Onlyoffice for Mac Review: the free Microsoft 365 alternative you need

Best prices today: only for Mac

Microsoft 365 (formerly Office), Google Docs and Apple's free work (which includes pages, keynote and numbers) are undoubtedly the three most popular productivity suites for Mac users. Microsoft's option is perceived as the industry standard by many, and educational establishments tend to count on its services. Google Docs, although based on the web, was also adopted by the masses because of its free offer and its ease of collaboration in real time. IWork, although it is not as practical, also provides free and reliable tools for those of the apple bubble. But what happens if none of these suites suits you?

Fortunately, there are many alternatives, including free and open source software (FOSS) with a solid reputation. Only Office is one of them, reproducing the Microsoft 365 experience – raises the subscription fees. Is it good, however?

Only first impressions

Onlyoffice is available for free on macos, iPados, iOS, Windows, Android and Linux. For this criticism, I installed version 8.3.2 of the application – the last at the time of writing – on a MacBook Air M2 performing MacOS 15 Sequoia 15.4. Although some App Store reviews suggest that iPhone and iPad customers suffer from irritating buckets, such as random accidents, Mac experience has generally been very stable on my side. In fact, I had a hard time finding a single problem with this application.

When launching only from Office, you will be welcomed by a clean screen without advertising presenting its main sections. You can create a document (.docx), a spreadsheet (.xlsx), a presentation (.PPTX) or a PDF file from zero or choose from the existing models. Some models are available for offline use while the rest requires an active internet connection to download when creating a new file. These allow you to quickly compose an invoice, a calendar, a control list, a proposal, etc.

Alternatively, you can launch an existing file stored locally on your computer or one of the supported cloud storage services, such as NextCloud. Regardless of what you opt, the application runs fluidly and I have not yet met my first serious bug.

Foundry

Documents

In terms of layout and features, the publisher of only documents resembles Microsoft Word. You can adjust the font, the colors, the formatting, the alignment and more in the supported files. You can also insert shapes, tables, equations, symbols, etc.

It should be noted that you can not apparently export a file in Apple .Pages unless the original file has been created in the Pages application. However, you can import, modify and save these owner files in only Office very well.

Foundry

Beyond the fundamental principles, you can protect the documents from documents, encrypt them, add your signature, display their number of words, define the author, etc. And if you have connected a compatible cloud service, you can collaborate remotely with other users to make real -time changes.

One of my favorite features is the integrated plugin library which allows you to count even more features in a document. Thus, for example, you can add an AI third assistant to analyze your file and help you shape its content.

Calculation sheets

Similarly, the Onlyoffice calculation sheet publisher offers a Microsoft Excel experience. You can carry out all the actions you expect from this software, in particular the resolution of formulas, the creation of dynamic graphs, data analysis and illustration. You can import XLX, XLTX, CSV, Ots and Numbers files, while export, as mentioned above, excludes the format.

Foundry

Presentations

You guessed it, the presentation editor in Onlyoffice imitates Microsoft PowerPoint. By default, you have several provisions of slides that allow you to easily organize the desired content, whether text or supports, on the screen. The application also offers a plethora of animation and transition styles, allowing you to give life to your work.

Like the known alternatives, you can also define personalized backgrounds, insert links, graphics and photos and preview the final result. Some of the formats you can import include PPTX, PPT, PPSX, ODP and Keynote.

Foundry

Pdfs

Finally and above all, Onlyoffice includes a basic PDF viewer and publisher. Unlike the Apple native preview application, Onlyoffice allows you to modify the content in a PDF document, so that you can modify the text and add shapes, drop -down menus and fields to fill.

It is certainly not as advanced as a dedicated premium PDF editor. However, as Office only acts mainly as a free alternative to Word, Excel and PowerPoint, it is certainly a welcome bonus advantage which is reliable for the basic manipulation of the PDF.

Take a look to see Hoe Onlyoffice compares to other PDF publishers in our tour of the best PDF publishers for Mac. We also assess certain free PDF publishers.

Should you only go to Office?

As we have established, the only office is essentially a free Microsoft 365 clone. If you are counting on Microsoft's office suite and you are tired of its recurring costs, then the only office could act as an excellent alternative.

The application generally maintains the formatting of documents, so that the layout must persist even if others see your files using different software. Since only Office is free, does not have announcements, supports the most popular documents of documents and packs the editing features commonly used, there is no trouble giving it a chance to check if you can successfully replace your existing productivity suite. If my personal workflow extended beyond Apple devices, I would certainly have abandoned iWork in favor of this.