WPS Office 2020 for Mac REVIEW | Mac Sources

4 min readOct 4, 2019

WPS Office 2020 for Mac

9.3

A robust productivity suite of applications for Mac users.

As a Mac user, I am always looking for ways to use Microsoft Office-style programs. I grew up in an era when the ‘only’ solution was Microsoft Office until some open-source solutions like Open Office (initial release 2002) and iWork from Apple (initial release 2005) hit the scene. For the longest time, Microsoft Office ruled the productivity applications. Today, there are a lot of different options out there for full-feature productivity solutions. One of the most popular is Google’s G-Suite, but even it has its own limitations. For the past week I’ve been using a relatively new productivity solution for Mac, WPS Office 2020.

DETAILS

WPS Office was once known as Kingsoft Office. It’s initial release was more than 30 years ago. Today, it is WPS Office 2020. It runs seamlessly on the Mac operating system and it comes in a light-weight package that is fully compatible with all major office formats. WPS Office 2020 is also available on all mainstream operating systems, including Windows, Linux, iOS and Android. The suite, available in both free and premium versions, also offers massive libraries of free pre-built templates all within one single intuitive tab-style interface, perfect for users to quickly and easily prepare perfect looking documents that showcase their unique styles.

WPS Office is billed as a “dream solution for low-budget, no-commitment, free productivity office suite.” It consists of Writer, Presentation, and Spreadsheets. The system automatically syncs documents on any devices — anywhere and anytime. With WPS Office you have ‘rich content’ to work with. There are newly-designed charts that feature modern colors and graphics so that users can create professional, creative documents.

There are several different options for using WPS Office including:

WPS Office Free
WPS Office Premium
WPS Office Professional
WPS PDF to Word
WPS Data Recovery Master
WPS Office for Android
WPS Office for Mac
WPS Office for iOS
WPS Office for Linux

USER EXPERIENCE

Through the years, I’ve used many different types of productivity apps. I have become accustomed to the way word processors, presentation software, and spreadsheet analysis programs are designed to work together so working with WPS Office was sort of second nature to me. I used Writer the most, but did work within Presentation a bit while testing out the software. I like the way the software was is packaged in one wrapper. When you open the program, you select a recent document to open, create a new document, or select the program you want to work in. Documents open in different tabs, which I rather enjoyed because I could easily see what I was working on.

Even though WPS Office 2020 works on a Mac, it may not make sense to switch productivity suites if you primarily stick to one system. That said, if you happen to move through different platforms (Mac, Windows, iOS, etc.), then using WPS Office’s cross-platform sync feature can really benefit the user. I haven’t had any issues with opening Word, PowerPoint, or Excel files with WPS Office. There is the occasional formatting issue, but the documents open with no hassle.

One of the things I noticed right off the bat was some of the smaller shortcuts I use aren’t available within WPS Office. For example, I will frequently copy and paste text from one source into a document. I like to paste it with no formatting by using the shortcut command + option + shift + v. But WPS Office does not recognize that as a command keystroke. The program will allow for plain text pasting, but you have to use the right + click drop-down menu rather than a keystroke combination.

As far as functionality goes, I found that there was a bit of lag when I typed, but it wasn’t so bad that I didn’t want to use the applications. That said, I did attempt to use the Cloud service for WPS Office, which is currently in Beta. It’s very slow, but did allow me to write a few lines and it saved it so that I could open it again on my MacBook Pro.

CONCLUSION

WPS Office is a solid option for an inexpensive productivity suite. I would suggest that you try out the free version before upgrading to a premium option in case it won’t suit your needs. For around $30 per year, WPS Office 2020 is a very affordable option to use for word processing, data analysis, and presentation creation.

For more information, visit wps.com/mac, Facebook, and Twitter.

Originally published at https://macsources.com on October 4, 2019.