Word: does the page still look authored
Merged header cells, explicit column widths, repeating table headers, tracked changes. These are the elements that silently reflow when a file changes hands.
Word findingsIndependent office suite testing
Office documents, tested — not assumed.
We generate the documents ourselves, open them in a clean installation, and publish what appears on screen — including the parts that went wrong. Where we have not tested something, the page says so instead of filling the gap.
9 of 9 SUM formulas agreed with Excel
26,590 Grand total matched exactly
0 JS Client-side tracking scripts
Free Core suite tier tested
The last test run, in full
Three files, built by script so every cell and formula is known in advance, opened in WPS Office 12.1.2 Free on Ubuntu.
| Test file | What it contains | Result | Detail |
|---|---|---|---|
invoice-contractor.docx | 4-column line-item table, merged header cells, VAT row, right-aligned totals | Layout unchanged | Borders, column widths and the totals row rendered as authored. Status bar flagged a missing Calibri, so a substitute face was used — layout held anyway. |
q1-budget.xlsx | 9 SUM formulas across 5 categories × 3 months, plus a grand total | 9 of 9 matched | Row totals 12,700 / 2,670 / 3,870 / 6,300 / 1,050; column totals 9,040 / 7,530 / 10,020; grand total 26,590. |
deck.pptx | Title layout, bullet body, table slide | Opened and rendered | Text placeholders and the table slide displayed without error. Not part of the formula or layout comparison. |
Power Query / Power Pivot | Data import pipelines and in-memory models | No equivalent | This is a missing feature, not a rendering difference. If your reporting depends on it, migration is a rebuild. |
What this run does not prove: anything about the paid tier (we hold no licence), macOS or mobile behaviour, or a workbook larger than five categories. Those gaps are listed on the method page rather than guessed at.
What we test, and why those things
Document incompatibility is not a dramatic failure. It is a table border that disappears, a page break that moves one paragraph down, or a postcode that loses its leading zero. So we test those, deliberately.
Excel: do the numbers still agree
The same formula on the same input, both applications, compared cell by cell. Averages hide arithmetic drift; individual values do not.
Spreadsheet findingsPDF: does the export survive
Form fields, embedded fonts, signature blocks — whether a file still looks like the original once it leaves the application that produced it.
Conversion notes Flagship review
Is WPS Office a workable replacement for Microsoft 365?
For everyday Word, Excel and PDF work it gets very close at a fraction of the price. It is not a like-for-like swap: Power Query, Power Pivot and VBA that reaches outside the application have no working equivalent, and that is a workflow change rather than a setting. The review separates what we verified from what we could not.
Opens official WPS site · 0 JS tracking
How to read this site
What we do
- Generate test files by script, so every value is known before the file is opened.
- Test the free build in a clean installation with no add-ins.
- Name the version, the operating system and the date next to every result.
- Publish the figures, not a score out of ten.
What we do not do
- Claim to have tested a paid tier we hold no licence for.
- Turn a nine-formula comparison into a percentage that sounds scientific.
- Repeat a vendor's marketing claim as though it were a finding.
- Change a result because a vendor or an affiliate programme would prefer it.