You know that Adobe and Microsoft are, if not the best, at least some of the most widely used software. Because these programs are standard, and your clients and friends use them, they are on your radar – but they cost a fortune! How can you get the job done when you are working on a shoe string budget?

There are other heavy-hitting software titles just like them out there that you can use. Today, we are going to run through the best alternatives to that expensive software everyone else uses.

Microsoft Office Alternatives

Google Docs

The first, and biggest, contender in this category is Google’s free online office suite known as Google Docs. Sharable office computing in the cloud, it includes word processing, spreadsheet functionality and presentations, as well as stat-tracking forms that integrate with spreadsheets and docs. Not quite as robust in some ways, it still is the main winner. It exports to a variety of formats, including HTML, DOC, PDF, XLS, PPT and more.

Open Office

Open Office is another contender, but one that isn’t as easy to use as Google Docs. It takes a bit of skill to get used to the interface of this open source office suite, and feedback is mixed on it as a viable alternative. Part of what you give up when you move away from proprietary software is the ability to call tech support, and better documentation and a shorter learning curve might help more people choose Open Office.

Neo Office

If you have a Mac, you might find Neo Office a better option. It is also open source, and has a few of the same integration and learning curve issues as Open Office. however, it has a bit better documentation and few more vocal users who love it and are willing to share their knowledge.

Both Open Office and Neo Office offer export to various file formats to enable use with clients or colleagues who continue to use Microsoft products. Open Office and Neo Office both have some issues handling the new DocX files from Microsoft, so you may have to ask your clients or colleagues to save “down” to the regular Doc and XLS formats.

Zoho

In the semi-free category we have up and comer Zoho. Zoho offers its solutions free to individuals, at a discount to non-profits and at a fee for businesses. It is a much more robust overall system than just Microsoft Office, and offers accounting, CRM, wiki, meeting and other solutions above and beyond an office suite.

It’s document, spreadsheet and presentation solutions are, again, not quite as robust in features as Microsoft Office but it has some winning integrations that might make it a viable replacement, and a much lower price point to enter into if you are a business on a budget, as it works on a pay as you use it model, not a huge buy every few years.

gOffice

gOffice (not to be confused with the aforementioned Google Docs) is another tool that has word processing, spreadsheets, presentations and DTP integration. It is very basic, so it may not do all that you want, but it is good in a pinch.

Adobe Creative Suite Alternatives

Aviary



Aviary is a freemium product suite that blows Adobe Creative Suite away, in my opinion, for being fun to use and easy to learn. If you haven’t played with the free beta yet, or jumped to one of the paid solution tiers, you might fall in love with it when you finally do.

It also adds another element that Adobe lacks – a collaborative, social aspect where you can build a network of designers. Aviary also introduces designers to the concept of branding and Creative Commons copyright, two things designers need to learn to integrate that Adobe offers no real education on or help with.

Seashore

Seashore is an open source alternative specific to Adobe Photoshop. It doesn’t touch on any of the vector graphics or web content offerings that the full Creative Suite handles. Even so, it’s quick to learn and has enough photo editing capability for the average casual user to embrace.

GIMP

GIMP is another standby, and one that offers nearly as many options for editing that Photoshop does. Some people consider GIMP not enough of a substitute for Photoshop, but it actually does quite a bit of the same things and is handy for photo and image manipulation and editing.

InkScape

One of the nicer Open Source answers to Adobe out there is InkScape. This open source vector graphics program goes head to head with Illustrator and does a pretty nice job competing. It gives you one of the few reliable alternative options for vector graphics that is free.

NVU

NVU is the alternative to Adobe’s Go Live and Macromedia (now Adobe’s) Dreamweaver. Not quite as complex as Go Live or Dreamweaver, NVU has a short learning curve for the average user who just wants to whip out a web page without having to shell out hundreds of dollars.

The folks at NVU have also made a companion program – Kompozer – that handles some of the features that NVU did not. Both are compatible with Linux, Windows and Mac OS.

Picasa

Another alternative from is Picasa. This image editor is designed to be a basic alternative for Photoshop, and works with the rest of the Google family of products, like Google Docs.

Adobe Acrobat Alternatives

PDFreDirect

PDFreDirect is a freemium product that lets you view, edit, create and protect PDFs. The free version offers almost all of the same functionalities as Adobe Acrobat, and the paid version is a nice complete substitute (however, for most people the free version is more than adequate for their needs). Unfortunately, this program is Windows only – sorry Mac and Linux.

PDFescape

If you have a Java Script enabled browser you can use PDFescape to read, fill out and print PDFs online. They also offer PDFtypewriter for creating and editing the PDF files using Java. a bit clunky, but if you don’t run windows or need to handle a PDF on the fly, a good solution.

PDFedit

If you like to do more manual manipulation, PDFedit may be the answer for you. This tool allows you to edit, read and script PDF files online. The ability to script may appeal to some who want more control.

XPDF

If you are a Unix user, XPDF is the tool for you. It lets you do everything from write to edit, extract images and tons more.

Skim

Skim is a tool for Mac OSX that lets you annotate and read PDFs. The notation feature can be quite handy for shared documents and collaborative uses.

PDFpen

My favorite solution for PDFs (and faxing) for the Mac is not altogether free. It does offer a free trial, and a low price point, but to get all of the cool features you may want to upgrade to the paid model. It is made by SmileOnMyMac, the people who brought us TextExpander (another favorite tool of mine) and is well worth the price as a complete replacement for both Adobe Acrobat and a fax machine.

The solution for PDF is called PDFpen (the upgraded version is PDFpen Pro) and if you add the PageSender application you can go as far as to boot your fax machine for ever, a huge cost saver. I’ve been fax and Acrobat free for quite some time thanks to having these tools on my Mac.

Conclusion

Those are just a highlight of the most popular free and low cost alternatives to some of the most expensive, but widely used, proprietary titles out there. Did i miss your favorite? Tell me in the comments.

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