We advise you which software and apps to use
What’s the best free alternative to Excel?
Q I’m a retired pensioner looking for a cheap or free spreadsheet app. I did use Excel, but unfortunately I can’t afford to renew it. Can you suggest a free alternative? I’m using Windows 11.
David Parnell
A Take a look at LibreOffice, which comprises a spreadsheet (Calc), word processor (Writer) and presentation suite (Impress). It’s free from www.libreoffice.org and is regularly updated – the latest release (24.2) arrived in February. We include tips for it in every Make Office Better – see page 47. Calc does look a little different to Excel, but you’ll soon find your way around. The formulas you use in Excel work pretty much the same in Calc.
LibreOffice does have its own file formats, but can also open and save Microsoft Office documents, so there’s no need to convert your existing files. However, if you regularly share your spreadsheets with others, you might want to change Calc’s default format for saving to Excel. To do so, create a new spreadsheet, then click Tools, followed by Options. Click the ‘+’ beside Load/Save in the left menu, then General ( 1 in our screenshot below). Select ‘Spreadsheets’ from the ‘Document type’ menu 2 , then open the menu beside ‘Always save as’ and select ‘Excel 2007-365 (*.xlsx)’ 3 . Click Apply followed by OK.
Alternatively, this would be the perfect opportunity to explore the online version of Excel, which is free to use through Microsoft OneDrive. Log in at www.onedrive.com, then click the top-left ‘+ Add new’ button, followed by ‘Excel workbook’. If you already save your Excel documents in OneDrive, you can open them directly from the My Files list you’ll arrive at when you first log into OneDrive.
What task manager should I use?
Q I’ve been using Google Keep (https://keep.google.com) as my personal task manager, but it’s limited. I also used Monday (www.monday.com), but they removed the filtering options in the free version. What else could I use?
Jackson
