LibreOffice

 
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"Free office suite as alternative to MS Word, Excel, Powerpoint"
Dec 6, 2019 by Jane

We all have to work with documents and spreadsheets on our PC sometimes. But some of us simply cannot put up with the price tag on Microsoft Office, the most well-known software designed for this purpose, which costs quite a lot. We advise you to have a look at LibreOffice. It's a very popular open-source suite of productivity programs that includes applications for spreadsheet creation, word processing, presentations, and database design and comes without charge. It provides you with everything you could want from an office suite and includes such tools as:

  1. Writer – to create documents;
  2. Calc - to work with spreadsheets;
  3. Impress – to make presentations;
  4. Draw – to create graphics and diagrams;
  5. Math – to edit formulae;
  6. Base – to manage databases.

Advantages and supported file types

LibreOffice is a free and fully-functional alternative to such expensive office suits as Microsoft Office or WordPerfect. Importing and exporting documents is quite easy. The software has no extension limitations and provides options to open and save files in multiple formats, including DOC, DOCX, PPT, PPTX, etc. It’s pretty handy if you need to collaborate with people using Microsoft Office.

LibreOffice vs. Microsoft Office

The interface of LibreOffice is not as good-looking as the MS Office’s, for example. Some Microsoft Office documents, opened in LibreOffice, might require heavy formatting. Moreover, there are several problems with Calc: it doesn’t support MS Office macros and lacks the dynamic previews of Pivot tables. However, the functionality of Calc can be extended via multiple plug-ins.

Conclusion and alternatives

Overall, if you’re not working with documents containing custom fonts or complex customization, LibreOffice can be considered an awesome budget-friendly substitute for Microsoft Office. Besides Windows, the software is available for macOS and Linux. There's also a version of LibreOffice for Android called LibreOffice Viewer. Other free suites of programs for creating text documents, spreadsheets, and presentations include Apache OpenOffice, WPS Office, and Google Suite.

Rating:
5 votes
Version:
6.3.1
License:
Open source
Runs on:
Windows 11,
Windows 10,
Windows 8.1,
Windows 7
Release date:
Sep 26, 2019

Tags:

#MS Office alternative
#free office suite
#free word processor
#free productivity suite
Pros
  • Great compatibility with documents created in Microsoft Office
  • Works with CSV files
  • Impressive statistical tools in Calc
  • Extendable functionality via a wide range of plug-ins
  • Cross platform
Cons
  • No real-time collaboration
  • Lacks integrated cloud storage
  • Limited selection of templates
  • MS Office documents with complex formatting may look completely different