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LibreOffice

Score9.4 out of 10

133 Reviews and Ratings

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What is LibreOffice?

LibreOffice is a free and open-source Office Suite from The Document Foundation, presented as the successor to OpenOffice.org. The suite includes Writer (word processing), Calc (spreadsheets), Impress (presentations), Draw (vector graphics and flowcharts), Base (databases), and Math (formula editing).

Categories & Use Cases

Reviews

What users are saying about LibreOffice.
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LibreOffice is a breath of fresh air in office systems dominated by Microsoft!

Incentivized
Rene AgredanoView profile
Advocacy Journalist and Co-Founder in Finance and Accounting at Tripawds.com (1-10 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

The moment we get a new laptop into our company out goes all the bloated Microsoft ware and on goes Libre Office. it is the smoothest way to get up and running for the least amount of cost.

Pros

  • Syncs perfectly with MS files
  • Works equally as well as MS
  • Love the intuitive interface

Cons

  • Updates should be more obvious and easier to implement
  • Some drop down menu choices are difficult to find, they're not identical to MS apps
  • It would be nice if it defaulted to current MS operating systems when choosing "Save As" for files.

Most Important Features

  • Cost
  • Update frequency
  • Intuitive interface
  • Syncs well with other files

Return on Investment

  • This has saved us SO MUCH money! As a non-profit we are forever grateful.
  • We appreciate not getting sucked into the MS app drain on systems and cost
  • It's helped us on a daily basis for over 6 years, we are very thankful for it.

Alternatives Considered

Microsoft 365

Other Software Used

Adobe Acrobat, GIMP, QuickBooks Desktop Pro, Thunderbird

Open Source Office Productivity Suite Delivers Solid and Reliable Performance

Incentivized
Karambir Singh KhalsaView profile
Chief Executive Officer in Corporate at Gong Tones, Incorporated (1-10 employees employees)

Pros

  • It's free.
  • It's a full-featured office productivity suite.
  • The various applications are able to import and export documents in a variety of well-known formats.

Cons

  • Name brand office suites vendors such as Microsoft and Google have online portals where documents can be saved and shared for automation/integration. LibreOffice would do well to expand into this space.
  • Memory handling in large spreadsheets (i.e., 60k rows or more) seems a bit quirky on my Macbook Air. It might just be a memory issues, but scrolling with the trackpad behaves strangely (i.e., cell selection jumps around unexpectedly).

Return on Investment

  • I am able to quickly create and edit word processing documents and spreadsheets which are for all intents and purposes equivalent to documents I could create and edit in other tools such as Microsoft Office and Google Docs/Sheets.
  • Lack of an online portal for sharing documents necessitates the use of Google Sheets for automation/integration. Ideal would be an all-in-one solution.
  • Having open-source software that provides common functionality eliminates the need for expensive licenses.
  • Lack of dedicated support is negligible. Most issues can be resolved using online search.

Alternatives Considered

Google Workspace (formerly G Suite) and Microsoft 365 (formerly Office 365)

Other Software Used

Google Workspace (formerly G Suite), Apple iWork, Microsoft 365 (formerly Office 365)

I use LibreOffice instead of MS Office

Incentivized
Robert GephartView profile
Partner in Finance and Accounting at Cantlon Financial Planning, LLC (1-10 employees employees)

Pros

  • It is free.
  • It works with all MS Office files.
  • It is a full-featured desktop solution. No internet connection required to use.

Cons

  • Excel macros are not supported.
  • You need to get used to it. While it operates like Office, some of the icons/locations of items are different.
  • It runs like Office 2003, not Office 365.

Return on Investment

  • It decreases our office expenses.
  • When interfacing with people outside of the organization, most people don't know what it is.
  • If sharing files, you need to be sure to save in Office formats.

Alternatives Considered

Microsoft Office 2016 and Microsoft Office 365

Other Software Used

KeePass, Adobe Acrobat DC

LibreOffice - a full featured, free office suite

Incentivized
Jacob WallView profile
Senior Technical Writer / Client Services in Customer Service at Georef Systems Ltd. (11-50 employees employees)

Pros

  • Full Featured - Just about everything you can get in a purchased office suite is available - word processor, spreadsheet, slides, drawing, database.
  • The Draw program provides features that you may not find elsewhere (at least not easily) - e.g. flowcharts with arrows that automatically connect to boxes, following smooth lines.
  • Follows industry standards - e.g. the spreadsheet uses the same formulas you'd be used to from Excel.
  • Compatible - Easily open and edit documents from Microsoft suite; save in all the usual file formats, with good formatting. (i.e. It won't look skewed when you send it to others. There are small issues with editing existing slides from PowerPoint, but these are minor.)
  • Editing PDFs - Word will not let you do this. For small-scale edits, LibreOffice Draw works great.
  • Maintained actively with frequent and useful updates.

Cons

  • The menus are outdated; while it's full featured, some tools are buried within dialogs that you'd have to find under sub-sub-menus, etc.
  • It's not online. The current way of collaboration is online apps like Google Docs. This makes collaboration less convenient.
  • It can give a poor impression if it becomes visible to clients or other stakeholders; this isn't a flaw with the suite itself, but often impression matters.

Return on Investment

  • Positive - Providing more complete options to clients where occasional Office suite use is needed.
  • Positive - Financial savings on these same uses.
  • Positive - Greater work flexibility.

Alternatives Considered

Apache OpenOffice

Other Software Used

Apache OpenOffice, Remote Desktop Services, Zoom, GoToMeeting, GoToWebinar

LibreOffice offers a complete feature set and compatibilty at zero cost

Incentivized
Verified User
Engineer in Engineering (1-10 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

LibreOffice fills in the gaps where I need a spreadsheet and/or word processor which are fully compatible with other file formats current in the industry. Unlike Microsoft, I can easily just setup LibreOffice on a computer without paying a cent and get users going with this quickly and easily. I really appreciate the work that has gone into LibreOffice as a cohesive system.

Pros

  • spreadsheet
  • wordprocessor
  • presentation

Cons

  • Presentations format is not fully 100% MS compatible
  • Importing MS Word documents is very very close but not perfect

Most Important Features

  • document format interchange with other office tools
  • spreadsheet formula language that makes sense

Return on Investment

  • Zero cost for office tools, improved bottom line

Alternatives Considered

Microsoft 365

Other Software Used

GNU Emacs, Ubuntu Linux, Thunderbird

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