7 cool Microsoft Office alternatives to try on Mac

By Gizbot Bureau

| Published: Tuesday, April 30, 2019, 18:09 [IST]

Once you get your hands on a Mac and get used to it, the chances of missing the Windows operating system is quite less. But if you need to Microsoft Office, having to buy it again can be a hassle. Although you do not have much of an option if you work in a traditional office environment, letting go of Excel and Word might be out of the question but if you aren’t trapped with obligations like that and only need to edit and send Office documents once in a while, you do not need to shell out on Microsoft Office and alternate options can be relied on.

Google Suite

Google has Google Docs, Sheets and Slides in its arsenal that are worthy adversaries for Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Although Gmail is the only alternative for Outlook available, OneNote on Mac is available for free.

LibreOffice

LibreOffice is widely recognized as the best open source alternative to Microsoft Office Suite. Libre Office Suite comes with offline desktop apps equipped with pro features.

An online component that has been added makes it easy to sync files from Google Drive or OneDrive and edit them right in LibreOffice.

iWork Suite

Although not without the range of the Microsoft Office Suite, Apple's alternatives included in iWork have all the basics covered. Pages, Numbers, and Keynote are Mac-centric apps with different UI. Instead of being top-heavy, the options show up in a contextual menu on the side. Documents in Microsoft Office formats can be imported and exported.

Office Online

Office Online is Microsoft's free and basic Microsoft Office service that works in any browser. Although the feature set is limited, the basics of document editing, spreadsheet formulas, and presentation options are available.

Edit Office Documents in Dropbox

Having a free Microsoft account will allow you to open a Word, Excel or PowerPoint document on Dropbox. This a result of Microsoft's partnership with Dropbox.

Ditch PowerPoint for Better Online Tools

To stand out with your presentation and leave a better impression than one made with PowerPoint, a few of the modern online presentation tools that are available have been listed below:

Slides: Beautiful presentations can be created and presented online using the account. You will need a paid account in order to export the documents.

Prezi: While it is geared towards startups, the visual tools available for use are beyond the capabilities of PowerPoint.

Canva: Canva has a large library of presentation templates available in the online image editor. In addition to this, Canva gives you all the important tools for creating a customized presentation.

Embrace Markdown

If you're getting used to the simplicity of Mac and would like to take it further by using Markdown that allows you to create and edit plain text documents.

Markdown is a syntax like HTML but 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.

For example, you can use asterisks to make the word italic. You can create a complex formatted document without ever having to leave the keyboard. Markdown exports as clean HTML and can generate beautiful PDFs using apps like Ulysses.