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Add to SafariWhen comparing SoftMaker Office/FreeOffice vs Zoho Docs, the Slant community recommends SoftMaker Office/FreeOffice for most people. In the question“What are the best office suites for UNIX-like systems?” SoftMaker Office/FreeOffice is ranked 7th while Zoho Docs is ranked 12th. The most important reason people chose SoftMaker Office/FreeOffice is:
SoftMaker office can open doc(x), xls(x), and ppt(x) files without messing up formatting.
Specs
Question Ranking
Pros
Pro Great interoperability with Microsoft Office
SoftMaker office can open doc(x), xls(x), and ppt(x) files without messing up formatting.
Pro Multi-platform
Works on Windows, Mac, Linux and Android.
Pro Low on dependencies
On Linux it avoids the common widget toolkits which makes it really lightweight compared to other office suites.
Pro Configurable user interface
Includes the possibility to use Ribbons or classical Menus.
Pro EU based company
Follows the the General Data Protection Regulation of the EU.
Pro Has a free version
A free version, called SoftMaker FreeOffice, is available.
FreeOffice is a stripped down version of SoftMaker Office, with less features, templates and interface polish, but it still is feature-packed and with the same excellent import and export filters that enable opening/saving Microsoft Office formats faithfully.
Pro Free technical support
If you face any issues, you can always use the technical support by developer SoftMaker, it's free.
Pro Documentation
Even the FreeOffice version includes a Handbook in PDF.
Pro EPUB export included
You can create high-quality e-books in EPUB format easily.
Pro Integration of Zotero
Especially important for academic use: SM Office has a great working connector to Zotero for the direct insertion of citations.
Pro Free for teachers
The regular paid version is free for teachers.
Pro Great amount of advanced features
Compared to alternatives like OnlyOffice and WPS, really important advanced features especially for compatibility with Excel.
Pro Allows for real-time collaboration
Multiple people can work on the same document at the same time.
Pro No installation required
While Zoho Docs offers native applications for desktop and mobile, you can choose to use the webapp which doesn't require you to download anything and can be accessed from anywhere where there's an Internet connection and a modern web browser.
Pro Reasonable MS Office compatibility
Cons
Con The regular paid version is not free for students as it is for teachers
For students to use it, there needs to be a free student license for the regular (with . docx support) version.
Con Proprietary software
Although some versions/programs are free to download, they're all proprietary licenses utilizing a freeware model.
Con Free version needs registration
The free version needs to be registered with a valid email adress.
Con Installs a lot of crap and does not clean up
On Linux it installs over 40 MB of templates, images and other crap people will never need.
De-install does not clean up usr/share/freeoffice.
Con Breaks icon themes
On Linux it breaks all icon themes by modifying them.
Con No VBA support
As Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) is proprietary software used in MS Office.
Con It's not Microsoft Office and it never will be
Use SoftMaker Office only if you want basic MS Office-like features. Once you delve deeper into the software the omissions become glaringly obvious.
Con Can get expensive quickly
Zoho Docs has 2 paid plans - $5/user/month and $8/user/month that add additional functionality and increase the storage limit. Compared to standalone purchases, the subscription fees can quickly rack up, especially since they are on a per user basis.
