[Article] Good Open Source Alternative for Paid Software, that are Free.

[solweb]

PC Software is expensive - here are 3 Free Alaternatives that I use and recommend

No matter what you use your computer for, one of the most valuable programs on it will be an Office Suite. You can use it to write letters, catalogue your recipe collection, draw up a spreadsheet and even as an electronic diary. An the most popular off office suite is Microsoft Office. But even the least expensive version will cost you just under R1000 (Microsoft Office 2013 Home and Student Edition – 1 User R949.95 on Kalahari.com) and the cheapest business version is R2400.00. Keep in mind, that the software licence will only allow you to load it on one PC, so if you have two PCs, you must buy two copies. Then you have the fact that you will need to upgrade every few years.

Expensive, especially if you only use it every so often. But, there is a solution that is FREE (your favourite new word!)

The Full article is published here

[AndyD]

The Full article is published here

There's some issue with the URL you've posted I'm afraid.

[adrianh]

Open Office is da Bomb - Microslosh Word sucks beeeeeeeeeeegtime

[pietpetoors]

I have been using Open Office for the past 5 years and do not need Micro$oft Office. Also look at Libre Office, some people recon it is better than Open Office but I have not tested it yet.

I had to get MS Office for my accountant the other day because Pastel forces you to have MS Office otherwise you cannot use all Pastel's functions. Coincidentally Pastel agents also sell MS Office packages, so I wonder how legal it is to force users to use a certain package.

[adrianh]

What is the relationship between MS Office and Pastel?

That is very very naughty of Pastel.

[pietpetoors]

It uses excell to open some reports. If you do not have excell it just cannot open it. When we first got pastel i spent lot of time on the phone with their support and they just said the only way was to install ms office. I tried everything but in the end had to buy office for that machine

[solweb]

There's some issue with the URL you've posted I'm afraid.

Thanks - fixed link

[solweb]

I have been using Open Office for the past 5 years and do not need Micro$oft Office. Also look at Libre Office, some people recon it is better than Open Office but I have not tested it yet.

I had to get MS Office for my accountant the other day because Pastel forces you to have MS Office otherwise you cannot use all Pastel's functions. Coincidentally Pastel agents also sell MS Office packages, so I wonder how legal it is to force users to use a certain package.

This could be fun - especially if you use linux. I use FNB's Instant Accounting and if my account gives me grief - I will replace him with one that does not. It is like SARS and Adobe Reader - it does not work in linux. And if my PC did not come with Windows installed, I would have to join the q outside SARS like every other schmoe to do my taxes.

[Dave A]

I had to get MS Office for my accountant the other day because Pastel forces you to have MS Office otherwise you cannot use all Pastel's functions.

Interesting point.

With Quickbooks you have the option of exporting to a csv file. The downside of going that route rather than straight to a spreadsheet is you lose the format controls and the smart function imports, but it does give scope for a workaround.

The big dependancy on MS Office to my mind is by default Quickbooks only connects to Outlook when it comes to emailing, but again there are workarounds. By now there may even be a free or cheap plug-in, come to think of it.

Wen itcomes to the blame game, I'm not entirely sure we can point it solely at the accounting package developers. There have been efforts to standardise important protocols across office suite applications. You'll never* guess who has been proving to be the tricky player...

*Take italics as my sarcasm font in this post, please.

[Chrisjan B]

* I give up Dave - please tell.....

[vieome]

I have been using Open Office for the past 5 years and do not need Micro$oft Office. Also look at Libre Office, some people recon it is better than Open Office but I have not tested it yet.

I had to get MS Office for my accountant the other day because Pastel forces you to have MS Office otherwise you cannot use all Pastel's functions. Coincidentally Pastel agents also sell MS Office packages, so I wonder how legal it is to force users to use a certain package.

Have you tried exporting the report to HTML and copy and paste into open office?

[twinscythe12332]

Wen itcomes to the blame game, I'm not entirely sure we can point it solely at the accounting package developers. There have been efforts to standardise important protocols across office suite applications. You'll never* guess who has been proving to be the tricky player...

*Take italics as my sarcasm font in this post, please.

hahaha, so that's what you were talking about this morning... I don't know why, but I keep thinking "security", if you know what I mean

@pietpetpoors It differs mainly on style and menu flow as far as I have been able to tell, but I chose it over open office. Still has irritating "some formatting won't work" issues though.

As for the pastel issue, very naughty indeed. There are plenty of open source options out there for excel file creation. Sounds like their support may not be entirely by accident

[wynn]

As for the pastel issue, very naughty indeed. There are plenty of open source options out there for excel file creation. Sounds like their support may not be entirely by accident

Especially now that more and more people realize that they don't have to buy MSOffice and are using more and more freeware, seems Pastel are trying to create a market so they can sell into it.

[adrianh]

I must be honest, I've never liked Pastel, the interface is very unintuitive. It seems as if the software was written by accountants rather than programmers...maybe that's why they used OLE to do the nitty gritty reporting work.

[CLIVE-TRIANGLE]

I must be honest, I've never liked Pastel, the interface is very unintuitive. It seems as if the software was written by accountants rather than programmers...maybe that's why they used OLE to do the nitty gritty reporting work.

Back in the day, when it was first developed, accountants marketed the product and had a huge role in it's development. The fact that this came about after AccPacc's Computer Associates pulled out of SA had a lot to do with that. It is no coincidence that the original product was more than similar, right down to the account numbers!

Dave, Quickbooks basically does not work with Windows' Live and Live Mail. It works with Outlook, Outlook Express, Thunderbird and some others. It connects fine to Gmail and Hotmail.

I have a few clients where Thunderbird for example is only used to send qbooks mail, the package is never opened and Live remains their mail client.