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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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.
That’s monstrous. When I send a PDF I don’t want it to be editable, if I wanted an editable format I’d use an editable format. Exporting to PDF is supposed to be a digital equivalent to printing.
Exporting to PDF is supposed to be a digital equivalent to printing.
It really isn’t. Even without this feature (that I’d never heard of before) it is a format that is very easy to edit.
If you need PDFs to be tamperproof, you can however digitally sign them. (And then the recipient needs your public key to verify).
It sounds opt-in.
I saved many many documents as pdf via libre office and never encountered this feature, so I’d say so too.
It is.
Then don’t embed the document in the pdf. Easy.
Which is why it’s optional I suppose.
Once you get used to libreoffice ms office will feel like a gimmicky toy
You haven’t used LibreOffice’s pivot tables have you?
Nope I use python for that 😹
Exactly. Point proven
Sorry I don’t have a good recommendation
Edit your comments, don’t reply to yourself
I don’t either.
Neither do I.
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This.
That?
No that
This it is, then.
I am done.
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.
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.
Microsoft has a history of being sue happy against people that have tried to ape MS’s cash cows in the past, so you won’t find a clone project
You could always do in-browser Office if nothing else works. Or g-suite
Over my dead body…
I can’t speak for the whole suite, but Excel sucks in the browser. The browser version do not have all the same features as desktop. I only use Office if I’m forced to and use LibreOffice or Latex otherwise
I am currently forced to use Excel online for work. Such a frustrating experience. And I can’t even edit it offline, because the conversion between two languages and two versions doesn’t work properly.
Libreoffice has it’s problems too, but it feels much more ‘friendly’ somehow.
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much prefer the ribbons for the UI. it’s much more convenient imo and I was lost otherwise. glad libreoffice had that as customisation options!
@mypasswordis1234
OnlyOffice is good. Very similar to MS officeI 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.
@TheSun
Good to know. Thanks for that insight
I think you’ll be pretty disappointed with anything else that’s available. Of those two I’d say stick with OnlyOffice.
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“if you have a problem then don’t have a problem”
Thank you
But in any case, we shouldn’t expect not-ms-office to act exactly as ms-office
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honestly, I’ve only clicked on this post because of your username
“Foss Microsoft Office for Linux actually it isn’t in Opensource”
Look at my username, then at my displayname 😉
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Any reason why you recommended Win 8.1 in particular?
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Ok that makes sense
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At that point, just use their browser based products.
They have extensive “telemetry” either way.
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That would also help fund further development of wine and proton.
OpenOffice
Open office is a worse form of Libre office
I know, that’s why I use LibreOffice.
OnlyOfficeOpenOffice was the only thing I could think of
Isn’t OpenOffice deprecated or mostly abandoned? I’m sure it will works, though.
I don’t think anyone should use it, no. It is technically an option, though
Yeah it’s mostly abandoned. There was a thread about it recently. I will edit in a link.
Edit: I got lazy and stopped looking and also forgot to edit.
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
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.
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
Not sure if you’re thinking of WPS Office (formerly known as Kingsoft Office). It’s development is funded by the Chinese government, but although Kingsoft claim that the Linux version is developed by the community, they haven’t really published the source code anywhere, so it’s considered a high-risk software.
It’s bloatware and adware imo.
I see, that might be it!
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Why did Linus start developing Linux when he could have just contributed to FreeBSD which already existed?
No, it didn’t. FreeBSD didn’t exist until 1993. 386BSD wasn’t until 1992. Linus has said that if a free, unencumbered BSD for PCs existed in 1991, he indeed would not have made Linux.
Well I’m an idiot then.
Lol, https://gondwanaland.com/meta/history/interview.html if you want to read more.
Open Office has been dead for a while now. Libre Office is the only active one. And Only Office for the MS clone with fewer features.
