The public beta of SoftMaker Office 2021 for Linux

[rockedge]

Second public beta of SoftMaker Office 2021 is released for those interested in the Softmaker's Office and FreeOffice, and want to try out the latest.

Tested on Bionic64-v8.

https://forum.softmaker.com/viewtopic.p ... 5c4#p65876

[Mike Walsh]

@ rockedge:-

Yah, I was looking at this on OMG!Ubuntu! the other day. Anybody wanting to try it will need to work fast. I believe the "free" trial expires on June 1st, doesn't it? Bit pointless me trying it, because if I do use their software it's usually FreeOffice; you'll not catch me paying for an office suite when there's so many free ones about.

What; d'you think I'm mad?


Mike.

[Puppyt]

The beta has had an update - and the expiry is now extended to the 15th June. At least, that's what I have now, for Win and Puppy (Deb) versions. I had signed up for the first round because I was really interested to check out the in-built Zotero bibliography tool integration. I and others have been bleating on the SoftMaker Forums for such integration for years now, and my initial impressions are *really* promising
Certainly, a giant-killer when it comes to my previous experiences with Word+EndNote a few short years ago...

[Puppyt]

...oh, I'm one of the mad ones who is a card-carrying purchaser of SoftMaker 2019, 2017, 2015... the upgrade options are particularly cost-effective, according to the bats in my belfry...

[Colonel Panic]

I've got Softmaker 2018 (the paid-for version). I generally wait until the company has a special offer and get it then; I think for what I pay (usually about £18 ) it's good value for an office suite.

P.S. I'm currently testing the latest beta of Office 2021 (expires on June 15th) and so far I haven't found any problems with it.

[Colonel Panic]

Softmaker Office 2021 has now been released;

https://www.softmaker.com/en/

According to the pricing page it starts at £51.99 even for an upgrade from the previous version (which I have and which still works well), so I'm not in any hurry to sign up for the new version. They do still offer a 30-day trial version of the suite though, which is a good way to find out whether or not it meets your requirements.

[musher0]

Hi, ColonelPanic.

51,99 Euros ~= CAN$76
Hum... A week's groceries for a person living alone, or a tankful of gas for the car.
I think I'll pass. But thanks for the info.

BFN.

[Puppyt]

Well, I reckon it's worth the punt - I decided against the AU$5-$8 /month subscription route for an upgrade to my 2018 purchase, and I paid AU$94 for the SoftMaker Office Professional 2021 Suite outright. That's licence for 5 concurrent machines, in any Win, Lin or Mac flavour. The Zotero integration looks great for in-text and bibliography construction for referenced scientific papers - at least that will be my particular bent. Quite painful to do manually with TextMaker previously, and I had to go to GoogleDocs to get my Zotero databases working as intended.

[Colonel Panic]

Hi, ColonelPanic.

51,99 Euros ~= CAN$76
Hum... A week's groceries for a person living alone, or a tankful of gas for the car.
I think I'll pass. But thanks for the info.

BFN.

It's a lot for me too musher. I usually wait until they have a special offer (which will probably happen sooner or later), and in any case Softmaker 2018 works fine for me at the moment..