Kingsoft Office Suite has been around for some time now but has always been available only as shareware. This latest 2012 version however has been released as Freeware, which is good news indeed. The freeware ranks are not exactly over endowed with office suites, and even better news is that this one is a truly excellent alternative.
Kingsoft Office Suite Free 2012 incorporates all essential elements; Word Processor, Spreadsheet and Presentation. The suite is feature rich and fully [bilaterally] compatible with Microsoft Office; opening, reading and editing.
Additional features include:
- Built-in PDF Converter
- Multiple document tabs
- Document encryption
- Easily share files via email (built-in)
- Automatic spell checker
Now for some more good news; the download for Kingsoft Office Suite Free 2012 weighs in at a comparatively light 68.3MB.
UPDATE: Several reliable sources are reporting that the Kingsoft software expires after 1 year. We have contacted the company requesting clarification and will appraise you of the situation as soon as a response is to hand.
Final Update (posted 24th September): After communicating back and forth with Kingsoft Support we finally received notification that an official explanation has now been posted on their site: HERE.
Following Kingsoft’s publication of the statement I downloaded, installed and ran the software…all good. I then put my system clock forward one year and again tried to run the software. It would not open and I received this popup message:
Note the references to “trial”, and the last line: “If you do not have a valid serial number, please purchase one at the…”
So, this has not changed in the slightest and we believe it entirely contradicts Kingsoft’s statement.
I also went through the EULA and bring the following extracts to your attention:
- Kingsoft reserves the rights to replace, revise and upgrade the “Product”, as well as the rights to charge fees for such replaced, revised and/or upgraded edition of the “Product”
- Kingsoft is entitled to terminate the EULA at any time, if any terms or conditions in the EULA are violated. Upon the termination, you shall destroy or return to Kingsoft all the copies and all the associated documents and printed materials of the “Product”.
- Kingsoft has the right to amend the policies on the “Product” by a 15-natural-day prior notice on the official website (www.kingsoftstore.com <http://www.kingsoftstore.com>), including but not limited to functional deletion, set of usage time, license termination, etc…
On the strength of all the evidence, Daves Computer Tips does not support nor recommend this software.
Hey Jim
I just found Softmaker 2008 became freeware and now this too, I now have too many choices, if that’s possible, lol.
Thanks for sharing this
Hey TeXaCo – Softmaker 2008 is pretty nice too, but this one from Kingsoft is the very latest up-to-date version so that’s probably a plus. 🙂
As a newcomer to this site I may be missing something, but where is the download link ??
Cheers
The download link is the first 4 or 5 words of the second paragraph.
Yep, where it says “Kingsoft Office Suite Free 2012” in blue text. Just click on that and it will take you to the site. 🙂
LOL. Found it, but could perhaps be marked as download.
We don’t generally provide download links as such. Just a link to the site where you can then read through all the features, specs, etc and then decide for yourself whether you want to download or not. 🙂
Anyway, now you know…whenever you see the blue text that will, more often than not, be a link. 🙂
Kingsoft Office Suite is totally freeware. Download from [link removed – already included in the article]. I did’t find any buy link in the software and website. What make you said it is shareware?
Hi olina – Did we say it is Shareware?
Several reliable sources have reported that if one installs this software and then sets the system clock forward one year, the program no longer works and just displays a message that the license has expired. I don’t know what one would call it, ‘Trialware’ maybe. Whatever, if this is indeed true, and at the moment we have no reason to doubt it, then it certainly is not Freeware (as advertised), Freeware does not expire! We wrote to Kingsoft requesting an explanation and they have confirmed that the software does in fact expire after 12 months. They (kingsoft) also said they are planning to issue a statement on the home page to clarify. In the meantime, we need to keep our readers appraised of the situation.
Cheers…Jim
Kingsoft Office licensing is a bit suspect, we are a computer club and we bought 300 licenses Kingsoft Office 2009 for our members, before we had use the 300 the first installs we getting a notice saying we had used all the quota and entering viewer only mode, we tried every email address we could find for Kingsoft no one would reply, we were ignored. Its is a good office program. So I was a bit wary of this freeware and downloaded it and experimented with putting the clock forward. If you put your computer clock forward one year it ask you for a serial number and enters the view mode only, so best it is a one year trial
Thanks for the information Paul, it confirms our own findings. We have since received another email from Kingsoft. It is written in very broken English so pretty difficult to understand, but it appears they are still promising to publish an explanation on the Kingsoft Office home page. Seeing they have been making that promise for over 3 weeks now, we are going to give them just a couple more days to do that and if they don’t publish in that time or the explanation not satisfactory, we will be issuing a final statement here.
Thanks again…Jim
Dear Paul
Our software is a totally free office suite. We will change the popup windows content as soon as possible. Thank you for your email. We have find the bug about the software trial version window.
Best Regards
Lillian
I’m a bit happy I finally got a reply email from Kingsoft, I think maybe they got caught being a bit cute, seems like a very strange bug to get written in to Freeware, but a least there English has improved for me
“… but a least there English has improved for me”????
Pot..kettle?
Paul – We received a similar reply. We do not believe for one minute this is a “bug”. And even if it was, the development team could have rectified it very quickly. I am about to post an update in the article, including all relevant information.
In our opinion, this has been a deliberate attempt to mislead users and we do not support nor recommend this software.
Cheers…Jim
Your forum and other like it has had a impact with Kingsoft, if you now download their Office 2012 free version from their website it is freeware, it does not now revert to the view mode after one year, which is great news, as one who has done a lot of research into free office suites suitable for new users who are on a limited income for our club, Kingsoft Office is a great program, easy install, no extras to add in or converters to install. It now deserves a plug, maybe Kingsoft tried to be a bit smart but they now have corrected the mistake.
Thank you for the enquiry about our club I will respond soon
I have installed the 2013 Kingsoft office suite, and I set the clock ahead one year. I launched the office applications, created and saved small files, and everything seems to still work. so I am hoping this is a good sign that this Office suite, is really freeware, and not some limited one year trialware. Cheers to all in 2014.