Is LibreOffice the free alternative to MS Office? In this article, I will provide details about the software suite so you can decide for yourself if it is a good alternative to Microsoft Office. Free isn’t always the best route. Sometimes, free, and open-source software is all you might need to achieve your office document creations. As with anything offered for free, there will be limitations or certain aspects of the software that might not be as robust as the paid counterpart. That is where you decide what is best for your needs.
What is LibreOffice?
LibreOffice is free and open-source software that is a successor to OpenOffice. LibreOffice is available for both individuals and businesses. It does not however provide technical support. The LibreOffice suite includes these applications: Writer (word processing), Calc (spreadsheets), Impress (presentations), Draw (vector graphics and flowcharts), Base (databases), and Math (formula editing).
- Writer (word processing)
- Calc (spreadsheets)
- Impress (presentations)
- Draw (vector graphics and flowcharts)
- Base (databases)
- Math (formula editing)
Does not include: Technical support
Installing LibreOffice
On the LibreOffice download page, a listing of releases and operating system information can be found. You’ll also find release notes, links to system requirements and how to install among other pertinent topics that are related. LibreOffice can be installed on macOS (Intel), macOS (Apple Silicon), Linux 64-Bit (deb), Linux 64-Bit (rpm), Windows 32-Bit, and Windows 64-Bit.
LibreOffice is free for individuals but for businesses, it is recommended they seek the Enterprise version. With the enterprise version, there is a service level agreement (SLA). Businesses can find the ecosystem partners and more by visiting LibreOffice in business section of their website.
- macOS (Intel)
- macOS (Apple Silicon)
- Linux 64-Bit (deb)
- Linux 64-Bit (rpm)
- Windows 32-Bit
- Windows 64-Bit
LibreOffice Verses MS Office
LibreOffice is compatible with many popular document formats of the Microsoft Office suite such as Microsoft Word (.doc, .docx), Excel (.xls, .xlsx), PowerPoint (.ppt, pptx) and Publisher. LibreOffice also has the Open Document Format (ODF), which offers exporting of other popular formats such as the PDF file.
LibreOffice has numerous features and templates that you can incorporate to further extend their applications to meet your needs.
To see a complete overview of how LibreOffice compares to Microsoft Office, browse over to their Feature Comparation Wiki page.
Important Links about LibreOffice contained in this article
Download: https://www.libreoffice.org/download/download-libreoffice/
Features & Extensions: https://extensions.libreoffice.org/
Templates: https://templates.libreoffice.org/
Comparison to MS Office: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Feature_Comparison:_LibreOffice_-_Microsoft_Office