a clean word processing environment as well as the ability to combine text, graphics and output to reproduction devices might fall into this category. Which Option is Right For You?

It’s pretty seductive to use your word processor for putting your book together. After all, you’re already familiar with the program and that should save you a ton of time. But a word processor is a poor choice for some kinds of books:. Illustrated books—It can be very frustrating to try to position graphics with any precision in a word processor. These programs usually lack sophisticated color-handling also, limiting their use for illustrated books. Heavily formatted books—The more formatting involved, like sidebars, pull quotes, tables, charts, illustrations and anchored graphics, the less appropriate a word processor is as a layout solution. Typographically sophisticated books—Word processors do not have the very fine typographic controls you find in sophisticated layout programs.

And hyphenation and justification of text simply will not look as polished as it would in dedicated software. Pros and Cons for Each Type of Software No matter what you choose to use as a vehicle to publish your book, there are tradeoffs. They are not always apparent, and might not affect you from day one of your project, but before you lock yourself into one solution or another, consider these:.

Word processors, Pro and Con. Pro: You already know how to use it. Pro: The least expensive of the three alternatives, particularly if you already own it. Pro: The shortest learning curve of the three types of programs. Con: You may not know how to use the functions you’ll need to do your book.

Con: Get ready to be frustrated if you’re trying to do exact placement of images on your pages. Con: Your options to output your pages may be severely limited, and you’ll have no support for color corrections, color calibration or many other advanced functions needed for some kinds of books. Hybrids, Pro and Con. Pro: Less expensive than dedicated layout programs. Pro: Easier to learn than dedicated layout programs. Pro: Pre-built templates are available to get you started. Con: Compromised functions of both word processors and layout programs may fail to satisfy or give the range of options of either type of program separately.

Con: Idiosyncratic. These programs may use “dumbed down” functions and language to describe the processes in an attempt to appeal to the widest variety of users. Con: You may be frustrated by the availability of some, but not all, the functions of a higher-level layout program. Layout programs, Pro and Con. Pro: You get complete control of your pages, with precise placement of all elements. Pro: Robust support for output to all kinds of reproduction devices from low-end to high-end reproduction.

Pro: Huge market of add-on and supplemental programs that supply even more functionality to these programs, and integrate with image editing functions as well. Con: These babies are expensive to buy, and if you will only do one book, it may be hard to justify the expense. Con: If you haven’t used this type of software before, get ready for some intensive training. And you can start by trying to figure out what a “pica” is. Con: The variety and precision of commands and functions can be overwhelming for new users.

Recommendations What kind of software you end up using to do your book will rely on lots of factors. But generally speaking, I would recommend:. Word processors if you’re on a budget, if your book is basically running text without much formatting, or if you only want to print up a few books for private use. You can dedicate yourself to learning how to manipulate these programs into producing a decent-looking book, but it may not be the best use of your time.

Microsoft Word remains my choice here. Hybrid programs if you’re willing to pay a few dollars for software that will give you a lot more flexibility with page layout, effects, placement of non-text elements. And if you are only a casual user, these programs will be easier to learn. I’m impressed with Apple’s Pages for layout and output to EPUB. Page layout programs if you foresee doing more than one book a year, you like the idea of learning printing terms and procedures, or if you want to have complete control of an illustrated or heavily-formatted book. Keep in mind that the first books you produce will still look like first efforts. Plan to devote time to learning the software with some kind of training before diving into your project.

Standards here include Adobe InDesign and Quark Xpress. And if you do decide to design and produce your own book, check out the page on this blog. It will give you a leg up in getting your book to press. This is a great site — thank you! I produce family history books from my interviews with clients and have had to find a new printer/binder for my projects. I’ve been dong my layout just fine in Pages, but the export to pdf apparently ends up with the black text and black and white photos all in color. The printer/binders are telling that I will have to pay for all color printing, unless I do something to fix this.

I’m very confused about what and how to make the black100% black, and the color as CMYK, within the same document, in order to meet the printers’ requirements. (the black text is selected as black in Pages, and the b/w photos are lowest saturation.) Is there a way to fix this. For future projects I have just gotten the new InDesign, and I hope that will resolve this.

Very much welcome suggestions!! Hello, After reading all the posts here on your excellent advice and replies as a newbie, I went for Serif Pageplus X9, which sounded very attractive from its website. However, after paying the very modest fee (£22) and going to the download link, I saw the file size was 1.2 GB, which is way above my 500 MB/day allowance!

Pity they couldn’t let you know the file size beforehand! Luckily (?) I also ordered the recovery disc, which they say I can use to load the file. While now waiting for the disc to arrive I decided to have a look at Scribus.

I heeded the “warnings” of the learning curve and patiently watch several U-tube tutorials and felt confident to give it a try but I am getting stuck at first base: no matter how I try to copy my Word file into a text box as per video, I cannot get to my Word file. I can see the folder it is in, but cannot open the folder. I have tried putting the file directly onto my PC desktop and in the Documents folder, but I still can only see folders. Does anyone know what I’m doing wrong!? Regards Lawrence. Hi Joel – Hope you can help me.

My club consists of 26 chapters nationwide. Each year, we publish a 75-100 page magazine that includes basic information pages and a summary of information for each chapter. Each chapter submits the content for their chapter and we want to provide a pre-formatted template into which they can type and insert their photos. The individual submissions would be concatenated into the annual journal. What would you suggest we use to provide this type of template, consolidate the entries and create a print-ready pdf? Bill, I got an email with your comment in it, but for the life of me, I can’t find it here. Anyway I’m presuming that you’re speaking of print versions of your books.

First off, Word is not a viable tool for professional book design and layout. For one thing, it’s a word processor, not a page layout program. So it’s tools on not designed to optimize all the elements that go into a book. When you use Quark or InDesign there are Book options that allow you to do each chapter separately, keeping files sizes more manageable, and then joining them in a Book folder. Then, too, when exporting (or distilling) a PDF for the printer–we don’t generally send InDy orvQuark files out to printers anymore–there are some options for optimizing graphic files for the purpose of bringing their sizes down.

But perhaps most important of all is to optimize them in Photoshop before importing them into your page layout doc. If you want to discuss this further, feel freelance to contact me.

Joel, Stephen, or anyone who can help me, I have written/published three books on golf and golf courses. I used Word exclusively.

I was able to accept the layout compromises and the limitations of image manipulation, and I am satisfied with the products. There are pictures on every page which leads to very large files and the reason for my question. Several times as the files got over 300 KB, the program crashed, and I split the book into sections based on the size of the file. When I combined the sections, the manuscript had to be compressed. Now I am getting to create a second edition of one of the books, and I need to be mindful of the size of the section files. How should I handle the large files?

I like th Word product, for obvious reasons which you identify, but the size of my files is a problem. Thanks, Bill. I also agree with Stephen, Word is not a good tool to use in designing a book. Word does crash when the file is too big and you can lose all you work. When designing a book I use Scribus and find it great. Some books I have produced have a many images which makes the file very large.

So when I export the PDF file to be printed it can be over 1GB. I just divide it into a couple of PDF files to send to the printing company. Designing a book will be so much easier using another program, I will never use Word again, its a battle.

I’m actually going back to QuarkXPress for my next upgrade–leaving behind InDesign because of this hideous subscription deal Adobe’s insisting on so that users pay perpetually to use it. I’ve also been playing with Scribus and have begun to write a book about the process of using it for book design.

It’s not to be just a how-to for step-by-stepping thru the design and layout process using Scribus, but a rumination on developing an aesthetic for book design and using Scribus’ tools to make books that are more than just containers for words and pictures. I started with Microsoft Word but have moved onto Scribus. Its a good program, yes there is a learning curve but it does all I want for text and images.

I can even show the bleed area on the page, something I could never do in Word. Of course the best part its free and they are always updating the program. InDesign is costly and probably harder to learn. I am completed 8 books now and even my first couple in Word I have redesign them in Scribus.

Its good for layout of images, resizing, etc. Last 2 books have been hardcover with a dust jacket, Scribus does it perfectly for me. Forget Word its a battle to do want you want in book design, go for Scribus. Block paragraphs are fine for indented material for the purpose of highlighting from main text. But if used throughout a book–in other words, no first line indent for new paragraphs, I think it looks like the writer didn’t go to far in school and never learned the fundamentals of writing.

In which case, I, as a reader, would wonder whether I should waste my time seeing whether the substance of that person’s writing is as wanting as his or her structure. I mean, you did ask (tho’ not necessarily me, but in a public place nonetheless). Mike, I do have to agree with Joel’s last bit of advice. I’ll admit to a vested interest, as a book designer, but I’m seeing a disturbing trend of DIYers who, after busting their guts writing a book, don’t grasp or don’t care that the book their writing becomes is more than just a container of their words.

I say it all the time to self-publishers: the idea is to make a book that is at least as good as books published by traditional publishers, if not better. There are more books than ever being published. You have to give readers a sense that yours is one they want to part with their hard-earned money for the privilege of reading. So give them something that shows real care was taken in its creation. A professional book designer/layout artist gives you your best chance at that. Joel, I need some help.

My husband and I are editors for our local genealogical society and we publish a quarterly journal, which has about 48-52 pages plus front and back covers. It is really difficult using Word for the layout with all the elements we have to incorporate. We bought Publisher thinking this would be easier, but lo and behold, it doesn’t let you create an index, and we must have an Index at the back of each Journal!! Do you have any suggestions for us??

Thanks for your help. I use Scribus, its great and free. I am onto my 10th book now and have used Scribus for the last 8 books. I started with Word would never go back to it. Scribus it good for text and images, formatting, etc.

Does take a little to learn the various parts. I learnt by using to make a book. Word has a problem with size, when you have lots of images, it crashes.

Scribus once you have finished your book, the file can be exported as a PDF, which I send onto the printer. I would totally recommend Scribus. Sorry about your problem with installing PagePlus X6. As I said I’ve not tried PagePlus Starter and I hadn’t noticed that their web site says Win XP to Win 8 but only 32-bit. Before I upgraded to PPX7 I was running PPX6 perfectly successfully both on my laptop and my desktop, both of which are Win7 Pro 64-bit SP1. In fact, I am still running PPX6 on my laptop. Since most of my DTP work is done on my desktop with a nice big screen that is the only one I have upgraded to to PPX7.

I see that Serif are still selling PPX6 for only £19.99 in UK which is a lot less than PPX7. I’m not sure what it costs outside UK. Perhaps that might be worth trying?

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PPX7 does have a few bells and whistles over PPX6 but I doubt that they would be a great advantage for the project you described. Hope this helps. I edited a special interest magazine for around 10 years. It was professionally printed by a specialist short run magazine printer.

During my time as editor, more and more of the design support work was discontinued by the printers as they stripped out costs from their own operation. We were also PC based rather than Apple and that was the exception rather than the norm in the design world. Eventually we had to do all the design ourselves to the point where we just uploaded the.pdfs of the finished magazine onto their website. To do this and get a professional product we invested in InDesign.

It did everything we needed but there turned out to be a long learning curve, diverting me from my editing role. I am a writer not a designer. So I focussed on writing and editing and a colleague went on a course and learned how to use it for our small team.

That was a few years ago. I gave up being editor around 2 years ago and have turned my hand to writing. I have written a book of prose and poems with a lot of illustrations (mostly hand drawn) which I would like to publish as a limited run for family and friends and grandchildren. It is in Word and I have scanned in all the illustrations. Is there anything less sophisticated than InDesign you would recommend for doing the layout, given I have a “graphical eye” but no InDesign skills and not really time, or inclination to be honest, to learn them? I still work on a PC BTW. I’ve found the pc-based Serif PagePlus great for (very!) limited run books, in my case family history stories with half-tone and vector illustrations.

I have found it easy to use, and much better value than MS Publisher. Disclaimers; it is some years since I compared the two products – things might have changed since then – and I have been using the various iterations of PagePlus for some years now so I have had some time to become familiar with its interface. I can send the output directly for PagePlus to PDF for uploading to Lulu and have been more than happy with both. There’s a free version (PagePlus Starter) which I have not used and a review of the current version X7 at Hope this helps.

Hi Jeanne, I saw your comment and have wondered the same thing in the past. I now have been using Creative Cloud for about eight months.

My rationale for making the leap is similar to yours in that my software all became dinosaurs and with my most recent computer upgrade buried all but Freehand. I could not buy all new software for financial reasons and in my search discovered Creative Cloud. I went with the full package that allowed the download of several of their software, i.e.: Muse, Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Edge and their fontsI’m in designer Heaven for the same amount I pay for our phone bill. You can go for fewer software downloads for less per monthI think it is limited to two or three. I have used Adobe products all my professional career and really only had a short downtime learning what all the new bells and whistles I had missed through updates that I did not take on. I find their products quite user friendly. They have a vast amount of learning videos and forums for user questions and I bought the Classroom In A Book Guides for Muse and InDesign and I was up and running in no time.

I don’t know Publisher so I cannot tell you how they compare. My advice is if you have many books to put together and more websites to build, it is worth the leap.

I am a professional designer and I’m not giving it up any time soon. I would be interested to see what other comments you get. I’m an artist and designed my website and books using MS Publishera very outdated program, I understand, and the newer version is not user friendlyand features in the old version have become deactivated somehow through automatic software updates. So I need new programs, but which? When I was finally ready to upload my first book designs to blurb, I saw it didn’t accept Publisher files and I loathe preformatted templates, being a creative person.

They only accept Adobe products but I’m wondering how much of a learning curve I’m going to have and if it’s worth getting involved in their new “Cloud” subscription arrangement since they’ve discontinued actual programs that one can purchase on disc. What do you suggest?

Thanks, Jeanne. Hey I really love your blogs Joel.

My situation is pretty straightforward, I’m writing a novel, and was getting my head very wrapped up in ‘fonts’, and now the layout question, although this is before I’ve even written much. My only issue is that somehow my sense of design is somehow connected to the things I write on my page. Does that make any sense at all?

The fonts i use, to the layout I have set up, all affect the way that I write because of what i ‘see’, and I wonder what is your advice to take some of the burden off, if I decide to just focus on the story, and hire someone to do the layout professionally later, considering I have some issue with what I’m looking at for the duration of the writing experience. Should I bother with fonts? Or maybe I am answering my own question, and it is sort of in-between. As long as I give it a look that supports my general vision for the time-being.

For some reason I worry that it won’t ‘look right’ when I get to the end, and will want to change too many things. I have already acquired a few good fonts I like though, but I’m not sure if Open Office reveals the depth of the font, and that would explain why I can’t print it to look good right now. Is this true? Sorry for the long question, especially if it is not completely on topic. But it’s a key thing for me!