A week ago, I shared two great (and free!) form builders for VAs: Wufoo and JotForm. Now moving on to…
Week 8: Alternative software for Virtual Assistants—No Microsoft, Adobe, or Money Required
If only these programs were around when we worked in the corporate world! Well, they probably were, but we were simply unaware given that the big-name software companies were always updating, releasing new versions, and asking for way more money than was necessary. But we bought them anyway thinking that was our only option. Now you have a choice, and a free one at that. There are so many open source software programs out there nowadays. Thank goodness for the developers who believe you shouldn’t have to pay hundreds and thousands of dollars on software every one or two years!
7-Zip: Compress, pack, and unpack your files with 7-Zip, an open source file archiver that boasts a higher compression ratio than PKZip or WinZip. 7-Zip supports many popular formats, and you don’t have to pay a dime to get it. I’ve been using 7-Zip for several months now and haven’t had any problems with zipping and sending my large image files to clients or associates.
PDFCreator: PDFCreator from pdfforge.org is a free program that creates PDFs from almost any software program. Need to save multiple files as one PDF? With PDFCreator, it’s no problem. You can also create image files such as PNG, JPG, BMP, and more.
OpenOffice.org: OpenOffice.org boasts a fully-featured open source office suite compatible with other major-brand software. OpenOffice.org is free to download, free to use, and free to distribute.
ThinkFree.com: ThinkFree.com is an online office productivity solution offering a full suite of platforms, including word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations, all compatible with MS Office. Create, edit, and access your files from anywhere at any time, online or offline. ThinkFree.com Online comes integrated with 1 GB of storage, collaboration tools, and more. Prefer a desktop edition? You might be surprised that the entire suite costs less than $50. You won’t get that kind of price from those other guys!
What’s your favorite open source program? Leave us a comment! And don’t forget to check back next week for more free tools!
