Dec 06, 2019 If you’re not ready to buy Microsoft Office, here are your best Microsoft Office alternatives for Mac that are free. Google Suite. If you’re going to let go of the Microsoft world, your best bet is to join the Google alliance. Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides are the three alternatives to Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Dec 06, 2019 If you’re not ready to buy Microsoft Office, here are your best Microsoft Office alternatives for Mac that are free. Google Suite. If you’re going to let go of the Microsoft world, your best bet is to join the Google alliance. Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides are the three alternatives to Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Mar 16, 2020 Microsoft Office may be the biggest and best, but if you don't need all of its features you can find alternatives available for free. Like WPS Office Free. Or switch between a PC and a Mac.
It’s fairly easy to leave Windows behind. Just buy a Mac, take a couple of days to settle in, and never look back. But for Microsoft Office users, the need to buy Office for Mac again can be a hassle.
If you work in a traditional office environment that runs on Excel and Word, you might have to bite the bullet. But if you’ve outgrown that world and still need to edit and send Office documents every now and then, you have alternative options.
SolverStudio is a free alternative to OpenSolver that is better suited to larger problems. Available as a free download, SolverStudio lets you use Excel to edit, save and solve optimisation models built using modelling languages such as the Python-based PuLP, AMPL, GAMS, GMPL, COOPR/Pyomo and Gurobi’s Python interface. Pros: Free with new Macs, lots of help for new users, simple tools for creating charts and attractive layouts Cons: Fewer functions and analytical tools than Excel, limited collaboration tools.
If you’re not ready to buy Microsoft Office, here are your best Microsoft Office alternatives for Mac that are free.
1. Google Suite
Best Office Alternative For Mac
If you’re going to let go of the Microsoft world, your best bet is to join the Google alliance. Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides are the three alternatives to Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. There’s no real alternative to Outlook beyond Gmail, and you can get OneNote on Mac for free.
Google’s suite is really good and integrates well with your Google account. You’ll be able to open an Excel file you received via Gmail in Google Sheets with a quick button press.
You can easily import Microsoft Office files to work on them, then export them again in Microsoft Office formats to pass them around. And if what you’re doing is fairly basic, with standard fonts and formatting, you can get away with it. The other party will never find out that you’re not using Microsoft Office proper.
In some ways, Google Docs is more powerful than Microsoft Word. There’s an extensive add-on gallery, beautiful templates, superior research tools built-in, and Google search capabilities to boot.
Plus, there’s the advantage of Google’s cloud prowess. Collaborating with multiple users simultaneously in a document is a pure joy. It’s a little benefit, but it does wonders for productivity.
The entire suite is free and you get 15GB of storage included. The only problem is that there’s no real desktop app for any of these (though you can work offline on documents in Chrome, using the Offline mode). Accompanying apps for iPhone and iPad are great too.
Visit: Google Docs Google Sheets Google Slides
2. LibreOffice
LibreOffice is widely recognized as the best open source alternative to Microsoft Office suite. This means it’s completely free and available on a host of platforms. It’s the best Office alternative for Mac.
If you’re used to the Microsoft Office user interface (pre-Ribbon era), it won’t take you long to adjust to LibreOffice. Unlike Google’s apps, the LibreOffice suite comes with fully featured offline desktop apps with all the pro features you expect.
To make the deal even sweeter, LibreOffice recently added an online component. So you can sync files from Google Drive or OneDrive and edit them right in LibreOffice (there’s no collaboration feature, though).
LibreOffice also does a good job in regards to formatting when importing Microsoft Office documents. Even complex Excel spreadsheets imported into LibreOffice Calc work like they should.
LibreOffice actually grew out of OpenOffice, which used to be the de facto alternative to Microsoft Office. But OpenOffice hasn’t seen any meaningful updates recently, and its management is considering retiring the project. So we advise you to stay away from OpenOffice. Conversely, LibreOffice’s track record in the recent past has been great.
Download: LibreOffice (Free)
Best Free Microsoft Word Alternative For Mac Download
3. iWork Suite
Included with your Mac is the iWork Suite: Pages, Numbers, and Keynote. These are Apple’s own alternatives to Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Pages, for instance, is the best Word alternative for Mac.
As these are Mac-centric apps, the UI is quite different. Instead of being top-heavy, the options show up in a contextual menu on the side. And you don’t have as many options as the Microsoft Office suite. Since all three apps are now matured, all the basics are covered.
Once you get used to them, they’re actually pleasant to use (something we can’t necessarily say about Microsoft Office). While customization options are limited, everything that’s available is quite polished. When you create a presentation in Keynote, chances are you’ll end up creating something beautiful. The same goes with Pages—moving text, images, and graphs around is a seamless experience that doesn’t make you want to pull your hair out.
The iWork Suite lets you import and export documents in Microsoft Office formats (it will save to the default iWork format, though). And as long as you don’t use a Mac-specific font, doing a back-and-forth with Office documents shouldn’t be a big problem.
iWork also has online collaboration options but frankly, I wouldn’t recommend using them. They’re nowhere near as reliable as Google’s offering.
Download: Pages Numbers Keynote (Free)
4. Office Online
Free Microsoft Word Alternative Mac
When nothing else will do, just open Office.com. It essentially gives you access to free Office for Mac. Office Online is Microsoft’s free and basic Microsoft Office service that works in any browser.
Is There A Free Version Of Excel For Mac
While the feature set is limited, the basics of document editing, spreadsheet formulas, and presentation options are all covered. You’ll get access to Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote.
Visit: Office Online
5. Edit Office Documents in Dropbox
Dropbox’s partnership with Microsoft means you can open a Word, Excel, or PowerPoint document shared with you on Dropbox. You don’t need an Office 365 license, but you’ll require a free Microsoft account. Using this option opens your document in Office Online.
6. Ditch PowerPoint for Better Online Tools
PowerPoint is powerful, but it’s also pretty old-school. If you want to stand out with your presentations, try some more modern online presentation tools:
- Slides: This is my personal favorite for creating beautiful presentations easily. The free account lets you create and present documents online. To export, you’ll need to upgrade to a paid account.
- Prezi: While this service is geared more towards startups, the visual tools offered by Prezi are beyond anything you can get with PowerPoint.
- Canva: Canva is an online image editor, but it has an extensive library of presentation templates. Plus, Canva gives you all the important tools for creating a customized presentation.
7. Embrace Markdown
Here’s an idea purely out of left field. If you given up Windows and embraced the Mac platform, you must have started appreciating macOS’s simplicity by now. If you want more of that for creating and editing plain text documents, you should try using Markdown.
Markdown is a syntax What Is Markdown? 4 Reasons Why You Should Learn It NowTired of HTML and WYSIWYG editors? Then Markdown is the answer for you no matter who you are. Read More like HTML, but it’s much simpler. When you use a Markdown app to write, you don’t get lost in dozens of menu options. All the formatting happens using shortcodes.
Best Free Microsoft Word Alternative For Mac 10
So for example, to make a word italic, you wrap it with asterisks. You can create a complex formatted document without ever lifting your fingers from the keyboard. Plus, Markdown exports as clean HTML and you can generate beautiful PDFs using apps like Ulysses.
If Needed, Use Microsoft Office Without Paying for It
Free Online Word For Mac
Buying the latest version of Microsoft Office will cost you a few hundred dollars (or a subscription for Office 365). Most of the time, the options listed above will suffice for you. Google Docs works as a great alternative to Word, and the same goes for Sheets and Excel. If you’re looking for offline alternatives, LibreOffice should be more than enough.
Free Microsoft Word Alternative For Mac
But there might be times where you have to use Office for a particular task or for a limited period of time. There are a couple of ways to do this without paying, including using Office Online or one of the mobile apps. We’ve outlined all your options in our guide to using Microsoft Office without paying for it 6 Ways You Can Get a Microsoft Office License for FreeFree Microsoft Office licenses are hard to get, but they do exist. This article covers six ways to get Word and Excel for free. Read More , as well as picking up a cheap Office license 5 Ways to Get Cheap Microsoft Office and Word LicensesLooking for the cheapest way to get Microsoft Office? Here's how you can get the productivity suite for a fraction of the price. Read More .
Excel is one important tool in almost all companies. The complicated features and commands enable Excel to be one comprehensive software, which can store info and allows users to arrange info to plan projects and analyze data. Take a look at this guidance to find out what is the best spreadsheet for Mac and how to store it from Mac to iDevices. You can also know one great tool for transferring files as well.
Part 1: Best Excel Alternatives for Mac
When it comes to the issue of how to make a spreadsheet on Mac, the best spreadsheet software for Mac is in need. The free Excel app for Mac emerges in the market with high speed, which can help users a lot in managing data. There are some great excel alternative Mac that could work better for your plans or team. Now you can check the list in the following contents.
1. Apache OpenOffice
Apache OpenOffice is a fantastic excel type program for Mac, which has a word processor, a spreadsheet maker, and a presentation creator. If you are looking for the best excel program for Mac, it can meet your needs pretty well. It can also be used to make pretty charts to display data clearly.
2. LibreOffice
LibreOffice is an open source spreadsheet Mac, which is quite similar to Microsoft Office, It contains a vector graphics editor, a math formula editor, and a database manager. Users can save files as open document format files, which enables users to open them with any kind of document viewer. It is not like some other spreadsheet programs that need certain software to open the file.
3. Apple Numbers 3.6.1
Numbers can be used as an excel Mac alternative, which comes with a wonderful basic set of features that is quite useful for small business, home uses and education. You can also import or export spreadsheets in the format of Excel. Thus, it is convenient for you to view the spreadsheet on Mac or transfer it to other devices to analyze data at any time you like.
4. Google Docs
Google Docs, as one free alternative to Microsoft Office, contains some great functions that enables users to hide certain data and work out the total of a set of chosen cells automatically. The data it manages will be shown in a clear-cut screen, which is quite a nice option.
5. Panorama Sheets 6.0
Panorama Sheets can be used to browse, search and sort through your data, which is quite simpler for home users and small business to handle. This database software can present data in the format of spreadsheet, and its functions are wide.
These excel alternatives for Mac are really excellent. If you are really keen on one of them, you can go to the official websites of them to download and install on Mac for daily use.
Part 2: How to Store Spreadsheet from Mac to iOS Devices via iTransfer for Mac
The best open source office suite or the open source excel for Mac is really convenient for users to deal with data, which can be saved on Mac for later use. If you have the need to view the spreadsheet on your iDevices, you can take advantage of iTransfer for Mac to get rid of this issue. Leawo iTransfer for Mac is very fantastic in functions and friendly in user-interface. After you store spreadsheet from Mac to iOS devices, you can take the data to any place you need. As for how to make it with iTransfer for Mac, you can have a look at the following detailed illustrations.
Leawo iTransfer for Mac
☉ copy files among iOS devices, iTunes and PCs with ease.
☉ copy up to 14 kinds of data and files without iTunes.
☉ Support the latest iOS devices like iPhone 7, iPhone 7 Plus, etc.
☉ Play back, view, and delete data and files on iOS devices.
Step 1. Run iTransfer for Mac and Insert iPhone into Mac
Insert iPhone into Mac and then run iTransfer for Mac with suitable USB cable. The software will detect your iDevice automatically.
Step 2. Choose Spreadsheet to Add to iPhone
Click on iPhone icon and then hit “LIBRARY> USB Storage”. If there are some files in your iPhone USB storage, it will show in the right part of the interface. Click on “Add> Add File” or “Add> Add Folder” to browse Mac to find the spreadsheet that you want to export to iDevice.
Step 3. Transfer Spreadsheet from Mac to iPhone
When you find the spreadsheet file on Mac, you can click on it and then hit “Open” button. The software will immediately begin to transfer file from Mac to iPhone. After a moment, you will see the spreadsheet file in the right part of the interface of “USB Storage”. You can then access to it on your iDevice as well.
Best Office Alternative For Mac
When you read through this guidance, you will understand the solution to transfer spreadsheet from Mac to iDevice. You can also choose the Excel alternative software for Mac to make delicate spreadsheets to manage data efficiently.