How to read and write MS Office documents (Word, Excel) without paying for MS Office
Unless you are taking a course on using a specific MS Office application, such as Word, Excel, or PowerPoint, you don’t really need to pay for MS Office to read documents your instructor posts on Blackboard. Here are a few MS Office alternatives that you can download and use for free.
- OpenOffice.org is a popular MS Office alternative. It comes with a word processor (like Word), spreadsheet (like Excel), and presentation program (like PowerPoint). It can open and write files in the .doc, .xls, and .ppt format, among others.
- AbiWord is a word processor only. It can read and write MS Word files (.doc), among others. Try AbiWord if you only need a word processor.
There are also a number of web-based office applications available now. These allow you to import MS Office documents for reading and editing.
- Google Docs: word processor, spreadsheet, and presentations.
- Zoho Office has many web-based applications.
