Storing our documents in Google Drive or working with Microsoft Office means leaving our information on third-party servers, in closed formats and under conditions that can change at any moment. In this post we review free tools for storing, editing and sharing files while keeping control over what is ours.
In this series we review free software alternatives to proprietary digital tools. Today we share tools for storing and editing files.
Alternatives to Google Drive
Seafile: less well known than Nextcloud, but focused on file storage and therefore very efficient. It includes a collaborative document editor. At Librecoop we have been managing Seafile instances for years, some of them holding several terabytes of data.
Nextcloud: the best-known alternative. Besides files, it offers a calendar, forms, a collaborative editor and many other apps. There are no open public instances, but you can get it from providers in the social and solidarity economy.
We can help you with that.
Alternatives to Microsoft Office
LibreOffice and OnlyOffice are two complete office suites. Both work well; OnlyOffice usually has better compatibility with documents created in Microsoft Office.
Watch out for Excel files that use macros: they don’t usually work outside Office. Since both tools are free of charge, the best approach is to test your files before migrating completely.
Editing PDFs
Instead of paid programs like PDFelement, LibreOffice Draw (included in LibreOffice) lets you edit PDFs. The result depends on how the PDF was built, but for simple changes it is usually enough.
If you think we can help you with these or other tools, write to us at [email protected] and we’ll prepare a quote for you.