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SoftMaker makes its Office 2016 for Windows available for free
Fri, 4th Sep 2015
FYI, this story is more than a year old

German office software vendor SoftMaker has today announced it is offering its SoftMaker Office 2016 for Windows office suite free of charge to education providers worldwide.

As part of its education drive, the company is making the offer available to schools, teachers, colleges and universities.

Institutions will get a site license that allows them to install and use SoftMaker Office on all computers at the institution's premises.

Students at university can also get the software, but for a fee.

"Office packages represent an indispensable part of teaching and learning, and are used on a daily basis for written work, calculations and presentations,” Martin Kotulla, CEO of SoftMaker, says.

“Until now, purchasing these suites has been a heavy investment for any educational institution, but by offering it free of charge, SoftMaker is helping educational institutions cut these costs and invest the money elsewhere.

“Good education is essential for a good future, and we want to contribute to helping to relieve schools, colleges and universities financially,” he says.

SoftMaker Office 2016 for Windows consists of the word processor TextMaker 2016, the spreadsheet application PlanMaker 2016, the presentation programme Presentations 2016 and an improved version of Thunderbird for e-mails, tasks and calendar appointments.

All programmess are compatible with current Microsoft Office file types DOCX, XLSX and PPTX, as well as older Microsoft Office formats (DOC, XLS, PPT), all of which can be opened, edited and stored without any loss of content.

“No other alternative Office suite offers this kind of compatibility with the Microsoft Office file formats,” Kotulla says.

SoftMaker Office 2016 for Windows provides a range of functions that go beyond the features provided by Microsoft Office, such as an integrated addressbook for mailmerges and single letters, direct EPUB export for the production of e-books, a flexible PDF export feature and comprehensive graphics-editing functions.

SoftMaker Office 2016 is suitable for all versions of Windows, fromXP to Windows 10.