Save Money By Avoiding MS Office Licenses

Don't Want to Pay for MS Office Licenses?
You Have Options.

Microsoft Office is an incredibly well known, and popular office suite to create documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and more. The Microsoft Office Suite includes software such as PowerPoint, Word, and Excel, but not without a high price tag.

Microsoft Office licenses can cost around $10 per month/per computer, and whether you're looking for a license for your personal computer at home, or run a small business and want to cut costs, your office licensing can be a good place to find savings. In this article we'll share a few options of free office suites.

The Best Price? Free.

The two most popular alternatives to paying for Microsoft Office licenses are LibreOffice and OpenOffice.

The first obvious positive of using a free office suite is the fact that there is no risk in terms of spending and you can slash a line-item from your budget. The fact that you do not have to commit to paying for either of these options, allows you to try both of them to decide which is best for you (or to determine if they will work for you if you're an advanced user who demands some of the higher-end features you're used to with MS Office.

​Both of the interfaces of LibreOffice and OpenOffice are very similar due to originally being founded by the same company. LibreOffice has a more modern and clean interface as it is updated more often. On the opposing end, OpenOffice has more features visible on the page when in default settings.

Things to Consider Before You Switch

Although avoiding paying for MS Office licenses can be great, there are a few differences and issues as well and you should consider them before making the switch.

Since these two products are free, it can be hard to complain about any small bugs, but nonetheless, they are still there. For example, when using OpenOffice there is the fact that it cannot save documents in .docx format, but can only save documents in .doc format.

This is only one of the many ways in which OpenOffice is slightly outdated, as compared to MS Office and LibreOffice.

LibreOffice is able to create files in both .docx and .doc formats, but both free suites default to save with a .otd extension. This can be important when using either suite for business. It can be embarrassing to send a file to a client, and have them not be able to open it.

Don't Crash and Burn

Another main issue with both of these office suites, is that there is no fail safe for instances of crashing. There have been reported crashing and losing data in both of the free office suites, which can be frustrating, but as stated, they are free software, so there is not much room to complain.

Since LibreOffice is often updated, there are constant bug fixes, which make it less likely to crash and lose data as compared to OpenOffice, but both of these alternatives to MS Office have this as an inherent risk to users.

What's Right for You?

Microsoft Office Suite offers an incredible user experience, which makes sense why it has been such a popular choice for so many years. This also explains why they have the right to charge a high monthly fee.

If you do happen to be looking to cut costs wherever you can - even temporarily while you pay off debt and get on a solid financial footing - generally LibreOffice is the best choice between the two free options.

​If you end up using LibreOffice, you will enjoy a continuously updated, modernized and developed office software. Try them both and decide which works best for you and your needs.