13 Office Productivity Software Suites for Freelancers and Others
Posted October 25, 2011 in Productivity, Tools/Resources
No matter what your freelancing specialty is, odds are that you can benefit from the use of an office productivity suite. In fact, you may already be using one.
What is an office productivity software suite? Simply put, it is a group of business-oriented software packages that are bundled together for distribution. The most common bundles include word processing and spreadsheet software, but other bundle configurations exist as well.
Office productivity suites used to cost businesses hundreds of dollars, but freelancers should be aware that many low cost and even free options are now available. In this list, I’ve included 13 of the most popular office productivity software suites.
13 Office Productivity Suites
In no particular order here are thirteen choices for office productivity software:
- Google Apps for Business. Google’s office suite includes a selection of office productivity tools including enhanced-for-business versions of Gmail, Google Talk, Google Calendar, Google Docs, Google Sites, and Google Video. Several pricing options are available, based on the size of your business, and limited-time free trial is also available.
- LibreOffice Productivity Suite. This free office productivity suite comes from the not-for-profit organization, The Document Foundation. Applications include Writer, Calc, Impress, Draw, Base, and Math. Because it’s free, support comes primarily from the community of users and the developers. The license for this suite is LGPL, meaning it can be customized as needed.
- OpenOffice. Another free office productivity suite. The following are included in this suite: Writer, Calc, Impress, Draw, Base, and Math. Oracle is the primary contributor of code to OpenOffice, but other major companies also contribute. For technical support, they offer a forum and a FAQ site as well as a user guide.
- Microsoft Office. The Microsoft Office Suite has a variety of configurations from home use to student use to use by various size businesses. Depending on the configuration, the applications included in the suite can change, but it usually includes at least Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and OneNote. The suite is not free (although some versions may have a free trial), but there are a huge number of free templates available on the Microsoft site.
- WordPerfect Office X5. Another office productivity suite that offers multiple configurations based on the customer need. The home and student version includes software for word processing, spreadsheets, slideshows and presentations, and a digital notebook. Free trials are available although the productivity suite is not free. Some templates are also available. Support plans are available and there is also knowledgebase of frequently asked questions.
- Zoho. Zoho offers a large number of productivity software tools, but as far as I could tell they are not packaged together in a suite. As of the time of publication, Zoho products were free for personal use, although the site stated that business and corporate users may be charged. Some Zoho tools that may be of particular interest include: Writer, Sheet, Show, and Calendar. Support is available.
- Quickoffice & OfficeSuite Pro5. While these are technically not office suites themselves, these apps give the capability to access your Microsoft Office files from your mobile device. For the freelancer on the go this means mobility. OfficeSuite Pro5 is specifically for the Android Market. Quickoffice can work with a variety of mobile devices.
- PlusOffice Free 3.0. A freeware package is based on OpenOffice. Use this on Windows 7/Vista (I did not see a Mac version). The suite includes a text editor, spreadsheet, presentation package, and more. Compare with commercial packages.
- IBM (r) Lotus (r) SmartSuite (r). This suite will cost money, but the product also has the support of IBM. It includes Word Pro (r), Freelance Graphics (r), and Approach (r). Additional software options are available for an added cost.
- ThinkFree. This office productivity prides itself on being compatible with MS Office. Use it for word processing, creating spreadsheets, and presentations. There are many versions of this suite available, including one for the Windows, the Mac, Linux, and even Android operating systems. Even though this suite costs money, you can download a trial version.
- KOffice. This is another free office productivity suite alternative. It includes KWord (a word processor), KCells (a spreadsheet) and Showcase (presentation software). Because it’s free, it largely depends on volunteers and users to maintain and update it. There is a Userbase and forum.
- NEOOffice. This is an office suite specifically for MAC OS X. They’ve even included a mobile version that can be accessed remotely. It is distributed under the GNU General Public License (GPL). It is funded entirely by user donations.
- Softmaker. This office productivity suite includes TextMaker (word processing), PlanMaker (spreadsheet), and Presentations. There are multiple versions available including a mobile version. This package does cost money.
Whichever package you choose, always make sure that you understand the licensing agreement (and any limitations) that comes with your software.
Your Turn
Do you have a favorite office productivity software suite? What is it?
Share your favorites in the comments below. If you know of any packages we’ve left off the list, share that too.
Image by ford
Related posts:
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- 12 Free Appointment Scheduling Software Packages for Freelancers
- Top 7 Collaboration Software Tools for Successful Freelancers
- 7 Productivity Tools I Couldn’t Live Without
- Productivity Tips for Freelancers with Toddlers Underfoot
About the author: Laura Spencer is a freelance writer from North Central Texas with over 20 years of professional business writing experience. If you liked this post, then you may also enjoy Laura’s blog about her freelance writing experiences, WritingThoughts. Laura is also on Google+.
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24 Comments
WritingItRightForYou
October 25th, 2011 at 11:51 amI use the MS Office Suite 2011 for Mac. If Bill Gates got anything right, it’s Office, and the improvements in the Mac version are great. As a business and academic writer and editor, I MUST have the advanced editing capabilities–plus most of my clients and students are standardized on Office. It is seamless between the Windows version and the Mac version when sending and receiving files.
OTOH: why doesn’t MY desk look nice and neat like that pic?!?!?
Micro expert
October 25th, 2011 at 12:35 pmGreat list by Laura. My love goes to google apps cool one the best thing abt the stuff is its frequent update and also making things great for us.
New google docs update make it simple to connect with 100 + staff who take care of our projects.
Waheed Imran
October 25th, 2011 at 1:15 pmThanks Laura. Its really great work that you shared a complete list of softwares. But I think the Google App is a best option for Freelancers because you can do all your things online and now you also can view them offline. Its really a nice feature.
Thanks for sharing.
david M
October 25th, 2011 at 1:46 pmIt’s really surprising not to see WORKetc on this list. It integrates CRM, project management, support, time tracking, and billing into one web based app. Users can manage the entire lifecycle of their clients through the same application, without resorting to additional integrations. If that isn’t a suite I don’t know what is!
I was previously using 3+ separate apps to manage all people I do business with, my projects/collaboration, as well as my billing/time tracking process. This is disastrous for workflow efficiency, and it’s headache-prone (not too mention quote costly). I’ve since moved on to WORKetc and it puts everything I need into one app. The best part: it fits freelancing workflow like few other apps can. For example, once I’ve secured a sale I can convert the sale directly into a project, collaborate with clients through the client portal (as well as Google Apps/Gmail integration), track the time on that project, then use the timesheet data to create an invoice and bill my client. This all shows up (along with correspondence between me and a client) nicely under the client history as a customizeable view.
You can also attach items together which makes the difference with organizing everything – I.E. I group my tasks, timesheets, files, notes, and other things with a project i’m working on so they can all be referenced as a group.
Laura Spencer
October 25th, 2011 at 2:05 pmWritingItRightForYou–I like MS Office too. I use it for a lot of my projects.
Micro expert and Waheed Imran–I’ve mainly used the free versions of the Google Apps products. It sounds like you are having some success with their business apps.
david M–Thanks for sharing. Any time we have a list like this, there is always something that is left out. I’m glad to hear that you’ve found a tool to meet your needs. Feel free to link to it here in the comments.
Morgan & Me Creative
October 25th, 2011 at 2:07 pmHelpful list Laura! Thanks. Google Apps and Open Office served us well when we were starting up and still it today! It’s wonderful knowing how much we saved on Office software just alone. Our calendars and meeting schedules are synced so everyone is more or less in the know of each other’s location.
Khyzzes
October 25th, 2011 at 2:24 pmThere’s Google Apps, MS Office, and ZOHO for me. It keeps our work organized and simplified. Would like to try these other tools and check what it can do better than the others.
Mandy Barrington
October 25th, 2011 at 2:37 pmI love OpenOffice—it reminds me of pre-tab Word, plain and simple with only the tools I need. I’m so glad I didn’t empty my wallet on Microsoft Word! Thanks for compiling these, this is a great resource!
Ondra
October 25th, 2011 at 4:07 pmI haven’t heard about KOffice since … stopped use KDE. It’s a nice list.
Maria
October 25th, 2011 at 5:57 pmI definitely love this information. Pretty exceptional thinking and attractive element of content.
Jason
October 25th, 2011 at 9:59 pmThink of this, what kind of software package would your ideal client use? Something free like Google Apps or MS Office? Try sending your top client something in some odd format… see what happens.
Catena Creations
October 25th, 2011 at 11:50 pmI’m a fan of the iLife suite on my Mac: Pages, Numbers, Keynote, etc. To me, these work better and smarter than the Microsoft suite. And you can save versions as Microsoft versions so you can send them to others who use the Microsoft tools.
Sherwin from Work Online From Anywhere
October 28th, 2011 at 12:20 pmQuoting “Jason” above:
Think of this, what kind of software package would your ideal client use? Something free like Google Apps or MS Office? Try sending your top client something in some odd format… see what happens.
MY RESPONSE:
You’re right about what formats your *ideal* client would use…and yeah, the big companies you wanna write for most likely use MS Office. (.doc, .ppt, .xls)
OpenOffice and the newer offshoot LibreOffice, both read and write to those formats. LibreOffice even reads and writes to the new .docx and whatever else formats that are in the latest Microsoft Office that you pay hundreds of dollars for every time you upgrade.
Guess what? OpenOffice and LibreOffice are FREE! And yes, they’ve got all the features you need to run your business.
In my opinion, a minority of MS Office users even know about and use the advanced features in those programs, making them totally unnecessary…for *most* users.
WritingItRightForYou
October 28th, 2011 at 12:47 pm@Sherwin: I agree that most MS Office/Word users don’t use anywhere near the totality of that suite. But also, it is good that there are many choices out there–and I’ve tested just about all of them.
Although I am a dyed-in-the-wool Mac user now, the MS Office Suite for Mac is still the best for me as an editor with a global business and academic clientele. It has the extremely advanced editing features I need, as well as the capability to add all types of citations, footnotes and endnotes, and equations, etc. right there within the suite. It costs hundreds of dollars to add those features to other word processing programs like Pages.
The software suite that works best for you is the one that works best for you!
Burhanuddin Tezabwala
October 28th, 2011 at 7:13 pmI use Google Apps and Ms-Office, they are best among the rest.
Besides its good to have a paper-pen like a handy notebook with yourself. As while you are in a offline world, you won’t be having MS-Word, to note your stuff like in short points.
Natura360
November 1st, 2011 at 4:41 amGreat, it’s a very nice software collection, but I love open office, for me is better ms office.
Kmed
November 3rd, 2011 at 2:24 pmGreat list Laura! I’m a fan of TSheets.com simply because it allows me the flexibility of tracking my time from my iPhone or any computer. It has helped me increase my productivity exponentially and ensure I’m accurately billing my time… thanks for the useful tips :)
Kirsty
November 4th, 2011 at 11:50 amI think the upcoming Wunderkit (www.wunderkit.com) will be a strong contender in terms of productivity platforms. It was built with collaboration in mind, so makes it really easy for freelancers to communicate with clients etc., without a stream of unnecessary and time consuming emails!
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