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Free Alternatives to Microsoft Office: Why Choose WPS Office?

February 19, 2024 4.9K views

Microsoft Office, also known as MS Office, is a software created by Microsoft to help its users write content, make PowerPoint slides, create balance sheets, organize notes, and other things. Microsoft Office has been the market leader for decades, used by millions of people. However, considering the rise of cloud-based solutions and the increasing demand for cost-effective options, WPS Office could be the best free alternative to Microsoft Office.

To help you understand the reasons why you could choose WPS Office as the best alternative to Microsoft Office, I will summarize the main functions of WPS Office and analyze its advantages and disadvantages.

What is WPS Office?

WPS Office, established in 1989 by Kingsoft Office Software, is a free all-in-one office software for creating documents, spreadsheets, and slideshows in one software. It is trusted by more than 500M users worldwide, with a score of 4.8 on Trustpilot (from 880 reviews).

Main Functions and Price:

The main functions of WPS Office are writer, spreadsheet, Presentation, and PDF. They are alternatives to Microsoft Word, Excel, ppt and Adobe Acrobat pdf editors respectively. 

Among them, writer, spreadsheet, and Presentation are free to use, without any advertisements or registration. The PDF editor is free for some functions (such as reading, annotation, and conversion), and charges for advanced functions (editing, scanning).

Even if it is charged, it only costs $29 a year, which is cheaper than most PDF editor products on the market.

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For specific features of each function, the following links could help you get more details:

https://www.wps.com/office/writer/

https://www.wps.com/office/spreadsheet/

https://www.wps.com/office/presentation/

https://www.wps.com/office/pdf/

The common benefits of WPS Office are:

1. Free to using Word, Excel, PowerPoint:  Users could create Word, Excel, PowerPoint files for free, as well as basic functions of WPS Pdf. 

  • Free alternative to MS Office: While the subscription fee for Microsoft Office might be a financial strain for many individuals, WPS Office emerges as one of the most commonly used and popular free alternatives. It offers the programs to create, edit, and save files in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint formats, including WPS Writer, WPS Spreadsheets, WPS Presentation. Compared with Microsoft Office, it inclues WPS Pdf to make and edit pdf files, enriching Office's functions. 

  • Powerful Pdf toolkit: WPS Pdf, a perfect alternative to Adobe Acrotbat, provides a one-stop PDF solution, including converting, editing, and signing PDF files. The outstanding feature of WPS PDF tool is that it allows users to convert PDF files to and from Word, Excel PowerPoint, and image files online for free.

  • Compatibility of multiple formats: WPS Office is compatible to about 47 common document formats. What is worth mentioning is that it provides compatibility with Microsoft Office file formats for everything from writing and editing documents to making compelling presentations and managing spreadsheets.


2. Templates and Resource: WPS Office offers professionally designed templates for users. These  templates are integrated into the software, making them easily accessible.

  • Free to get: WPS Office provided a number of templates, including both free templates and paid ones. Users could use free templates to satisfy their various needs easily.

  • Multiple types and themes: WPS templates can be used for different document types, such as word document, spreadsheet and presentation. In addition, WPS Office also offers templates with different themes, focusing on users' specific needs. There are templates of resumes, invitations, study plan, company profile and so on.

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3. Advanced AI and Cloud Support: WPS Office contains two powerful tools to help users improve efficiency, WPS AI and WPS Cloud. These two tools are both integrated into the software, so you could use them easily while you are working with Office. 

  • WPS AI: WPS AI is a cutting-edge artificial intelligence system, akin to ChatGPT, that serves as an intelligent assistant for office tasks. With powerful text generation capabilities, it assists users in content creation, summarization, translation, and more. Because WPS AI is integrated into WPS Office, it is convenient for you to use it directly for document editing, form processing, and presentation creation.

  • WPS Cloud: WPS Cloud is a cloud storage service that is included in WPS Office software. It allows you to store, access, and share your office files online. There are many features similar to OneDrive. For example, WPS Cloud could synchronize all your files on different devices, save all file revisions to allow you revert to previous versions, and edit various documents on web browser. Even in some aspects, WPS Cloud is better than OneDrive. It supports large files uploading and surpasses OneDrive's 100GB limit. It also provides a simple pdf conversion that OneDrive lacks.


4. Rich Functions: In addition to the powerful writer, spreadsheet, Presentation and PDF, there are many useful and necessary functions to enhance office efficiency and seamless collaboration.

  • Multi-person collaboration: WPS Office supports online document ( WPS AirPage), making it possible for multi-person real-time collaboration. And it could be applied to different types of documents.

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  • Comprehensive assitant functions: There are plenty of assitant functions in WPS Office, including resume assistants, smart forms, screen recording and file repair.


5. User-friendly Interface: The interface is intuitive and user-friendly, allowing users to navigate and utilize the software efficiently, even for beginners. 

  • Similar to Microsoft Office: The interface is quite similar to Microsoft Office, so it is easy to adapt for Microsoft users.

  • Comfortable office experience: Compared with Microsoft Office, WPS Office allows different files to operate in the same window. It provides a cleaner page and more seamless office experience.


6. Cross-platform Availability: WPS Office supports multiple platforms for seamless work across devices, including Mac, Windows, Android, iOS and Linux system. While Microsoft Office could not provide service for Linux system users, WPS Office supports Linux system. Besides, the Mac version of WPS Office provides more considerate service than Microsoft Office. 


7. Stable Perfomance: WPS Office occupies a small amount of computer memory with only 200M, so it can run smoothly on some systems or computer hardwares of low version. When dealing with large files or large amount of data, WPS Office even is better than Microsoft Office.

Finally, it is also an issue that many users care about: privacy and security. WPS is a company that pays great attention to user privacy and security. All user data (emails, IDs, passwords, document usage, etc.) are automatically encrypted, and it is impossible for any third party to obtain WPS user data. For details, please refer to: https://www.wps.com/privacy-policy/
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The disadvantages of WPS Office are:

  • Some advanced functions of Excel need to be supplemented, such as macro and VBA.

  • Some Excel details should be improved, because they are not as well handled by Microsoft. For example, Microsoft Excel can automatically display values as proportional data when making pie charts, but WPS can only display specific values.

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User reviews of TrustPilot

THEE best office tool, trust me.

WPS is probaby the most versatile office tool out there. It has, well basically, everything i need to do my work well. What i love most is definitely the tab thing :D it allows me to work on different files and types of files (doc, sheet, slide) without having to worry about having a lot of windows open at the same time which can get really messy. And this feature, i havent seen it elsewhere but WPS. Besides WPS also offers an "eye protection" mode! My eyes get strained really easily, and so this mode has been a tremendous help. I may sound like a robot or sth but yeh this is my honest review and i really hope y'all can give WPS a try cuz i know im not leaving it anytime soon :P

------Thu Le from Trustpilot

The ever best platform.

To be honest, this platform is so reliable, accessible, and easy to use. It always keep you working on your project; it does not annoy one by asking for key or something else.

In addition, it provides good and latest features, which fulfil every requirement of the client.

------Noor from Trustpilot


A Good and Complete Program

It's simple, functional and has everything we need for an Office program. I never had any bugs or incompatibilities with the files I created.

Since it's free to use, and has all (or most) of the features of the most popular programs, I give it five stars.

------Dian Patrizi from Trustpilot


Best PDF Reader!

WPS Office is the best PDF reader to read books and add comments to highlighted sections.

------Ibraheem Tahir Khokhar from Trustpilot

WPS everyday get better and I like…

WPS everyday get better and I like that, is trustable, lightweight, and easy integrated... most of the experience is totally free, perfect for students... but anyways the paid version totally worth it, not an exagereted price like msoffice

------Aerial Heart from Trustpilot

Competitors of WPS Office:

  • Microsoft Office (Word\Excel\PPT)

  • Google doc (Doc\Sheet\Slide, mainly refers to online documents)

  • LibreOffice (Word\Excel\PPT)

  • Adobe acrobat pdf editor (PDF)

Summary

In conclusion, if you are looking for a powerful, free alternative to Microsoft Office, WPS Office is an excellent choice. Its compatibility, user-friendly interface, comprehensive features, and cross-platform availability make it a compelling option for individuals and businesses alike. With WPS Office, you can boost productivity without breaking the bank.
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15 years of office industry experience, tech lover and copywriter. Follow me for product reviews, comparisons, and recommendations for new apps and software.