WPS Office Q's

I have MS Office Suite 2003, so I don't actually NEED WPS Office as a main Office Suite. I would just like to have a good, reliable, safe AND truly MS Office Suite-compatible Portable alternative suite in my Flash Drive Bag of Tools for whenever I might need it somewhere.

Oh sure, I'm aware of LibreOffice's reputation as THE Big Cheese of MS Office Suite alternatives and do actually currently have the PortableApps.com version in my Flash Drive. However, the other day I conducted a head to head, real world, face off MS Office Suite-compatibility test between LibreOffice vs. WPS Office ... and LibreOffice noticeably LOST. In a simple test of opening MS Word Docs to see if and which alternative Office Suite would render all the details the best ... LibreOffice was definitely inferior to WPS Office. LibreOffice seemed to only be able to render SIMPLE text docs properly. As soon as I threw more complicated docs with Tables, Text Boxes, Graphics and stuff ... LibreOffice would display stuff out of place. :crap WPS Office on the other hand, appeared to display pretty much everything correctly.

That said, here are my WPS Office inquiries / concerns:

(1) Is WPS Office really, solidly SAFE? The fact that as I understand it, it is from China AND it isn't too well known scares me a bit. :eek

(2) I have the supposed "FREE" version. IS it really free as in not just a TRIAL version with an expiration date? Cuz recently I clicked on who knows what and got a message informing me that I had "21 days remaining." Combined with that, I see that on the upper left there is this Button / Tab that says "Premium." Would those 21 days remaining be referring to possibly right now by default the Free version providing a 30-day Trial of the Premium version and then it changing over to a BASIC version, but still Free after 30 days? Or would it be changing over to no longer being Free after 30 days? I also read a comment somewhere that after 1 year it becomes "Cripple Ware." True or False?

(3) IF everything is on the level, cool & safe with WPS Office ... IS there a legit & safe Portable version somewhere that I can download? The very limited Portable version sources that I've found look VERY shady.

 

WPS Office is a viable alternative to Microsoft Office.
Two years ago I installed it's predecessor Kingsoft Office 2013. Both the classic toolbar and the modern ribbon interfaces are available. It uses tabs, and documents, spreadsheets and presentations can be exported to PDF.
The only criticism I have is while it can open and edit PPTX files, it cannot save to that format.

With regards to your concerns...
Apparently it runs as the professional version for 30 days and then reverts to the free version. Macros are not available in the free version. Whether it becomes 'crippleware' after 1 year, I cannot say. Unfortunately, there is no portable version of WPS Office.

WPS Office is the only software from China I have ever recommended.

FYI Excluding the portable editions of LibreOffice and Apache OpenOffice, the only portable office suite I know of is SSuite Portable but, it's just a word processor and spreadsheet program.
http://www.ssuitesoft.com/ssuiteportable.htm

 

Thanks for all the info, Eldon. :cool

Aww MAN! Bummer that there is no Portable version. Oh well. I won't flat out kick it to the curb. I'll at least always keep it in the back of my mind in case I ever need it or have to recommend it to someone who finds themselves without MS Office Suite.

I guess I can keep on keeping the Install File in my Flash Drive and if I ever find myself over someone's computer that doesn't have MS Office Suite and need its functionality at that instant, I'll just install WPS Office right then and there. :celebrate Not as convenient as jumping right on in with a Portable version, but it'll work.

As to the SSuite Office Blade Runner? You piqued my curiosity. I'll give it a shot. However, I'll have to wait until Saturday to download it when I'll have access to my sister's High Speed Internet. IF its Word Processor and Spreadsheet programs are as MS Office Suite-compatible as WPS Office is, I'll definitely add it to my Flash Drive's PortableApps.com's Bag of Tools & Tricks.

 

About SSuite Office Software...
They don't support the newer DOCX & XLSX formats. Then again, the older DOC & XLS formats are still used.

You might also want to look at this.
http://portableapps.com/apps/office

I'm still searching for a portable presentation program.

 

At this point the no support for DOCX & XLSX formats by SSuite Office wouldn't bother me. In fact, some months back when I had this other computer with Windows Vista and MS Office 2007 or whatever version has the docx & xlsx formats, I was actually going out of my way to make sure that whatever Docs I created were saved in doc format instead of the default docx. I figured at this time my experiences are more with computers that have MS Office Suite 2000 ... like my prehistoric Gateway with Windows 98SE, :eek which at this time is my official backup computer.

The thing with those other Word Processors at PortableApps.com is that it's specified right there that they are "lightweight." I could be wrong, but I'm deducing that they're probably not going to be able to render complicated MS Word Docs properly.

 

You're probably correct about those Word Processors at PortableApps.com.

While I use MSO 2007 in Windows 7, I actually prefer MSO 2003 in Windows XP.

FYI If you're using MSO 2000, 2002 or 2003, install the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint File Formats. You'll then be able to open, edit and save to the newer docx, xlsx and pptx file formats when needed.
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=3

 

Earlier today I downloaded and tried out SSuite Office WordGraph, which I'm guessing is the MS Word equivalent of SSuite Office. Within 5 minutes I had already uninstalled it. It failed miserably. It definitely could not remotely open up an MS Word Doc.

Heyyy, good call on that Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel and PowerPoint. I HAD seen it before in recent times and thought about installing it, but the plan slipped out of my mind. Now that you reminded me, I'll download it and install it this Saturday.

Thanks, Eldon.