Compare the office apps
CertSight sells two apps for each office job. They are not the same app at two prices — each was built a different way, and each product's own page is plain about what it does and doesn't do. These tables restate those pages side by side, so you can pick the one that fits how you work. Prices, versions and status come straight from the product catalog. Every app here is fully local: your files stay on your computer, and the only network calls are license activation and deactivation.
Word processing · Spreadsheets · Presentations · Notes · Sample outputs
Word processing
Two word processors — which one fits how you write?
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PageForge $49 one-time one-time Version 1.1.0 · Beta REPLACES MICROSOFT WORD for one price. |
WriteForge $29 one-time one-time Version 1.1.0 REPLACES MICROSOFT WORD for one price. |
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|---|---|---|
| How you write | One continuous document. You type and format in place — bold, italic, underline, Heading 1–3, bullet and numbered lists, live word count. | A list of blocks — paragraphs, Heading 1–3, bullet lists. Click a block to edit it; text inside blocks carries bold, italic and underline. |
| Word (.docx) files in | Imports .docx and reports, per file, what was lost on the way in: images, footnotes, headers and footers, link targets, fields and character styles don't survive. | Imports .docx via Mammoth: headings, bold/italic and link text come across; images are dropped, link addresses are dropped, numbered lists arrive as bullets. |
| Tables | Yes — insert and edit in the document, formatting inside cells; tables export as real tables. Columns are equal-width; no shading. | Yes — insert a table and edit it in place; cells hold text with the same inline formatting, and tables export as real tables to .docx and Markdown. |
| Find & replace | Not mentioned in PageForge's documentation. | Yes — literal text only: no regular expressions, no whole-word or case options. |
| Files it saves and opens | Saves its own .pfdoc format; exports DOCX and PDF, both generated on your computer. | Saves .docx, .md and .txt. Opens .md and .txt back as plain paragraphs (Markdown symbols are treated as ordinary text, not styling); a .docx opens again through the same Word conversion described above. |
| Autosave | Not mentioned in PageForge's documentation. | No — the app says so itself: Save As writes the file, and unsaved work is lost if you close without saving. |
| Printing | Not mentioned; PDF export is the documented way to share a finished document. | Yes — a real Print button with a print stylesheet. |
| Downloads | Windows and Linux. The 1.1 upgrade (Word import, tables) is in the Windows build; the Linux download is still the previous version. | Windows only. |
| Known limits (from its own page) | No images, no font choice, no text colours. Paste brings plain text only. | No images in documents, no spell checker, no page-layout controls (margins, columns, headers); exported .docx uses Word's default heading styles. |
Who each one suits
PageForge: You receive Word documents and need to keep working on them — the per-file import report tells you exactly what a file lost. Also the pick if you need PDF export.
WriteForge: You write your own documents in a block editor, want Markdown and plain-text files you fully own, find & replace, and a Print button.
PageForge — $49 one-timeWriteForge — $29 one-time
Sources: Each product's own CertSight page and repo documentation. Prices and versions are read from the live product catalog when this page loads.
Spreadsheets
Two spreadsheet apps — which one fits your sheets?
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CellForge $49 one-time one-time Version 1.0.0 · Beta REPLACES MICROSOFT EXCEL for one price. |
SheetForge $29 one-time one-time Version 1.1.0 REPLACES MICROSOFT EXCEL for one price. |
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|---|---|---|
| Grid | Columns A–Z, 100 rows, one sheet per file. | Opens at 1,000 rows × 52 columns and grows to column ZZ as you work. One sheet per file. |
| Formulas | Around 100 built-in functions — maths, text, dates, lookups, logic. | 29 functions (listed in full on its page): SUM, AVERAGE, IF, VLOOKUP, INDEX/MATCH, dates, text and more. |
| Real Excel (.xlsx) files | Imports and exports .xlsx — the first worksheet only. | Opens real .xlsx files with their formulas and recomputes them — a multi-sheet workbook opens its first sheet only, and the app tells you. Saves .xlsx with formulas preserved; bold persists in its own JSON saves but not in .xlsx saves. |
| Its own format and other files | Native .cellforge.json; one sheet per file. | Its own JSON format, plus .csv in and out. |
| Charts | Bar, line and pie charts drawn from a selected range — a snapshot: press Refresh after editing the numbers. | No charts — stated on its page. |
| Number formats and dates | General, Number, Currency, Percent and Date formats; dates are stored as serial numbers and shown as dates with the Date format. | Currency, percent and date formats persist into the saved .xlsx; dates display as serial numbers. |
| When a formula breaks | Not specified in CellForge's documentation. | The cell shows an error code — #DIV/0!, #CYCLE! for circular references, or #ERROR! — never a silent 0. |
| Downloads | Windows and Linux. | Windows only. |
| Known limits (from its own page) | No macros, no cloud sync, no collaboration; conditional formatting and styling beyond bold and the five number formats are not preserved. | No sort, no filter, no charts, no pivot tables, no macros, no print — stated on its page. |
Who each one suits
CellForge: You want a fuller function library and charts, and your sheets fit one worksheet of 100 rows — including Excel files you need to open, read one sheet of, and send back.
SheetForge: You work with long, simple lists and real .xlsx files whose formulas must survive the round trip, and you export to CSV or JSON. You don't need charts or sorting.
CellForge — $49 one-timeSheetForge — $29 one-time
Sources: Each product's own CertSight page and repo documentation. Prices and versions are read from the live product catalog when this page loads.
Presentations
Two presentation apps — which one fits your decks?
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SlideForge $49 one-time one-time Version 1.1.0 · Beta REPLACES MICROSOFT POWERPOINT for one price. |
PresentForge $29 one-time one-time Version 1.1.0 REPLACES MICROSOFT POWERPOINT for one price. |
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|---|---|---|
| Building a slide | Six layouts and three themes, with a sample deck to start from. Every block is editable text; formatting (bold, italic, size, colour, alignment) applies per block, not per word. | A title plus bullet lines typed in a plain text box; three layout choices (Title, Content, Image). Font size, bold and alignment per slide; four themes. |
| Pictures | Not part of the documented feature set — slides are text blocks and charts. | Yes — an Image slide holds one real picture (PNG, JPG or GIF up to 10 MB), stored inside the deck file. One picture per slide; size adjusts with a slider, placement is fixed. |
| Charts | Real bar, line and pie charts (one data series), exported as real chart objects inside the PPTX. | No charts in the documented feature set. |
| PowerPoint (.pptx) files | Exports real .pptx files. It cannot open .pptx files — decks start in SlideForge. | Exports 16:9 .pptx — one-way: PresentForge cannot open .pptx files. Decks are saved as .json. |
| Exports PDF — one landscape page per slide. | Not mentioned in PresentForge's documentation. | |
| Presenting | Full-screen Present mode; slides change with a plain cut — no animations or transitions. | Fullscreen mode with keyboard navigation and a slide counter. |
| Speaker notes | Notes can be stored in the deck but are NOT included in PPTX or PDF exports — its page says so. | No presenter view and no speaker notes — stated on its page. |
| Downloads | Windows and Linux (the Linux build is the previous version). | Windows only. |
| Known limits (from its own page) | No animations or transitions, no .pptx import, charts are single-series. | Decks are fixed at 16:9; one picture per slide at a fixed placement; three layout choices. |
Who each one suits
SlideForge: The deck has to leave the building: real PowerPoint files with real charts, plus a PDF. You build decks from text and data, not photos.
PresentForge: Quick internal talks built from titles and bullets, where a slide sometimes needs one photo — and the deck stays a simple file you can reopen and re-present.
SlideForge — $49 one-timePresentForge — $29 one-time
Sources: Each product's own CertSight page and repo documentation. Prices and versions are read from the live product catalog when this page loads.
Notes
Two note apps — which one fits how you keep notes?
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JotForge $29 one-time one-time Version 1.0.0 REPLACES EVERNOTE AND NOTION for one price. |
NoteForge $19 one-time one-time Version 1.1.0 · Beta REPLACES EVERNOTE AND NOTION for one price. |
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|---|---|---|
| How notes are organized | Notebooks: create, rename and delete them, and move notes between notebooks. | Plain .md files with frontmatter, kept in the app's own folder; tags group notes (a note can carry several). |
| Writing | Markdown editor with a live preview beside it. | A plain-text editor; the preview renders headings, bold, italic, inline code and dash lists — links, images, code blocks, tables and quotes show as plain text. |
| Search | Full-text search across titles and bodies; title matches rank first. | Searches titles and text — not tags; tag filter chips match whole tags exactly and show counts. |
| Autosave | Autosaves about 0.4 seconds after you stop typing. | Autosaves about a second after edits stop, and 'Saved' appears only once the write has actually landed. |
| Files in and out | Imports and exports .md files. | No import, and no folder choice: notes live in the app's folder. Export one note or all notes as .md or .txt — exports never overwrite an existing file. |
| Deleting | Deletes are permanent — no trash, no undo. Its page says so. | Deletes are explicit and permanent — no undo, no trash. Its page says so. |
| Not included (from its own page) | No tags, pinning, reminders, edit history or trash; no attachments or images — notes are text and Markdown only. | No notebooks or folders, no attachments, no sync — and files without frontmatter in its folder are skipped on purpose. |
| Downloads | Windows and Linux. | Windows only. |
Who each one suits
JotForge: You think in notebooks, write Markdown with a live preview, and want full-text search that finds a phrase anywhere in any note.
NoteForge: You want your notes as plain Markdown files you own outright, organized by tags, with an autosave indicator that only says 'Saved' when the file is really written.
JotForge — $29 one-timeNoteForge — $19 one-time
Sources: Each product's own CertSight page and repo documentation. Prices and versions are read from the live product catalog when this page loads.
Want evidence, not adjectives?
The sample outputs page publishes real files produced by PartStudio, PlanStudio, CabinetStudio and AppForge themselves — with checksums you can verify.