It worked nice, but was always hidden inside Skydrive. Back in 2010, Microsoft added 'Office Web Apps' to their Skydrive online storage service, which let you edit your Office documents online with a basic copy of Office 2010-styled apps. The new Office Online is actually nothing terribly new. Office Online: The Free Office You've Always Wanted It's really Office, just online-and free In this tutorial, I'll show you how to make new documents, spreadsheets, and presentations using Office, for free, and also how to open and edit your existing documents online. They’re the same Microsoft Office apps you’re used to, only they run online and are 100% free. At the new, you can use basic versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote for free in your browser. But what if you really would rather just use Microsoft Office apps, since they work great with the files you already have and you’re already used to them? You could use LibreOffice or Google Docs for free, or if you have a Mac you can use Apple’s iWork apps for far less than Office costs. That’s not so expensive, per se, if you need to use Office all day, but if all you need to do is type up a few letters and organize your personal finances, it’s definitely expensive. The new Office 365 will cost you around $9/month, and a stand-alone copy of Office 2013 costs over $100 even with a discount. And as long as you don’t use a Mac-specific font, going back-and-forth with Office documents shouldn’t be a big problem.Microsoft Office is one of the more expensive sets of productivity software most people will purchase.

The iWork suite lets you import and export documents in Microsoft Office formats (it will save to the iWork format by default, though). 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.

When you create something in Keynote, chances are you’ll end up creating something beautiful. While customization options are limited, everything that’s available is quite polished. Once you get used to them, they’re actually pleasant to use (something we can’t necessarily say about Microsoft Office). Since all three apps are now matured, all the basics are covered. And you don’t have as many options as the Microsoft Office suite. Instead of being top-heavy, the options show up in a contextual menu on the side. Pages, for instance, is one of the best Word alternatives for Mac.Īs these are Mac-centric apps, the UI is quite different.

These are Apple’s own alternatives to Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Included with your Mac is the iWork suite: Pages, Numbers, and Keynote.

Excel free version for mac