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CNET Editors' review
Sooner or later, nearly everyone whose work involves computers will need basic office tools such as a word processor, spreadsheet program, or presentation maker. Since Microsoft's powerful Office suite sets the standard, alternatives need to demonstrate their compatibility with the latest versions of Office. Kingsoft Office 2012 Free is the freeware version of Kingsoft Office Professional. It's a fraction of the size of some similar programs, and of course, it's free.
It bundles Kingsoft Writer, Spreadsheets, and Presentations. Each can open, edit, and save documents that are compatible with Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, respectively. While it can't match everything Office (or its tools) can do, Kingsoft Office 2012 Free does the most important jobs, and it also has many extras, including encryption, a PDF converter, and watermarking. It even has some unique features of its own, such as its Humanized Table Operation and drag-and-drop Paragraph Adjustment feature. The latest version is compatible with Windows 8.
From its start menu to its individual tools, Kingsoft is enough like Office in features and options to be familiar to many users, though with its own unique touches. For example, Writer's Homepage is quite similar to Word's File page, but compared with Word's ribbon-style Office look, Writer's tabbed user interface bears more resemblance to a browser. Each Kingsoft tool sports feature-packed toolbars, too. But we'll get right to the point: we successfully created, saved, edited, opened, and re-edited documents from both Microsoft Office 2010 and Kingsoft Office 2012 in each of the comparable tools. Compatibility isn't total; for example, Kingsoft Office could open and edit macro-enabled Word docs, but not save them again in that format (it could in other formats).
Kingsoft Office has a full Help file plus an online Support Center and Forum. But if you just start with one of the templates on each tool's Home page, you won't go wrong.
This free productivity suite obviously merits attention. When all is said and done, it's easy to find out if Kingsoft Office 2012 Free is the software you need it to be: Just download it and try it yourself.
Publisher's Description
From Kingsoft:
Have you ever thought of trading in your over-sized bloated office software for a smaller, slimmer one? As a 39MB free office productivity suite, Kingsoft Office Suite allows you to create top quality documents without worrying about inhibiting the performance of your PC. Although it's small, its functionality is complete. Kingsoft Office Suite Free consists of three powerful applications for daily document producing, data analyzing and presentation needs known as Writer, Spreadsheets and Presentation. Not only does it have the basic functions that its peers provide, but has many outstanding features other software don't include, such as A pro PDF converter, an advanced paragraph adjustment tool and humanized table operation.
Key features of Kingsoft Office Suite: Advanced Paragraph Adjustment Tool. Enables you to adjust the indent or line spacing of all paragraphs by dragging and dropping. Humanized Table Operation. Enables you to add rows or columns easily by dragging the table frame. Multiple Tabs Interface. Allows you to switch easily between workbooks in one window. Group Create Hyperlinks in Spreadsheets. Active all the URLs in text format by clicking one button. Automatic Spell Check. 6. Set Encryption for Your Documents. Convert Office Documents to PDF Formats. Send Files as Email Attachment Directly. Possess an interface similar to MS Office 2003. What's new in the latest version? Highly compatible with MS Office (97/2000/2003/2007/2010)
What's new in this version: Version 8.1.0.3375 New:
- Fixed the backup mangement, solved dictionary crash problem.
- Added a function that can convert Kingsoft Presentation into the Kingsoft Writer format
- Add water mark, amendment and recording revised formats
- Added two direction functionsin the "Text direction" dialog box
- Column width units support pounds, inches, centimeters, millimeters, character units
- Added "Pick From Drop-down list" option in the right-click menu<... See all new features
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All versions:
4.2 starsout of 97 votes
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Current version:
4.6 starsout of 30 votes
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My rating:
Write review
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"Free, lightweight, and fully functional"
Version: Kingsoft Office 2012 8.1.0.3375
Pros
This has all the basics you're looking for in a Microsoft Office alternative. It is lightweight -- only a 39MB download -- and you won't have to pay through the nose to get what you want out of an office suite.
Cons
The product's website only has templates for its Presentation program. For other templates, you have to look elsewhere, like Microsoft Office (fortunately, those templates are free).
Summary
If you thought office suites had to be big and bulky then you've been mistaken. Kingsoft Office has everything an end user needs in an office suite!
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"Best free office suite. Better than paid ones too."
Version: Kingsoft Office 2012 8.1.0.3375
Pros
Interface, ease of use, application background. Much better than Docs To Go on mobile. Saves and opens properly.
Cons
Character spacing. Can tell when it is saving docs. Status bar notifications.
Summary
All right, I am putting this up against Microsoft Office, LibreOffice, and OpenOffice.
I have used Word, Open and LibreOffice Writer, and a number of other word processing software out there. OpenOffice and LibreOffice will screw up your Word documents so they won't open! The main thing I notice when using Word is what I call "MicrosoftWhite"...the annoying too-bright eye-crossing background of the entire office suite. The Kingsoft background and entire interface is easy on the eyes, plus options are equal to or better than Microsoft Office offerings. The free version has some personalization--toolbar arrangements, color scheme. I had to go in and adjust the ruler to inches instead of mm. The one nagging thing is the character spaces after periods. For some reason there is too much space on some documents and not on others. Also, I can't really tell by clicking on the save button if I am actually saving because it doesn't seem to animate or show saving on the status bar. I have used this software on and off for the past year but now am so frustrated with the others that I'll be sticking with Kingsoft. -
"Great product, worst support ever"
Version: Kingsoft Office 2012 8.1.0.3375
Pros
I got the Professional version of Kingsoft Office 2012. The product is great and brings most features that Microsoft Office 2007 (haven't used later versions) does. I've been using it for a couple of months now and am very satisfied. It's Presenter is much better than LibreOffice's Impress; Writer and Spreadsheets work as expected too. Highly recommended for anyone, for home or office users alike.
Cons
Worst support team ever. I've sent them a couple of e-mails and haven't received *one* answer to my questions. And it's been almost a month now. Thank god the product itself works fine (had some issues with Central European characters in some files, nothing "big") and you don't really need support.
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"Better Than OpenOffice et al."
Version: Kingsoft Office 2012 8.1.0.3375
Pros
Really strong offering, interface similar to Office 2000, but with features of Office 2007. Really good as a free solution, and professional version offers a lot more if you like the new office look..
Cons
PDF output seems to be a bit buggy with certain fonts (XP, Vista). Lacks save support for docx files, but will edit them well.
Summary
Really good, go for it if you can't afford Office, or like me, got fed up with Office 2007 crashing and hogging CPU
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"Best free Office suit"
Version: Kingsoft Office 2012 8.1.0.3375
Pros
I love that it have tab functions in word, excel and powerpoint, before with all other it was pain in a** to work without tabs but now thanks to kingsoft office my work is much more productive.
Very small size on HDD
And it have cool functions drag n drop for pictures great.Cons
Probably non, except Android Kingsoft Office it isnt so good but its ok
Summary
Best free alternative.
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"Amazingly Suprised"
Version: Kingsoft Office 2012 8.1.0.3375
Pros
Free, easy to use, and integrates easily with Microsoft Office
Cons
Havent really found one but may be a tad slow in brining up a requested document. Then again that may be the computer.
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"Better than MS Office for most users"
Version: Kingsoft Office 2012 8.1.0.3375
Pros
Doesn't have a horrible white interface that blinds you on a desktop PC with large screen. Is very efficient does not use much disk space. Can handle documents created in the current versions of MS Office and save to the same format.
Cons
Probably can't handle Macros and VBA code (not had a need to try that yet so not sure) like MS Office but for everyday users who just need a document editor, spreadsheets and a presentation package this does the job. All we need Kingsoft to do now is add an Outlook equivalent and MS would be out of business.
Summary
Brilliant free alternative to MS Office that will meet the needs of most home users and probably quite a lot of business users. Another bonus is that there is a version for Android which works really well also.
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"Good to have a product to compete with office"
Version: Kingsoft Office 2012 8.1.0.3375
Pros
Almost no different from Office
Cons
Needs a database application
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"It seems like a very good alternative to Word."
Version: Kingsoft Office 2012 8.1.0.3375
Pros
It seems like a very good alternative to Word. Since I have downloaded so many text editors and word processors, I am hesitant to install one more. More so when I already have Word. People who cannot afford to buy a copy of Word would be very happy to have the option of using the Kingsoft text editor. People who already have Word are probably not very interested in installing a similar program. Many people use word and use Notepad or an alternative to Notepad. Since I want more out of Notepad then I use EditPad Lite instead. Since I want more out of Word and EditPad Lite then I use CesarUSA Text Editor BS2 (a new version just came out) for some features that Word and EditPad Lite do not have.
Cons
I do not know.
Summary
Seemingly a very good alternative to MS Word and Open Office.
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"I've only used it once, but works super."
Version: Kingsoft Office 2012 8.1.0.3375
Pros
Worked great
Cons
Can't find any
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