SoftMaker Office and FreeOffice, Microsoft Office clones, receive important updates

When we talk about office suites, the reference is Microsoft Office. It is the one that many of us know and is very widespread because it is owned by the company that develops the most used desktop operating system on the planet. The worst of all is that it is paid, which is why many of us look for other free alternatives such as LibreOffice, or we do not look for them because they are installed by default in many Linux distributions. But there are still more alternatives, even paid, such as Soft Maker Office.

SoftMaker has two versions of its office suite, one free and one paid. Both are open source and both are clones of Microsoft Office, unlike LibreOffice which has a more custom design. Both SoftMaker Office (paid) and FreeOffice (free) have received major updates over the past week, with the first called "Summer Update" and the second "Anniversary Update".

SoftMaker Office 2018 receives summer update

SoftMaker Office received the anniversary update a few months ago. Among what that update brought we had the optional «Ribbon» interface, which we could set by default the native Microsoft Office formats, support for touch screens or a new «Tabbed» interface. Logically, the anniversary update had to be greater than the summer update, and it has been. What the recently released version brings is:

• Support for TCC (TrueType Collections) fonts for Linux and macOS.
• Filter supported when importing RTF.
• Improved automatic capitalization.
• User fields preserved in .docx format.
• Complete list of changes here.

We can download SoftMaker Office 2018 from here. Is available for macOS, Windows and Linux, but you have to remember that it is paid and you have to subscribe / pay to be able to use the software. If you are wondering what we gain by using a Microsoft Office clone in which we also have to pay, say that money, since it is cheaper, and that we will be using open-source software.

FreeOffice receives anniversary update

What does receive a more important update is FreeOffice, the free version of SoftMaker Office developed by the same company. Among its most outstanding novelties, which also reached SoftMaker Office months ago, we have:

• The three applications in the suite, TextMaker, PlanMaker and Presentations, gain full compatibility with the latest Microsoft Office formats, so we can now open, edit and save documents in formats such as .docx.
• Possibility of using the standard "Ribbon" interface or a more traditional menu-based interface.
• Improved keyboard shortcuts.
• Support for TTC (TrueType Collections) fonts on macOS and Linux.
• Ability to mark TextMaker files with specific compatibility with Word processing programs.

The latest version of FreeOffice is available here. We have to remember that we are talking about the free version of SoftMaker Office, so there are some restrictions such as, for example, the absence of the dark theme, the absence of an extended sidebar with extra commands, or the absence of document tabs in the web browser. The complete comparison is available here. Will you try it or will you stick with LibreOffice?

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