Customer Reviews

Thinkfree Office for Mac OS X

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

ThinkFree Office v2.2 for OS X is a very reasonable alternative to M$ Office. There is one bug that emerged with the OS X 10.2.6 update - when opening ThinkFree write, it creates a odd tiny window 1-2 pixels wide. I've found some workarounds that allow the app to function, though; and the e-mail support was excellent.

As others have noted, there are some compatibility issues when importing M$ documents. These can be anywhere from minimal to irritating. The main problem that I've seen relates to the placement of graphics. Calc, the spreadsheet, seems to be the most compatible. I do not use the presentation product, preferring Apple's Keynote instead.

Written in Java, I had some concerns about speed. Running ThinkFree v2.2 on a Mac 9500 with a 400 MHz G4 card and a 9600 with a 500 MHz G4 card was slow. Typing frequently outpaced the character display. On the other hand, running it on my 1.25 GHz G4 DP MDD showed no adverse speed issues.

The bottom line is that this suite works. Among the alternatives to M$ office for OS X, it is probably the best. The other wold be OpenOffice, which is improving, but you have to fuss with an X-window environment and though they state that anti-aliasing of fonts should work in the latest version, I could never get it to work.

It is relatively inexpensive and from my perspective worth a try. I currently use it daily as my productivity suite.

ThinkFree Office is solid office software with all the features you would expect to see in a professional package. There is a learning curve as things don't all work as you might expect them to, assuming that you are accustomed to Microsoft Office. The thing that can be a real headache is when documents are not 100% compatible - Word does not seem to have much of a problem importing ThinkFree documents but I've had some formatting issues importing MS Office documents. It can be a great solution if you can put your whole office on this product - what you save is well worth the minor issues you'll have and since your co-workers are using it compatibility issues are significantly reduced.

Thinkfree Office is a simple and inexpensive software program that allows you to read and write MS documents without actually owning Microsoft Office.

If you can't afford and/or don't like MS Office, for whatever reason, and you're looking for something that will allow you to access MS created documents and share with others, this product is for you.

Drawbacks: The largest is that Thinkfree Office does not translate everything. It seems to have most trouble with formating and special fonts. However, it always gets the actual text correct. Secondly, it's also on the slow side. And lastly, it's interface doesn't feel Mac friendly. You can definitely see its roots with Microsoft.

I would have to disagree with those who say that the Write module is simply an upgraded version of SimpleText or TextEdit. Write has a menu bar that competes easily with AppleWorks. I was honestly amazed when I saw the features it had given what I paid for the software.

MS Office sells for several hundred dollars and is a RAM and hard drive pig. Thinkfree is an exceptionally inexpensive (especially if you buy it used) alternative that will allow you to access MS documents and create new ones. It has its problems, yes, but if you're getting what you pay for. If you want something that works exactly like Word, Excel or PowerPoint then you'll have to buy MS Office.

This is easily the most annoying program I've owned. Although it does help once in a while to open the occasional .doc or .ppt file that I receive in e-mail, it makes the process so agonizing it's only slightly better than not opening the file at all. About half the time the file opens up perfectly. The rest of the time the application opens (s-l-o-w-l-y...) then a blank document comes up. It claims to be the file in question, but there is nothing in the document at all. But the same file just might open up fine the next time you start your computer. You never know what you'll get. This happens not only with translated documents, but even with documents created in Thinkfree itself. I recommend it only a stop-gap measure for those who have a lot of time to waste trying to get MS files to open.

Much like another commentator, I have a Mac and tried this. Oddly, the online version works pretty well on my Mac. So I just straight bought the offline version.

Not one single Word or PowerPoint file opened properly. The formatting looks garbled. The powerpoint equivalent ("Show") wouldn't even correctly render a full menu bar, let alone open anything.

Any accolades for this product are for non-Mac versions and/or the online version only.

I hate to say it, but one might just have to bite the bullet and buy MS Office. I have boot camp and parallels and just resort to that now. Sucks, I know.

Oh, did I make myself clear about how bad this product is? Tech support says that they're aware of a solution and I can beta test in September. Sounds like others have been down this road before.

Go ahead...if you've got time to waste.

I really wanted to like this product. ThinkFree Office Suite was going to be my ticket to a Microsoft-free environment when I switched over to the Macintosh platform a few months ago. It touts nearly complete compatibility with the three main MS Office apps: Word, Excel and PowerPoint. It's close, very close but in some ways woefully far.

Okay, if you are starting fresh with no history of documents created in the Microsoft programs, you'll be golden. You'll have full-featured versions of the Big Three that will do nearly everything you could hope for and save hundreds of dollars off the Microsoft price. If that's your situation, go for it. If yours is the more typical scenario of dozens or hundreds of files created in Word, Excel and Powerpoint -- plus the need to share files with others using the mainstream programs, think twice. Think more than twice.

The first inkling of trouble came when I needed to edit a Powerpoint presentation that I'd created for a client a couple of months before my switch-over to Mac. In ThinkFree Show. I could add the slides he wanted and import the edited graphics but when it came to the _simple_ task of editing the text, I was faced with a nightmare. When I put the cursor into the text box and began typing, the cursor was in the _wrong_ _place_. When I backspaced to try again, it erased the _wrong_ _characters_. I ended up cutting the text and editing it in another application, then pasting it back in. Worse, when my client went to edit some text himself in Powerpoint, he couldn't even get the cursor into the text box! The file was essentially trashed.

I went to the ThinkFree site and after a lot of searching around, found an email address to send my problem to. Weeks later, I have _still_ not heard anything. I called their contact phone number and left a message for technical support. I missed their return call and left a message in the voicemail of the fellow who called. Nothing further and it has been over two weeks now.

Today was the last straw. I needed to edit a document and send it out to a client right away. When I brought it up in ThinkFree Write, my letterhead was completely skewed in the header. I went in and tried to edit it and was again faced with the inability to change the text in text boxes. When I tried to move the mis-aligned cells of a table, they moved to random places on the page instead of where I'd released the mouse button. I ended up using Word (thankfully I have a copy of Windows with Office running under Parallels on my Mac).

At this point, I deeply regret having shelled out the $50 for ThinkFree Office Suite. It's better than nothing -- but just barely.

I installed the local/offline version from its purchased CD. I didn't want to fork out for yet another MS Excel/Word licence for the Mac but I absolutely had to be able to read and update Word and Excel docs while on the road. Another (unnamed) alternative had let me down. But Thinkfree Office does the trick. It correctly handles the MS Word formatting for page headers with a logo and 2-column formats with embedded photos in a newsletter I've been writing for a while. It also handles my relatively simple Excel workbooks with embedded formulas. It opens and plays the occasional PowerPoint file that I need to view.

Great value for my bucks! If this is all you need then it's definitely worth a try.

It doesn't work. Period.
No response from tech support after 2 inquiries over 10 days.
History: it wouldn't open _any_ of my word doc's: tech support advised re-install. [no-brainer, non-responsive advice] Nontheless, I did this TWICE, and it still wouldn't work. Emailed tech again, twice, still no response after 11-12 days. In other words, there is no tech support.
I got a trial .v of icWord, and it did everything AND it costs less.
[My platform: iBook w/640Mb ram on OS 9.2.]

This is first junk software I've had in 16 yrs as a Mac user. There should be a no-star rating for these guys.