this post was submitted on 21 Oct 2023
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Looking for an alternative to Microsoft Office for the Linux.

I've already tried:

  • LibreOffice (It doesn't have the same experience as Microsoft's apps.)
  • OnlyOffice Desktop Editors (I like it)

What else would you recommend?

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[–] [email protected] 126 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Get used to LibreOffice. It's the most actively maintained, well-made opensource office software.

[–] [email protected] 45 points 11 months ago (7 children)

An underrated feature of LibreOffice is the ability to insert the original document inside a PDF when exporting. If you reopen that PDF in LibreOffice, it will grab the embedded copy for editing instead of trying to guess how to convert the PDF into its original.

Hybrid PDF

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[–] [email protected] 55 points 11 months ago (5 children)

Once you get used to libreoffice ms office will feel like a gimmicky toy

[–] [email protected] 10 points 11 months ago (2 children)

You haven't used LibreOffice's pivot tables have you?

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[–] [email protected] 48 points 11 months ago (5 children)

Stick with LibreOffice , you'll get used and it is most likely the best alternative.

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 11 months ago

You can easily change LibreOffice to have a tabbed layout like MSOffice (view > user interface). The only thing to note is that LibreOffice has great documentation, but it can be a bit difficult to follow with a different layout.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Nothing has exactly the same experience as MS. I don't think there is a clone project for it.

The two you listed are your best options.

Does LibreOffice have any issues that prevent you using it? If not, it's probably that your expectations are set by your comfort and familiarity with Office and that is the problem you need to solve.

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 11 months ago (4 children)

You could always do in-browser Office if nothing else works. Or g-suite

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 11 months ago (1 children)

@mypasswordis1234
OnlyOffice is good. Very similar to MS office

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I found onlyoffice to have the best compatibility with documents imported from/exported to MS Office. For most people, their coworkers/teachers/professors or whatever will be using MS office, and if the formatting is borked everytime you move the file between libreoffice and ms office users, it gets old fast. That was my experience with libre office and why I ended up on onlyoffice. Of all the suites i've tried it has the best compatibility between itself and ms office for formatting.

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[–] Matty_r 9 points 11 months ago

I think you'll be pretty disappointed with anything else that's available. Of those two I'd say stick with OnlyOffice.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

honestly, I've only clicked on this post because of your username

"Foss Microsoft Office for Linux actually it isn't in Opensource"

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago (11 children)

Is there a reason a few are being developed rather than focussing on one? Are there key differences/use cases for each of them?

LibreOffice vs. OpenOffice vs. OnlyOffice

I remember once reading that one of them (or some other FOSS alternative) was bad for privacy/FOSS, but I can't find that anymore

[–] [email protected] 11 points 11 months ago (1 children)
[–] thesmokingman 7 points 11 months ago

Basically the only commits to OpenOffice now are things a full project lint would catch. There are some security updates here and there. Last I looked it’s basically one dev fixing spacing.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Forkers gonna fork. OnlyOffice seemed like it was going after Google Docs, but with a MSOffice look and feel. The live sharing and editing worked well when I tested it.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Ah I see. So LibreOffice for local stuff, then OnlyOffice for the google docs type of work

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (3 children)

Not quite. OnlyOffice has an offline/local suite too. When most people talk about OnlyOffice, they are usually referring to the local suite.

OnlyOffice has better compatibility with MS Office file formats (and a similar UI), so some people prefer it over LO.

The downside is that because the UI is written in HTML5, it's slow and sometimes clunky compared to LO, which is (mostly) a native app. This is especially visible with large spreadsheets - OO takes a long time to render them, whereas in LO they open in a reasonable time.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

Why should all the developers suddenly decide to give up their own project and collaborate?
Their goal isn't to take over the entire market, since the software is free and there really isn't a "market" in that sense.

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