DECEMBER 2019 MACWORLD 109mmmh
Private Internet
Access
PROS- Documents, spreadsheets,
presentations in unified,
tabbed workspace. - Faithful Microsoft Office
clone for much less.
CONS - WPS Cloud login issues
with too many fonts
installed. - Inaccurate font weight
display.
PRICE
Free (in-app purchases)
COMPANY
Kingsoft Office Software
open without issue
in authentic
Microsoft apps.
Although WPS
Office is free
without ads, editing
and search are
disabled after the
initial seven-day
trial period. If you
need to
occasionally open
or print Office-
compatible
documents this will
suffice, but for only
$4 per month (or
$30 annually), WPS
Premium unlocks all features, adding
robust PDF editing, the ability to
export images without
watermarks, and 20GB of cloud
storage (up to 1GB per
document). That’s a good value,
especially for individual users
who don’t need the extra bells
and whistles (Skype credit,
Outlook) bundled with an
Office 365 subscription.
I did experience one issue
logging into WPS Cloud: after
entering proper credentials
under macOS Mojave, I was
unable to log in. Kingsoft
engineers tracked this problem to the
number of fonts installed (over
2,000!) on my iMac 5K. The
situation mostly cleared up
after upgrading to macOS
Catalina, where WPS Cloud
logs in a few moments after
launching.BOTTOM LINE
When it comes to budget-priced
Microsoft Office clones, WPS
Office is one of the more faithful,
with a price and features that
make it worthy of consideration
for individual users. ■WPS Office features a Home menu for quickly accessing recent
documents, cloud storage, and more.