Excel Alternate

Anyone have any sugestions for a free or share ware Excel substitute? This will be ocassionally used on a windows machine.

Thanks, PB.

Google.

OpenOffice. Runs on java so it works on anything with java

Strizzo wrote: OpenOffice. Runs on java so it works on anything with java

I second that. I've been using OpenOffice for years. Wrote one published book on their word processor and a couple unpublished ones. Don't do much super heavy duty spreadsheet number crunching but use a lot of basic calculations.

Basic stuff = google Less basic stuff = open office Beyond that = excel

There are features of excel that open office simply can't reproduce

SuperCalc. Err, VisiCalc. I mean OpenOffice.

I too have run Open Office on a netbook and been happy with the similarity to Microsoft ffice.
The number one thing you have to remember when using it is to save your files in the Microsoft Windows version (.exe, .doc, etc) That way, when you send the documents to others, who do not have Open Office but likely have Microsoft Office, they can open them.
http://www.openoffice.org/

LibreOffice is the more popular fork of OpenOffice these days. It's supposed to have better microsoft office format support, too.

Otherwise just use googe docs.

jrw1621 wrote: I too have run Open Office on a netbook and been happy with the similarity to Microsoft ffice. The number one thing you have to remember when using it is to save your files in the Microsoft Windows version (.exe, .doc, etc) That way, when you send the documents to others, who do not have Open Office but likely have Microsoft Office, they can open them. http://www.openoffice.org/

Or don't do that and force THEM to adapt.

MadScientistMatt wrote:

Strizzo wrote: OpenOffice. Runs on java so it works on anything with java

I second that. I've been using OpenOffice for years. Wrote one published book on their word processor and a couple unpublished ones. Don't do much super heavy duty spreadsheet number crunching but use a lot of basic calculations.

I've written one (or more) on OpenOffice and one on Google Docs. The latter was actually better because I could easily access it from different machines and easily share it with the people who were helping.

But day in, day out - it's OpenOffice here.

Another vote for Open/LibreOffice. The spreadsheet is pretty reasonable.

Open Office does what I need it to do.

another vote for teh googels

one more for open office. When HP screwed me on my never working laptop i lost my MS office validation code.
I grabed open office as it was free and it works great plus it is compatable so i could share with otheres.

LibreOffice is a fork of the OpenOffice project led by several of the original core that designed it but took their ball and went home after the Sun/Oracle acquisition. It has some nice features over OO but still retains all the compatibility and has managed to become the default for a number of Linux distros.

I've been using it with no issues for a couple months now.

Couldn't get Open Office to load on my computer. I will try the googles next.

Excel is hard to beat. Maybe you should just pony up the difference or find a friend with a, ahem, low-cost copy.

rotard wrote: Excel is hard to beat. Maybe you should just pony up the difference or find a friend with a, ahem, low-cost copy.

Big price difference from free to paying for it. I won't use it enough to justify the price. Online down load was like $130.00.

I can't bring myself to use a pirate copy either. Microsoft invested $$ in development and deserves to make a profit. Some may consider it exorbitant but the best way to combat excessive prices is to shop elsewhere. Free can't be beat when it was developed that way and marketed for free. Just my opinion.

For basic stuff, Google Docs works well. Online access and online sharing are nice features.

We are an OpenOffice house and it works well. That being said my wife used Google Docs for work and as long as you don't want to get too complicated with it GD is nice.

I'll try Gogle docs. I, um, don't get complicated when it comes to computers or the written word.