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-- OriginalOwner_ [tinyurl.com] writes:

from the new-kid-in-town dept.

Via TechRepublic, Jack Wallen reports [techrepublic.com]

SoftMaker [is the creator] of SoftMaker Office, which runs on [...] Windows, Linux, and Android. That same company has recently released a new product, FreeOffice [freeoffice.com], and it could shake up the competition very quickly.

One of the issues that has plagued LibreOffice for some time now is MS Office compatibility. Yes, it works very well with the basic features. But once you start getting into more complex documents (or MS Office password protected documents), LibreOffice can run into some issues. I've watched LibreOffice stumble on a number of occasions with Track Changes. If Track Changes is used for simple editing, it works great. However, once you start using Track Changes for formatting, things start to go sideways. I've missed entire formatting changes, thanks to this very issue.

With FreeOffice you will finally experience going back and forth between MS Office documents and another suite (almost) issue free.

[...]With FreeOffice you can open and save in the following formats:
DBF, DIF, DOC, DOT, HTM, ODT, PMD, PMV, POT, PPS, PPT, PRD, PRS, PRV, PSW, PWD, RTF, SLK, TMD, TMV, TXT, XLS, XLT.
Notice the lack of DOCX, XLSX, and PPTX formats?

With FreeOffice you can open (but not save as) the following formats:
CSV, DOCM, DOCX, DOTM, DOTX, HTML, OTT, PMW, POTM, POTX, PPSM, PPSX, PPTM, PPTX, PRN, SDC, SXW, WPD, WRI, XLSM, XLSX, XLTM, XLTX.
Once you open the newer MS Office files, you will have to save them in the older format. Why I consider this odd is because LibreOffice offers the ability to both open and save in the new format. Why was this overlooked by FreeOffice? Most likely a licensing issue with Microsoft.

[..]For $99.95, you [can] get [Softmaker Office with] all the features of the free and standard editions, plus a number of additional dictionaries.

I note that I have yet to see any hint of the actual availability of the source code for this company's products--just the term "open source" tossed about.

Original Submission