What Is The Microsoft Office Equivalent For Mac

Office 365 customers get the new Office for Mac first. You’ll have Office applications on your Mac or PC, apps on tablets and smartphones for when you're on the go, and Office. . Apple’s equivalent to Microsoft Word is Apple Pages. Pages is free, just download it from the Mac App Store. Pages is a fresh start with word processing (keep in mind that Apple had MacWrite back in the Eighties, before Microsoft created Word. May 05, 2011 Pages is the word processor equivalent to Microsoft Office, and once you figure out how to use it it is MUCH better than office. But like office, it does not come standard on any Mac laptop or computer. Wizard for Mac is a superb alternative to Access on Mac that makes it incredibly easy to create databases and analyze data on a Mac. Wizard can import Microsoft Access MDB files along with DBF, Excel XLS/XLSX, Apple Numbers, RData/RDS, JSON, SQLite and text files. It can also connect to and import MySQL and PostgreSQL files and the Pro version can import SPSS, SAS and Stata files.

  1. Ms Office Equivalent For Mac
  2. Free Microsoft Office Equivalent
  3. Office Equivalent For Mac
  4. What Is The Microsoft Office Equivalent For Mac Pro

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.

If you’re not ready to buy Microsoft Office, here are your best Microsoft Office alternatives for Mac that are free.

1. 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. 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.

Ms Office Equivalent For Mac

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.

That said, the new document types are smaller and purportedly more secure than their predecessors.You'll need a Mac with 1.5GB free on the hard drive, running at least OS 10.4.9, with 512MB of RAM and a 500MHz Intel or PowerPC processor. Won't be available until as long as 10 weeks from now, or 8 weeks after the applications are available in stores. Upgrade microsoft office for mac 2004 to 2011 free. That means for now, should you save work in a new OOXML format in a hurry, someone with the older software won't be able to open it. Although we're glad that Microsoft offers free converters, we find the forced extra steps annoying in Office 2007.

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)

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

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.

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.

What

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.

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

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.

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 .

File Maker Pro

FileMaker is probably the best known database application for the Mac. It has a feature set comparable to Microsoft Access, but with a strong focus on forms (layouts) as the primary way of accessing databases. Similar to Access, FileMaker stores your database logic and all the data in a single file. It also has some support for scripting, and offers options for publishing databases on the web.

However, it's also necessary to note that FileMaker is very different from Access. Open source alternative to microsoft office mac os x. There is a strict distinction between application logic and the underlying tables in Access. In FileMaker, logic and data are more closely linked. The underlying tables are more or less hidden from the user, and not as easily accessible via SQL as in Access.

Bento

Bento was the entry level database application from the makers of Filemaker. Unfortunately it has been discontinued in July 2013 and is no longer available for purchase.

Open Office / Libre Office

Open Office and Libre office include a database application that tries to mimic Microsoft Access. It is difficult to use and misses many important features, such as simple import/export tools.

SQLite (using Base)

SQLite is not a full database application like Access. There are no forms or reports in SQLite, there's only your data and a simple, fast SQL engine. SQLite is used by many applications under the hood as an internal format and therefore most interesting to application developers.

A command line utility for SQLite 3 is included with every Mac, aptly named sqlite3. Most people will however prefer working with a graphical application like the excellent Base from Menial (available on the Mac App Store). Base offers a simple interface for viewing tables (with support for images) and creating custom SQL queries.

Apple Numbers and Microsoft Excel

Free Microsoft Office Equivalent

Numbers and Excel are spreadsheet applications and thus not a replacement for Microsoft Access. However, they have good support for working with tables. If your database consists of only few tables and no forms, these apps might just do the trick. You can at least sort and filter your tables.

Converting Access Databases to Apple Numbers with MDB Viewer
Converting Access Databases to Microsoft Excel with MDB Viewer

Mac

Office Equivalent For Mac

Microsoft Access in Parallels / VMWare

What Is The Microsoft Office Equivalent For Mac Pro

If none of the above are suitable, you can always ressort to actually running Microsoft Access on your Mac using virtualisation software like Parallels Desktop or VMWare Fusion.