Free software equivalents

Free programs (freeware) are analogues of programs to which wehave long been accustomed to. Simply, they are not as "untwisted" as commercial software, so we often do not even suspect that there are free analogues of Microsoft Office, Photoshop and other well-known commercial applications. The country of the Soviets will talk about several free analogues of commercial software.

Let's start, perhaps, with office programs. We can not imagine our life withouttext editor Word: abstracts, coursework, diplomas, articles, working papers, reports - all this is created in a text editor. Do you know that there are free analogues of programs included in the Office suite of Microsoft Office?

Perhaps the most famous free alternativeMicrosoft Office is OpenOffice. This package includes six programs: a text editor, a spreadsheet editor, a program for creating and displaying presentations, a vector editor, a database management system, and a program for creating and editing formulas. Interface and functionality OpenOffice very similar to the interface and functionality of MicrosoftOffice, so there should not be any problems in using this program. Despite the fact that OpenOffice works with its own file format - ODT (Open Text Document), it is easy to open and edit the usual DOC and even DOCX formats.

Office package LibreOffice - this is a fork (fork) from LibreOffice. It also contains analogues of the programs included in the office suite from Microsoft. In fact, the main components of LibreOffice duplicate the components of its "parent" OpenOffice. Another alternative to commercial text editors can be AbiWord. True, this is not an office suite, namely a text editor, so it will not replace Excel and PowerPoint.

Is there a free analog programs for working with images? Of course, there is. We have already made a brief overview of free image editors for working with raster images. If your field of activity is not related to design, photography, etc., then you do not need Photoshop, you still will not use most of its functions. And opportunities GIMP or Paint.NET you have enough, as they say, "with a roof." However, if you are used to the interface of Photoshop, you may need time to get used to free editors, but in fact they are not that different.

There are also free analogs programs for working with vector images. If you do not have the opportunity to purchase a license for CorelDraw or Adobe Illustrator, you can try their free counterparts. One of such programs, Inkscape, we already wrote. There is an editor Serif DrawPlus Starter Edition. True, it is available in two versions - paidand free. The free version is limited by functionality, and for its use it is necessary to register on the site of the program. A free vector editor Aivary Raven does not require installation - it is completely online.

Sometimes Large companies themselves offer free analogues of programs developed by them. For example, everyone knows the program Adobe Acrobatfor working with PDF documents. This software is commercial, paid. But if you do not need all the extensive functionality of the Acrobat, you can do without its free analogue from the same developer - Adobe Reader. It allows you to read and print PDF documents. The editing capabilities in it, however, not, but if you do not need it - why pay more? In addition to Adobe Reader for reading PDF documents, you can use and Foxit Reader, it differs in smaller volume, undemanding resources and faster performance.

As you can see, free analog (and not one) is available for almost any popular program. Of course, if you are professionally engagedwork with images, video, sound, etc., the functionality of free applications you may not be enough - but in professional activity is not a sin and invest some money, they still pay off afterwards. And most ordinary users can do without free software: installed a free program - you can sleep peacefully.