Whether you're using a Windows or a Macintosh computer, Microsoft Office is a staple throughout the world. While that doesn't mean everybody uses it, it does mean that almost everybody has to find something that works with it. And yet there are several reasons you might not want to get a copy of Microsoft Office itself.
One of those is the price. Few of us can happily afford to shell out $400 for the Standard edition of Office. Even the educational price of $150 is pricey, especially if you're a student trying to make ends meet.
Perhaps your PC doesn't have enough resources to handle Office, which is a notorious memory hog. Or maybe you have a second computer that you or other family members use only occasionally for document creation, and you don't want to shell out for another Office license.
Whatever the reason, it's good to know that there are alternatives out there--all cheaper than Microsoft's standard, and a couple that are even free. We sorted through nine contenders, some for PC and some for Mac (and a couple for both), to find out the best non-Office office suites available.
We limited our search to true suites--products with at least two of the three main components of Office: a word processor, a spreadsheet application and a presentation program. We also didn't bother with online-only office suites; we wanted ones you could install on your own PC. (We have already looked at several online suites in a different review.)
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