Free office suite: it's not just Microsoft in the race

Martin Jud

30.11.2018

Translation: machine translated

Microsoft Office is all well and good, but there are alternative solutions that are free, take little time to get used to, can be used offline and allow you to work just as productively.

Even Microsoft has a free Office. However, "Microsoft Office Online" is, as its name suggests, web-based only with the appropriate account and its use is intended to be restricted. It includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote, rather like Google Docs, Sheets, Slides and Forms. But what do you do when you're looking for an offline alternative to Office?

Well, I'll suggest three. These are limited to "free software". Proprietary solutions such as Apple iWork, WordPerfect Office, WPS Office and SoftMaker Office are not listed here in detail. Of course, I'll also tell you at the end which software I use privately and why.

OpenOffice Apache

Apache OpenOffice has been around since 2002. Until 2010, it was the best of the free office solutions (formerly OpenOffice.org). Its source code is open, free and available for almost all operating systems. This office suite, created from the StarOffice source code, was mainly developed by Sun Microsystems (which belongs to Oracle).

Applications included

Word processing (Writer), spreadsheets (Calc), presentations (Impress), databases (Base), formula editor (Math), graphics (Draw)

Supported file formats

Windows, macOS, Linux and others

Licence and download

Licence Apache version 2 (free software)
Download

Calligra suite

The KDE community has been committed to the development of free software since 1996. Among other things, KDE developed the Calligra suite, a free office and graphics suite derived from the former KOffice, using OpenDocument formats.

Applications included

Word processing (Words), spreadsheet (Sheets), presentations (Stage), database (Kexi), project management (Plan), digital painting (Krita), vector graphics (Karbon), flowcharts (Flow)

Supported file formats

Primary Linux (best supported system), FreeBSD and, with some installation effort, also MacOS

Licence and download

LGPL, GPL (free software)
Download

LibreOffice

LibreOffice, a derivative of OpenOffice, was born out of the discontent of many former OpenOffice developers who turned away from Oracle in September 2010 and founded The Document Foundation. Meanwhile, LibreOffice has a larger user base than Apache OpenOffice, thanks in part to more regular updates.

Applications included

Word processing (Writer), spreadsheets (Calc), presentations (Impress), databases (Base), formula editor (Math), graphics (Draw)

Supported file formats

Windows, macOS, Linux

Licence and download

MPL, LGPL v3+ and GPL v3+ (free software)
Download

Which Office should I download

If you're a Linux user, then take a look at the Calligra suite, the biggest software suite of the three shown. By the way, you can also use Calligra to import documents from MS Office (both .doc and .docx), but saving is only possible in OpenDocument formats. However, they are also readable with MS Office applications and other office suites.

OpenOffice and LibreOffice offer full support for MS formats. When it comes to program scope, they are on a par. But compared to LibreOffice, OpenOffice is less likely to receive updates with new features or major tweaks. OpenOffice mainly receives security updates and bug fixes. LibreOffice, on the other hand, is fully supported thanks to the developers at The Document Foundation. That's why I've been using LibreOffice for some time now. I'm very happy with it, and so far I don't miss any MS Office functionality.

Martin Jud

Senior Editor

martin.jud@digitecgalaxus.ch

I find my muse in everything. When I don’t, I draw inspiration from daydreaming. After all, if you dream, you don’t sleep through life.

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