I want to like ThinkFree
Office. I really do. I would like nothing more than to find an
office suite that would be a Microsoft Office killer.
Unfortunately, ThinkFree Office ain't it.
When I first bought my refurbished 600 MHz iBook, my goal was
to keep it Microsoft-free. I was very hopeful that I would be able to
do this. Safari instantly allowed me to bypass Internet Explorer.
My theory was that AppleWorks would allow me to skip installation of
Office. This proved to be true - until I sent a multi-sheet Excel
spreadsheet home from work. When I opened it in AppleWorks, all the
sheets were merged into one. I had forgotten one of the long-standing
complaints about AppleWorks: The spreadsheet only supports one sheet
per file.
Frustrated, but not to the point of installing Microsoft Office, I
downloaded a free 30-day evaluation copy of ThinkFree Office. After
installing it, I opened my Excel spreadsheet in ThinkFree Calc and was
pleasantly surprised that it looked (and worked) just as it did in
Excel.
Encouraged, I proceeded to ThinkFree Write. This is where I ran into
disappointment.
I discovered numerous problems with the program itself, as well as
its Microsoft Word compatibility. The first thing I noticed is that the
Edit menu does not contain a "Paste Special" function. This is very
frustrating if you do a lot of cutting and pasting. Every time you
paste text into your document, you have to select it and change it to
the document font. Using "Paste Special" allows you to paste
information as unformatted text which immediately takes on the
characteristic of your document font when it is pasted.
Speaking of cutting and pasting, the pasted text does not always
maintain the formatting or font of the original either. I noticed it
often mutated to Times 12. The formatting virtually never transferred.
What is the most maddening about this is that every once in a while it
worked correctly - despite the fact that I did my cutting and pasting
the same way from and to the same documents every time!
As long as we are discussing fonts, if there is a way to change the
default font from Times 12 to something else (please, anything!), I
can't find it. I usually use either an Arial or Courier, and it is
irritating to have to change it with every new document.
When you go to save your document, the document name is not
highlighted in the "name" box. This is a minor complaint, but I have
become accustomed to Word and AppleWorks highlighting the file name
when you select "Save As." That way, if you want to rename the document
you merely have to start typing the new name, and it automatically
deletes the old name (or "untitled" if you are saving a document for
the first time). With ThinkFree Write, you have to manually select the
document name first.
While ThinkFree Write has a function that allow you to insert the
date and/or time into your document, it does not seem to be able to
have it automatically place the current date and/or time in the
field every time you open the document. This is an especially useful
function in template documents, such as letterhead and forms. Having to
manually type in the date is not something we have had to do in word
processing for 15 years!
Write is completely unable to handle anything but the most simple
Word tables. I had a (very important) document (the final project for
one of my MBA classes) with what I considered to be a relatively simple
table in it: three columns wide and 10 rows long. Each cell contained a
bulleted list.
While Write rendered the table properly, it had a tough time with
the bulleted lists. Bullets disappeared at random. Even after manually
restoring them, they would often just disappear later. What's worse,
the problem only appeared after I edited the document and saved it in
Write. When first opened in Write, everything appeared to be
correct!
It was this final problem that forced me to install Microsoft
Office. I was under a deadline to finish the project, and Write was
severely hampering my ability to be productive. This is not acceptable
for a word processing program. Their whole purpose is to make you more
productive.
One positive thing I noticed is that Write displays the full path of
the current document at the top of the document window by default.
ThinkFree Office also contains ThinkFree Show, a PowerPoint
substitute. While all of my PowerPoint presentations opened properly in
Show, I should note that my presentations are very basic and do not use
any advanced PowerPoint functions. (This is primarily due to the fact
that I don't know how to use the advanced PowerPoint functions.)
My Excel spreadsheets, while I would not consider them "highly
advanced," could be classified as at least moderately complex. I did
not have a single problem opening and editing any of them in Calc. Calc
seems to be the most advanced and polished program in the ThinkFree
suite. Write appears to need the most work.
The $49 price tag does make this a tempting alternative to Microsoft
Office. If your word processing and presentation needs are modest
and/or your primary requirement is a highly capable spreadsheet
program, ThinkFree is the program for you. However, if you have a need
to open and edit Word documents that are the least bit complex, this is
probably not going to fit your needs.
I understand that ThinkFree is working hard to upgrade and improve
the MS Office compatibility of its suite. As soon as there is a major
revision, we will revisit ThinkFree and bring you our report.
I am cheering for ThinkFree. I would like nothing more than to write
a column a few months down the road entitled "Bend Over and Kiss Your
Suite Microsoft Good-bye!" With all the work ThinkFree has obviously
put into their product to get it this far, they deserve to succeed.
