Granted, many of us have less need for office-productivity programs when we’re not in an office. If you’re freelancing, doing volunteer work, or have just gotten used to writing your holiday lists in Excel, however, you may feel the loss.

Luckily, there are a number of free, top-quality programs now available to replace what corporate America once provided. Here are a few you may want to try:

Office Apps:

• OpenOffice gives you a full-featured word processor, spreadsheet, presentation and drawing software, a database, and more. It can read and write documents from Microsoft Office, including Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and Access.
• AbiWord is another free word processor, similar to the one with OpenOffice.
• If you travel a lot, though (say, back and forth to a grandparent’s house), you may prefer applications that store your documents online (like Yahoo! Mail and Gmail do for mail). Google Docs and Spreadsheets are good choices here, as is Zoho, which includes a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation and project management software, database, and more. Writeboard is another nice word processing option.

E-mail and Calendar:

• Both Yahoo! Mail and Gmail (Google’s product) have approached—and in some cases, surpassed—the functionality of a desktop e-mail client. Many of us already used them for personal e-mail even when working, so I won’t spend much time on them here. If you prefer a standalone desktop e-mail client, try Thunderbird (by the same folks who brought us the Firefox browser).
• Yahoo! Calendar and Google Calendar pair with their respective e-mail apps. They include features previously only found in corporate calendar programs, like the ability to invite other attendees to an event and allow easy sharing of calendars. This is great for families who need to know each others’ schedules, but also want to maintain separate calendars. (My partner doesn’t want or need to know all of the blog events I track, for example, but likes to know when I’m going to be visiting my parents.) If you use Thunderbird for e-mail, however, you should try its calendar extension, Lightning. (Lightning is based on Sunbird, a standalone desktop calendar.)

Project Management:

• GanttPV is a downloadable alternative to MS Project.
• Basecamp is a Web-based project management tool with nice collaboration features. The basic (and quite good) service is free, but if you need to manage more than one project at a time, you’ll need to pay for a subscription.
• If you just want to track some to-dos (and who among us doesn’t have them?), try the Web-based Ta-da List, notable for its clean and easy interface.

Graphics:

• If paying hundreds for Photoshop doesn’t appeal to you, try GIMPshop. The menu structure and terminology are very similar to Photoshop, and it even supports Photoshop plugins.

Computer Protection:

• Anti-virus and anti-spyware: ClamWin is a good substitute for McAfee and Symantec anti-virus products.
• AdAware and Spyware Blaster (both Windows only) will detect and block spyware and other nasties lurking on your PC.

(All are available for Windows or Mac unless otherwise noted.)

There are lots of other handy software tools out there, which I may review if there’s an interest. These are just a few that can substitute for what we may have used when employed.

(Thanks to The Simple Dollar via Lifehacker for their thoughts on good, free software.)

• My PBwiki, which I use as a freeform to-do list and scratch pad.
• Gmail, because e-mail is life, or at least sustenance for it.
• A local newspaper site that lists school cancellations and delays. (My son’s not in school yet, but many of his playgroups follow the school schedule.) (Cancellations.com is a searchable, national (U. S.) site for cancellations, but I don’t have too much experience with it.)
• My local library’s catalog page, so I can quickly renew all my son’s books.
• The Meetup.com page for my mom’s group, so I can see what events are coming up and if there’s anything that needs an RSVP.
• The National Weather Service site. (This has fewer annoying ads than some of the commercial weather sites.)

I also have bookmark folders for my discussion groups and other fun sites, but the above gives me a good, useful “control panel” for my day. Anyone else do anything similar? What’s on your list?