Office 2021 from SoftMaker is available as a free beta. You do have to register it, but will have a fully functional "pro" version of SoftMaker.
https://www.softmaker.com/en/softmaker-office-download
I'm testing on my Fedora laptop install and my Debian desktop.
SoftMaker Office 2021 free beta
- crosscourt
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Re: SoftMaker Office 2021 free beta
I have found that it's MUCH better with pivot tables than 2018 was. Other than that I haven't found any major differences so far.
To be honest, at this point I'm probably going to just abandon the paid SoftMaker office and stick to OnlyOffice/WPS Office/LibreOffice. The simple fact of the matter is, while I like that SoftMaker spends the time to time & money making this for linux, I've supported them for over a decade now (2008/2012 (2 licenses)/2016 (2 licenses)/2018) and the competition has caught up (namely LibreOffice). SoftMaker is still SIGNIFICANTLY more attractive than LibreOffice, and does better with M$ files with formatting, but that's really it. Beyond that LibreOffice is every bit as good as SoftMaker anymore.
To be honest, at this point I'm probably going to just abandon the paid SoftMaker office and stick to OnlyOffice/WPS Office/LibreOffice. The simple fact of the matter is, while I like that SoftMaker spends the time to time & money making this for linux, I've supported them for over a decade now (2008/2012 (2 licenses)/2016 (2 licenses)/2018) and the competition has caught up (namely LibreOffice). SoftMaker is still SIGNIFICANTLY more attractive than LibreOffice, and does better with M$ files with formatting, but that's really it. Beyond that LibreOffice is every bit as good as SoftMaker anymore.
Last edited by tlmiller on Mon May 11, 2020 11:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.
- crosscourt
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Re: SoftMaker Office 2021 free beta
If there arent any major differences, I probably wont give it a look.
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- crosscourt
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Re: SoftMaker Office 2021 free beta
Gave it a look and see what you mean, very little has changed.
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Re: SoftMaker Office 2021 free beta
Yup. I like the fact that it handles the pivot tables correctly now, but just doesn't WOW me like 2018 did when it was in beta.
- crosscourt
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Re: SoftMaker Office 2021 free beta
2018 I really like and Im using it on Win10 instead of MSOffice.
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Re: SoftMaker Office 2021 free beta
I'll probably continue to use FreeOffice 2021 when it's released (a few to 6 months after SoftMaker Office 2021 if past releases are continued), but not sure about paying for the full SoftMaker still. Guess I'll decide based upon what the upgrade price looks like.
- crosscourt
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Re: SoftMaker Office 2021 free beta
PDF Export also has a couple new options I believe.