Corel Home Office
March 14, 2010 by admin
Filed under Free Software
- Corel Home Office is designed for your personal and home business word processing, spreadsheet and presentation needs; bundling Corel Write, Corel Calculate, and Corel Show
- Prepare, edit and present great-looking letters, reports, quotations, memos, mailings and newsletters with Corel Write
- Create spreadsheets, charts and graphs, and balance budgets with Corel Calculate
- Make professional-looking slide shows with photos, charts, transitions and more using Corel Show
- Open, edit, create and save Microsoft Office documents, including Open XML formats; save your files in PDF format
Product Description
Specifically designed for your personal and home business word processing, spreadsheet and presentation needs, Corel Home Office makes your at-home work simple. It’s compatible with Microsoft Office files and supports PDF publishing from any application. The sleek and simple interface includes tabbed toolbars that put the features you need right where you need them. It’s similar to the office suites you’ve used before, so it’s easy learn and use. You can swi… More >>
What I really enjoy most on The Corel Home Office is the ability to save to a PDF format, whether it is a document or excel program. I have used large spreadsheet documents, and with PDF format, it saves on the extra time it takes for format to print. With one click, it will save neatly to your current Microsoft files if you have Microsoft 2003 or 2007. This suite for personal and business use is just enough for those who do not need the entire Microsoft Software that generally sells for much more.
You have the newest menu bars, the Microsoft 2007 Ribbon toolbars, and it does not look as intimidating as Microsoft 2007. Or, the option is to select regular toolbars that one is more familiar with. I have not figured how to go back to a more simple menubar. I cannot say everything is here that is identical to Microsoft 2007, but it sure feel like it is more than adequate. for some reason, the programs are called WRITE (word); CALCULATE (excel) and SHOW (powerpoint).
The WRITE program has a small glitch in Grammar and Spelling tools. But like any other program with grammar and spelling, they can vary greatly. I never use this tool.
The CALCULATE program is filled with so much, you may never use it all. And, I plan to experiment with the Corel SHOW for pictures. This is a wonderful addition and just as comparable as PowerPoint. Many nice features available.
This is perfect for laptops and home computers. Rizzo
Rating: 5 / 5
When first installed, the Corel Write program looks suspiciously like Word 2007, which was developed by telling programmers who had never used a word processing program to “make it pretty.” Unfortunately, in making Word 2007 pretty with its ribbons, the commands were moved around and made difficult to find and access. When I first saw Corel Write, all I could think was that Corel had decided to follow Microsoft’s path paved with good intentions. But you can play with the display and attempt to return it to a more efficient and workable format. So, just as in Word 2007 I eliminate the ribbons and use only the Quick Access toolbar as I customized it, in Corel Write I spent some setup time working on how the commands are displayed and used. Overall, the program is fairly simple to use and contains anything you would want for a home word processing program.
I can’t comment on the spreadsheet or presentations programs also included in Home Office, since I have no personal use for them.
Rating: 4 / 5
Microsoft Office is the de-facto standard in basic business software in terms of word processing, spreadsheets, and presentation in our current society, which are three areas which Corel is aiming for when it comes to Corel Home Office.
Several reviews have pointed out the good points in Corel Home Office. It has a very small install footprint. The menu system, presentation, and operation is modern and intuitive. The install comes on a USB Flash drive, which is the first time I have seen a manufacturer use this medium, but based on the small install size and the inexpensive price for under 1GB flash drives it is a nice ‘cool/wow,’ feature that is also probably cost effective.
This software would be ok for a student, a netbook, or as legitimate software for a family’s third or forth PC that is a backup, but not much else.
The reasoning? If you can purchase actual Microsoft Office 2007 for the same price, why would you support Corel when their main plus point is compatibility with MS Office? Their menu system, features, support, or other differences doesn’t justify the headache of incompatibility issues with complex or even medium complexity Office documents if you are trying to finish something for school or work.
If you have ever run into issues using Microsoft products one ‘perk,’ is that probably several people before you have similar hardware environments, similar software installs, and were trying to perform the same sort of actions you were when you crashed, had a corruption issue, or some other error. These people were ahead of you in the curve, so seeking out troubleshooting, advice, or help is easier because in most cases someone already walked the route you walked in the same environment.
The same can’t be said with Corel. The installed user base is smaller. Their knowledge base will be limited. Their QA and Tech support staff will be limited. Without a significant dollar savings or at least one ‘wow,’ feature it is not worth the headache. The included PDF feature is nice, but doesn’t justify the switch. If you are producing PDF documents you will have Acrobat, if not the entire Adobe suite.
If a person hates MS so much they will be using Linux, Mac or other OS alternatives and running something such as Open Office, which is freeware.
I would like to push this software and give it a positive rating, but the software is just too limited, given the possible issues, lack of price superiority, lack of scale in support/community, to give it a solid recommendation.
Rating: 2 / 5
When I opened up Corel office, I immediately thought of MS Office 2007. It has the look and feel of office without the price, which is great. It appears to be a robust platform and takes several versions of documents. It converts to PDFs, which I wish MS would do. A big plus is that it is compact for netbooks.
Downsides: No revision or editing feature. I wish it didn’t look so much like 2007 because I don’t like all of 2007′s layout.
Rating: 4 / 5
I was expecting a DVD but when I opened it up a Flash Drive appeared.
Getting to the program. I like the simplicity of the programs, they are very easy to figure out and I haven’t had any troubles with them. The problem is that most of Corel’s programs wouldn’t be good for if your Office was at home, I would want more from it. If they had a little more adjustment to the settings that would be good. Now if you just want something that is just for home use this would be good thing to get.
Rating: 4 / 5