Free Alternatives to Photoshop and Word: How to Save on Software.

According to The Sun: Subscriptions for software can be very expensive each year. However, you don't always need to pay for powerful programs.

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You can reduce your software costs by switching to free alternatives.

We spoke with Jennifer Bruton, the director of Bores.com, about the best safe and free options.

Document Editing Alternatives

WRITE: Many use Microsoft 365 for document creation, which costs £84.99 per year. However, there is a free alternative.

Jennifer says: “Hands down, the best alternative to Microsoft Office applications is LibreOffice (libreoffice.org).”

She adds: “It’s a free and open-source project that is the successor to OpenOffice.”

This suite allows you to create documents, spreadsheets, and presentations that are fully compatible with Microsoft formats.

Photo Editing Alternatives

PHOTO EDITING: Adobe Photoshop costs £262.51 per year, but Jennifer suggests other options: “You can try Gimp (gimp.org) and Krita (krita.org), two powerful open-source graphic editors that can compete with Photoshop.”

Gimp is used for photo editing and retouching, while Krita is great for digital artists due to its painting tools.

For creating materials similar to Adobe InDesign, Jennifer recommends Scribus (scribus.net).

She says: “It’s a great tool for desktop publishing, and again free and open source.”

PDF Issues

PDF ISSUES: Jennifer notes: “The hardest program to replace is Adobe Acrobat.”

“There isn’t really a good open-source equivalent to edit PDFs, for various reasons including the format not being designed for it.”

But her solution is simple.

She says: “The best bet is to edit your existing documents and generate a new PDF.”

This means making changes to the source file, such as a Word document or a Scribus layout, and then using the “Export to PDF” function.

Security First

TOP-LEVEL SECURITY: When downloading free software, be cautious.

Jennifer says: “If downloading from the official website directly, it’s pretty safe, but at Bores.com, we do not recommend downloading from a third-party site as you have no way to tell if the software has been altered.”

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