Create Office Documents for Free

Another simple question that I often receive from others is must they go about and purchase the entire Microsoft Office suite just to create simple Word documents and Powerpoint presentations? Must they fork over more money just immediately after spending hundreds if not thousands of dollars on that new computer? As a average computer user, shouldn’t we expect that shiny new computer to be able to do basic tasks such as protecting us while we are online and being able to create those simple Word documents to share with colleagues and friends without breaking our wallets? Well, worry not anymore my friends. While I certainly believe that not everything in the world should be free, I strongly believe that we should at least have free alternatives to chose from. With the explosion of the Internet, companies are introducing the software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform module or for a more simple term, cloud computing, to allow us to get all of our work done on the net and all without having to download or install anything on our computers. Read on to see if this works for you or not. You’ve got nothing to lose.

Software as a Service

There’s no doubt that with the Internet boom and the rise of broadband Internet users, companies now have a chance to target a much more bigger audience. With SaaS, users are allowed to comfortably use the service provided by the company all without needing to install anything. This is possible because the majority of the actual software is hosted on the company’s servers themselves and not on the user’s desktop. This is very similar to the server-client model when it comes to networking. The server or the back-end is maintained by the administrators at the company and are responsible for keeping everything up to date and that everything is secure as possible. The users or better known as the clients, are allowed to access the services offered by those back-end servers all without needing the installation because everything is run on the back-end.
One of the biggest advantage to this model obviously is the lack of installation for the user. The service most likely can be interacted by the user through a web browser and usually all the user needs to do is to sign up for an account. Depending on the services being offered, the user is required to have at least Java and Flash installed for their browser in order to access all of the features. Another big advantage is the lack of maintenance required of the user. No longer does the user need to worry about software updates because everything should be taken care of at the back-end side of the servers. If there are major changes to the service, than it’s the job of the company to notify their users of it. With SaaS, it’s also very scalable. The service can be accessed by one home user or an entire company of a thousand employees. In fact, many major companies have already begun the switch of some of their traditional desktop programs and features for online alternatives. One obvious disadvantage of course is due to it’s online access requirement. Because it’s an online service, you need to have access to the Internet in order to use it! The good news however is that some services have offline capabilities. Changes you make (for example, word documents) offline will be immediately replicated once you are connected back to the Internet. But anyways, enough of this. The main reason for this article is to show you the many alternatives you can choose from besides the Microsoft Office suite to get your work done so let’s begin!

Zoho

Zoho is a tremendous and free online service that can pretty much do everything from creating word documents, spreadsheets, and Powerpoint presentations all within your browser. But wait, that’s not it. Throw in web conferencing, web meetings, note taking, project management capabilities, chatting, organizing tools and you got yourself a complete suite. Remember, all of this is possible inside your browser! No software installation is required. Here, I’ll go over how easily it can be to get started.

1. Begin by creating an account with Zoho. If you already have a Gmail or Yahoo mail account, then it’s even easier as you can use it for the signup procedures. On this page, you can also see all the services that Zoho offers to you. It’s quite a lot isn’t it?

2. Once you have done so, then that’s it! The entire repertoire of Zoho services is at your disposal. Here, I’ll get you started by creating some simple documents. Simply click on Zoho Writer to create a word document. You should immediately be greeted with a welcome document detailing to you the features of Zoho Writer. The view should be familiar to anyone who has ever worked inside Microsoft’s Word application before. You can clearly see the formatting toolbar, the ruler and the top file menu options to insert objects into your document as well as to easily share them. To create your first document, select the New button near the top. Now you can begin typing as you would in Microsoft Word.

3. Once you have finished typing up your document, simply save it to your Zoho account by clicking on the Save icon.

Remember, you can do other task such as printing and emailing the documents to your friends directly in Zoho as well. One of the neat features is that you can export your documents created in Zoho into Microsoft Office compatible files! Some services force you to only be allowed to open their proprietary files in their own software but that clearly doesn’t go well for the user. By exporting your document into a Word file with the .doc or .docx extension, other users will be able to open and view your work in their own word processing application of choice, such as Microsoft Word. Therefore, you don’t have to worry about whether or not your friends and colleagues will be able to view your files. Heck, you can even export your file into a number of other different formats such as an HTML file, a plain ol’ text file or even as a PDF! Once exported, it will be saved as a local file on your computer and you can do whatever you want to it.

4. Creating a Powerpoint presentation is very similar in nature. Select Zoho Show. Optionally, you can go over their brief overview of the service in their created presentation. All of it was created in Zoho Show. This also gives you an idea of the slides you can create and the capabilities with Zoho Show. To begin creating your own, simply select Create a New Presentation. Once again, if you have worked with Microsoft’s Powerpoint application before, everything should look familiar.

5. You can export the file as a .PPT file, which is Microsoft’s extension for their Powerpoint files or to any other format it allows you to in the export options menu.

As you can see, Zoho offers you so much without costing you a dime. From creating compatible office documents to creating your own online polls and being able to share what you have created with anyone, it’s hard to pass up on Zoho’s web service. You simply have to try it to appreciate its worth. Writing every Zoho feature and its capabilities is beyond the scope of my blog entry so you can either try it out yourself or Google search it for more answers.

 

ThinkFree Online

ThinkFree Online is similar to Zoho but it doesn’t provide you with as many services. Basically, if you want to create word, spreadsheet and presentation files, ThinkFree is a good choice.

1. Begin by creating an account with ThinkFree. Once again, you can use your Gmail account. Once done so, simply head into My Office to begin creating your documents.

2. As you can then see, ThinkFree offers you the ability to create three different types of office documents. In this example, I will create a spreadsheet and then export it so that it will be compatible with Microsoft Excel 2007. Here I just created a quick sales report to show you how it looks like. The interface looks pretty close to Excel.

3. Now I’m going to save the file. I have a couple of options. I can either save it to my online ThinkFree account or I can choose to save it locally on my computer’s hard drive as a compatible Excel file. I’m going to save it on my desktop in a folder called ThinkFree. Because my other colleagues have Excel 2007, that’s the format I will export it to.

4. Now that I have the file in my computer, I can send it to whoever I wish. Those people will then be able to view it with Microsoft Excel 2007.

While ThinkFree doesn’t offer nearly as much as Zoho, it’s still a worthy alternative considering how many users only need to create those three types of office documents for work or school (Word, Excel, Powerpoint). ThinkFree also has offline capabilities so make sure to check that out as well.

 

Google Docs

Google Docs is similar to ThinkFree in that it allows you to freely create word documents, spreadsheets and presentation files that are also compatible with Microsoft Office.

1. If you already have a Gmail account, you don’t need to signup again to use Google Docs! Simply login to your email account and on the top, simply select the Documents option to begin. If you don’t have a Gmail account (shame on you!) then begin by creating one here.

2. Google Doc’s interface is very easy to navigate. To begin creating a document, simply hit the New button and from the drop down menu, select the type of file you wish to create. Here, I’ll create another word document. The interface in my opinion looks more plain than Zoho’s or ThinkFree’s service. However, don’t be fooled. It can still do a lot.

3. Now I’ll save the document. Once again, I have the option of saving it in my Google account, offline to my computer, or both. In the File Menu, there is an option labeled Download File As. This allows you to save a copy of the document on your computer in one of the formats listed. This time I will choose to save it as a PDF file instead.

Alright so that’s three awesome and free online web services that allows you to easily create office productivity documents. But what about the folks reading that isn’t too fond of these online services? Well luckily for you folks, there is something for everyone. Introducing the free and open-source, OpenOffice.

OpenOffice

OpenOffice, maintained by Suns Microsystems, is one of the more popular productivity suites besides Microsoft Office. It has an application for just about all of your productivity needs from a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation to database, it’s all there. Best of all, it’s compatible with Microsoft Office formats.

You can download OpenOffice from here. Remember, this is a stand-alone application suite so you are not required to have an Internet connection to work on your files. The download is around 150MB. When saving your documents, be sure to save it in a format that can be opened by your recipients.

If you’re looking for just a stand-alone, full featured word processor, than you might want to give Abiword a try. It’s a full featured word processor and nothing more. However, it’s compatible with other document types so it’s able to read and save to Microsoft Word.

AbiWord

You can download AbiWord from here. If you know of someone that needs to just be able to read and write Word documents, tell them to give AbiWord a try.

 

In the End…

Well, that pretty much concludes it. Just remember that you don’t always have to pay money for applications when you can just as easily download or use free alternatives. Think about who this can benefit around you. Do you have kids at home that needs to do their homework with Word or Excel? Rather than spending the majority of their time in the school’s library system (because their computers have those applications installed), they can comfortably do it at home because they now can use Zoho or ThinkFree to create and work on those documents. What about users that need to spend their hard earned money on other more important items besides computer applications? With Zoho and the other online services, creating those office documents is a godsend considering their pricetag. I didn’t even mention about how easily it is to be able to share and collaborate with your friends on those projects that isn’t offered in Microsoft’s stand-alone products! These free services and freewares come pretty close to providing you with a Microsoft Office alternative. At the very least, try to use them before spending your money.