Softmaker FreeOffice 2012

[RushArt]

Softmaker recently released their free office suite. Granted, it only contains softwares equivalent to Word, Excel and Powerpoint, but at least it doesn't have any advertisement. I can't find any comparison between this free suite to Softmaker Office 2008 (which has also become free to use) and Ashampoo Office 2010 (which can be downloaded from their website free), but so far I haven't found any reduced functionality.

The homepage is freeoffice.com. It will ask for valid email address as it will send the license key to your email.

Anybody tried it yet? Thought? Opinion?

[Anupam]

Thanks for this. I was not aware of Softmaker Office 2012 having a free version.

The comparison of the free and commercial version is not on the site however, atleast I did not find it. Would be good to know, what are the differences, if there are any.

[Anupam]

Ashampoo Office 2010 is not free. It's a commercial product. I checked on the Ashampoo site. Therefore, I will have to edit it out from the post, unless a proper link is provided to a free version, if there is any.

I think they had run an offer where it was offered free for a limited time. However, that does not count as free, and any links to that offer will be deleted too.

And anyways, Ashampoo Office is rip-off, or based on SoftMaker Office itself.

[RushArt]

Yes, there doesn't seem to be any features comparison. But as far as I can see, it seems that:
Softmaker FreeOffice : TextMaker, PlanMaker, Presentations
SoftMaker Office Standard: FreeOffice + BasicMaker (Some kind of VBA or macro I think)
SoftMaker Office Professional: FreeOffice + BasicMaker + eM Client (email client)+ 4 Berlitz Basic Dictionaries

You can register and get free license key for Ashampoo Office at official Softmaker website. And Ashampoo Office is definitely not a rip-off. It is a licensed edition of Softmaker Office, which is stated at download page here.

While it doesn't clearly state whether Ashampoo Office 2010 is free forever or just in limited time, the register page there has exist for quite a long time. So I will just assume it is at least half freeware.

[Anupam]

It's from an offer that was run for a limited time. But, seems like it still might be working. Here are the details about that offer :

http://www.mostiwant.com/blog/ashamp...th-serial-key/

We will let it stay for now. But, if anyone tries to get it, and finds that it's not working, please do post back here.

[deya]

The Ashampoo offer still works, I got the key sent to my email straight away. I also have Softmaker Office, they're almost identical in appearance, GUI etc.

But there are differences, one being the file types you can save. For example, you can't save MS Word 2007 (.docx) with the Softmaker version, but you can with the Ashampoo version.

There are differences in the file download size. Ashampoo is 96mb - Softmaker is 57mb.

During the install Ashampoo offers toolbars - Softmaker doesn't.

Ashampoo also require more personal info during the registration - address etc.

I have them both installed on a virtual machine now so I'll have a look at the other differences when I have the time later on. But both do work.

[Sope]

I found some info regarding the differences between the current versions of SoftMaker (inc FreeOffice) which may be of use :-

http [COLON] //www [DOT] peterlievers [DOT] nl/forumbijlagen/officecomparison.pdf

as discussed here -
http://www.portablefreeware.com/foru...ic.php?p=54739

[Anupam]

deya, thanks a lot for that information.

What you say confirms with the comparison that Sope posted. Thanks for that Sope. Sorry, I had to obfuscate the link, as we do not allow direct links to files.

Softmaker FreeOffice does not allow editing of .docx, .xlsx, and .pptx formats, only reading.

Also, while limited features in the TextMaker won't matter much, but some of them in the PlanMaker, and Presentations might be of bother to the heavy weight users.

I would download Ashampoo Office from the offer, but providing them with my address is something that I am not willing to do. Just email would have been OK.

Does the Softmaker Office 2008 free version have the same limitations? Anyone knows?

I registered for Softmaker Free Office 2012, and downloaded it, and deleted the earlier copy of Software Office 2008 that I had. But, on seeing the comparison, I am thinking if I did the right thing.

[RushArt]

Deya and Sope, thanks for the information! That is really useful.

Originally Posted by Anupam

Softmaker FreeOffice does not allow editing of .docx, .xlsx, and .pptx formats, only reading.

Softmaker FreeOffice does allow editing of .docx, .xlsx, and .pptx formats, but it can't save back to those format. You will need to save to other Softmaker supported format.

Originally Posted by Anupam

Also, while limited features in the TextMaker won't matter much, but some of them in the PlanMaker, and Presentations might be of bother to the heavy weight users.

Interestingly, while I tried to edit a .pptx slides using Softmaker Presentations and save it as .ppt, it mess up the whole slides-- Powerpoint and Kingsoft Presentation failed to open the file at all, while LibreOffice Impress managed to open it with some formatting mess.

I think it is caused by Softmaker Presentations converting the file format to its own .prd format, only then it converts and saves to .ppt format.

[Anupam]

Originally Posted by RushArt

Softmaker FreeOffice does allow editing of .docx, .xlsx, and .pptx formats, but it can't save back to those format. You will need to save to other Softmaker supported format.

Thanks for clearing that up