9 Best Free Alternatives to Paid Commercial Software

Instead of Adobe Photoshop, use GIMP

For professional graphic artists, substituting anything for Photoshop is akin to blasphemy. There really is no equal. But if you’re an amateur looking to edit graphics without taking out a loan for the tools to do it, GIMP makes a fine stand-in. You’ll get all the same pencils, airbrushes, and resizing tools, plus advanced options like plug-ins and scripts. The learning curve is most assuredly steeper, though, and you won’t be able to benefit from the quite literal library of books and tutorials out there for the more popular Photoshop.

To try out GIMP, visit this link.

Instead of Microsoft Office, use OpenOffice

Microsoft Office is everywhere. Whether you work from a Mac or a PC, in India or Indiana, you’re probably using Word, Excel, PowerPoint and all the other de facto office tools. That makes it all the more difficult to switch, but OpenOffice replicates almost all of the same functionality, menus, and even file formats. It may not look quite as pretty as the blue “ribbon” design Microsoft has been using since 2007, but for fans of the old office, or students who just need to jam out a paper now and then without paying Microsoft, it will do the trick. That said, some of Microsoft’s most tricked-out features – like a function in Word that automatically formats a proper bib

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- Source : http://danzyworld.blogspot.com