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LibreOffice

LibreOffice

Overview

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).

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Recent Reviews

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LibreOffice has gained popularity among users and organizations as a cost-effective alternative to Microsoft Office. Its functional …
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A Viable Alternative

9 out of 10
January 31, 2019
Incentivized
I have used LibreOffice (and its code predecessors, StarOffice and OpenOffice) since 2000. Compatibility with MS Office has improved over …
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Pricing

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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…

Entry-level set up fee?

  • No setup fee
For the latest information on pricing, visithttps://www.libreoffice.org/download/do…

Offerings

  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services

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Product Demos

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LibreOffice Online short development demo

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fuzzing LibreOffice input events with american fuzzy lop

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Converting 0/1 values to TRUE/FALSE in LibreOffice Calc

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Demo: Creating CMS Content in LibreOffice

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libreoffice calc simple table format

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Product Details

What is LibreOffice?

LibreOffice is a free and open-source Office Productivity Suite from The Document Foundation, presented as the successor to OpenOffice.org. LibreOffice is compatible with a wide range of document formats such as Microsoft® Word (.doc, .docx), Excel (.xls, .xlsx), PowerPoint (.ppt, .pptx) and Publisher. LibreOffice also provides native support for the open standard, the Open Document Format (ODF). Work can also be exported in many different formats, including PDF.

The suite includes Writer (word processing), Calc (spreadsheets), Impress (presentations), Draw (vector graphics and flowcharts), Base (databases), and Math (formula editing). It is available in an installed edition (available in Windows, Mac OS, and Linux versions), through mobile apps for Android and iOS.

LibreOffice Applications


LibreOffice Writer - Word Processor
Writer's features are aimed at presenting an open source alternative to Microsoft Word of the Microsoft 365 Office Suite. It is a word processor and desktop publishing solution. It is described by its developers and power users as able to support the creation of a book with diagrams, indexes, and illustrated content. Writer also includes typical word processor features such as various fonts, page layout and editing tools, and an autocorrect library. Writer also can be extended with templates, and comes with Wizards to help the user through more advanced workflows (e.g. mail merges). Common complex documents are supported with templates by default, and more niche forms may have templates available through extensions created by the supporter community.

LibreOffice Calc - Spreadsheet
A free spreadsheet program designed to be easy to use but able to support more advanced calculations , with wizards to guide the user through some commonly needed advanced number crunching and report generation. Calc includes a Scenario Manager to perform "what if..." analyses, and a solver component that enables the user to find optimum value of a particular spreadsheet given constraints appearing in other cells. Also, its "DataPilot" features lets Calc pull raw data from exogenous data sources, and also integrate real-time data streams.

LibreOffice Impress - Presentations
Impress lets users create slides, similar to PowerPoint, presenting a free alternative to the popular presentation tool. Impress can also be used for diagramming, or for creating and displaying drawings. Its Fontworks tool also lets users create and insert 2D and 3D images into presentations. Impress supports working with multiple monitors, and users can share slide notes, operate a presentation slider, etc.

LibreOffice Draw - Graphics
The LibreOffice suite also includes a graphics and diagramming tool. Draw also is designed to be relatively simple to use for quick sketches but also is able to support more advanced technical drawings, or brochures and the like that might be used to support marketing activities. Users can also work with existing graphical objects, using LibreOffice Draw as an editing tool with cropping, grouping, etc.

LibreOffice Base - Database
Base is designed to meet a range of enterprise DB requirements, and natively includes drivers for popular used database engines, such as MySQL, MS Access, and PostgreSQL. It includes JDBC- and ODBC- built-in support, to extend its versatility and enable Base to be connected to virtually any database. Wizards are present for help with database design, and it includes pre-defined tables for common use cases (e.g. sales orders, asset tracking, etc.).

LibreOffice Math - Formula Editor
Math is a standalone formula editor that can be used to generate formulae for presentations, spreadsheets, and word processors. Users can work with a range of elements with a pure focus on the math.

LibreOffice Charts - Charts & Visualizations
Similar to Math, LibreOffice also allows the user to work with charts in a freeform way, focusing on style, color, size, etc. across a variety of pie charts, bar charts, trend graphs, or 3D charts, so that the user can focus on perfecting its style before putting the chart on display in whatever presentation, drawing, or document its destined for.


LibreOffice is supported by an active community, FAQ, and documentation from The Document Foundation. Also, LibreOffice tutorials are plentiful and found online in video format. While The Document Foundation does not provide commercial support directly for enterprises, they do maintain a certification program for trainers, developers, and professional consultancies that do wish to provide premium support for LibreOffice implementations and on-going supports. Also, while LibreOffice is an installed option, a cloud-based service based on LibreOffice is available through Collabora Online, a SaaS based on the LibreOffice Office Suite that is available in a browser.

LibreOffice Videos

LibreOffice is a free, fully-featured and open source office suite used by millions of people around the world. Download it from https://www.libreoffice.org Support us: https://www.libreoffice.org/donate/ Background music: Energy, Bensound, http://www.bensound.com Office sof...
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How to create a budget in LibreOffice Calc
How to automatically update a time sheet in LibreOffice Calc
How to create a Vlookup and Hlookup formula in Libreoffice Calc

LibreOffice Technical Details

Deployment TypesOn-premise
Operating SystemsWindows, Linux, Mac
Mobile ApplicationApple iOS, Android

Frequently Asked Questions

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).

LibreOffice starts at $0.

Microsoft 365, ONLYOFFICE Docs, and Google Workspace are common alternatives for LibreOffice.

Reviewers rate Support Rating highest, with a score of 7.3.

The most common users of LibreOffice are from Small Businesses (1-50 employees).
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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(130)

Community Insights

TrustRadius Insights are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, 3rd-party data sources. Have feedback on this content? Let us know!

LibreOffice has gained popularity among users and organizations as a cost-effective alternative to Microsoft Office. Its functional compatibility with Microsoft Office allows users to seamlessly open and export files, making the transition smooth. With its simple and user-friendly interface, average users find it easy to navigate and access its features. Many reviewers have used LibreOffice for various tasks such as writing manuscripts, solving complex calculations, and creating high-quality presentations.

LibreOffice is particularly useful in mixed Windows/Mac/Linux environments for internal collaboration and document management. Users appreciate that it is free to download, eliminating the need for costly upgrades and version compatibility. The software is commonly used for word processing, spreadsheet creation, and even database functions. It has been relied upon by individuals, students, and organizations for over a decade, demonstrating its reliability and longevity.

The compatibility of LibreOffice with various file formats is highly valued by users, allowing for easy document sharing and collaboration. It is also praised for its ability to handle tasks such as data tracking, inventory management, and creating signs in retail stores. Whether in business or personal settings, LibreOffice has become a default tool for document creation. Reviewers appreciate the considerable cost savings provided by LibreOffice compared to commercial document creation software.

With its support of the open-source community and compatibility across different platforms, many users choose LibreOffice over proprietary office suites like Microsoft Office. Its stability, reliability, and versatility make it suitable for producing various types of documents. Businesses and individuals who don't require the full Microsoft Office suite can benefit from using LibreOffice. Reviewers express their commitment to continue using and supporting LibreOffice through donations.

Clear and well-defined styles: Users have stated that Writer, the word processing software in LibreOffice, is very good at defining styles for paragraphs, characters, tables, pages, etc. This concept is clearer than in MS Office, making it easier to write documents with well-defined styles. This feature has been beneficial for future changes to the document.

High-quality typographical features: Many reviewers appreciate the typographical features of Writer when using supported OpenType fonts. They feel that these features make it easier to produce high-quality documents that are almost desktop publishing quality. Features such as kerning and ligatures enhance the overall appearance of the documents.

Convenient PDF export feature: A significant number of users have highlighted the embedded PDF export feature in Writer. They find it complemented by a lot of useful features and makes it convenient to export documents as PDFs without the need for additional tools. This simplifies sharing and ensures compatibility across different devices and platforms.

Consolidated Macro Recording in Calc: Several users have found the Macro recording feature in Calc lacking compared to MS Excel, making it difficult to use and limiting their ability to automate tasks effectively.

Compatibility Challenges and Complex Syntax in Basic: Users have experienced incompatibility and a more difficult syntax of Basic in Calc compared to Excel, resulting in frustration and decreased productivity.

Lack of Comprehensive Tutorials for Calc: Many reviewers have noted that tutorials for achieving various tasks are written for Excel only and cannot be reused for Calc. This lack of resources makes it challenging for users to find appropriate guidance, hindering their proficiency with the software.

Users highly recommend using LibreOffice as a free alternative to Microsoft Office, particularly for small ventures or businesses. They praise its compatibility across different operating systems and consider it a great substitution for other office suites. LibreOffice's word processing and spreadsheet functionalities are highly recommended for creating documents and PDF publishing, while users suggest exploring alternatives for database management. Despite concerns about support and community, LibreOffice is highly recommended for users in various domains, be it professional, academic, or personal.

Users particularly favor LibreOffice for companies or startups with limited budgets who cannot afford expensive office suites. While they recommend sticking to Microsoft Office if feasible, they see LibreOffice as a low-cost and relatively effective option. However, they caution about minor compatibility issues but recommend using LibreOffice for reading, writing, saving, and opening MS Word documents, as well as for college students and editing documents. Writer, the word processor in LibreOffice, is considered style-based and easier to use than Word. For office tasks beyond database management, LibreOffice is deemed perfect. However, it may not fulfill all needs when creating PowerPoint presentations.

Users recommend utilizing LibreOffice when working with Linux-based operating systems. While it may not have all the features of Microsoft Office, it is still regarded as a great free alternative. Some caution that it may lack user-friendliness compared to paid options. As a cost-effective alternative to proprietary licenses, especially for business tasks, LibreOffice receives high recommendations from users. Its ease of use caters to both non-technical and new users alike.

Users highly recommend giving LibreOffice a try to save money but advise planning accordingly because while it is free and powerful, certain limitations should be taken into account. Overall, users see LibreOffice as an excellent open-source alternative to Microsoft Office that won't disappoint if given a chance. It is recommended for various office tasks unless group presentations require PowerPoint or preferred software by teammates. Users find it surprisingly efficient with almost all the same options as Word and suggest comparing it with OpenOffice for desired features. In conclusion, users recommend using LibreOffice and believe it will be well-liked.

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(1-2 of 2)
Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
October 29, 2018

Best open Office suite

Miguel Useche | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
It's used by all the organization to write all documents and to make spreadsheets. We use it because we want to have all documents in an open format that we know it will be maintained for multiple years. Also their price is lower so it helps the organization to save costs by avoiding the need of multiple licenses for an Office software.
  • It's lightweight, it opens fast and doesn't consume a lot of resources. Helpful for older computers.
  • Real multi-platform, I can use the same software on Windows, Linux and MacOS. I can compose a document on my MacOS laptop and the open it at my linux machine without any problems. Also workers can use any OS without losing compatibility with OpenOffice.
  • Great compatibility with other offices suites, it can open any document format so we don't have to worry about formats.
  • One click export to PDF, we can quickly creates PDF by exporting with a single click.
  • UI is outdated, it feels like an Office suite from a decade ago.
  • Some tools are not intuitive, I have to search documentation or online guides to do some tasks.
  • Their Microsoft compatiblity is not enough
It's a great suite for organization where they can't spend a lot of money on licenses. I recommend it when employees have multiple operating systems and want to use a single office suite. I don't recomend it if all your bussiness platform is managed by Microsoft software.
  • A lot of ROI because their license price, 100% of return.
  • Sometimes we lose time finding how to do things, lowering a little bit of productivity.
  • We need to spend on training for employees because most people only know how to use Microsoft Office
I choose LibreOffice because it's open source, free, low cost and multi-platform. It's the perfect office suite if you use Linux, there's no bettter choice. Also by reducing license costs, company could spend money on more important stuff. Also there's a lot of documentation online so people can learn how to use the tools by their own.
Oracle Linux, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), Ubuntu Linux
Yes
Microsoft Office 2010 due to license costs and poor OpenXML support.
  • Price
  • Product Features
Price, Libreoffice doesn't charge for a license, if there are multiple employees in the organization you'll save a lot of money.
By checking all the features that LibreOffice has and seeing their compatibility with other document formats.
  • Creating index table on LibreOffice Writer is simple to use.
  • LibreOffice Impress is easy to create any kind of slides, there's no initial learning barrier, you can start using it right away.
  • LibreOffice Writer lets you edit images quickly and even edit them with an external tool.
  • Changing slide's background at Impress is hard to do and not intuititve.
  • Edit styles at LibreOffice writer is hard, editing them and saving them requires a lot of steps and if you change document you can't migrate config.
No
There are multiple things that are not intuitive and are not obvious. You have to go the documentation in order to know how to do them.
Martin Malec | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
It is being used by whole organization and it is still being used as the main office suite. Recently we purchased Office 365 and are gradually moving to MS Office being part of the O365 subscription. But anyway in the last 4 years the whole organization was using almost exclusively the LibreOffice suite, most of the company's documents are saved in OpenDocument format (.ods, .odt etc.) and these files tend be difficult to be converted to MS Office formats. LibreOffice is being used as a text editor (Writer) and table processor (Calc) mostly, with only exceptional use of Impress for presentations and Base for connecting to a MySQL database and doing some edits there via forms.
  • Writer is very good at defining styles for paragraphs, characters, tables, pages etc., and this concept is more clear than in MS Office. Writing a document with well-defined styles makes it easier for future changes.
  • Good typographical features of Writer when using supported OpenType fonts such as kerning and ligatures make it easier to produce almost-DTP-quality documents. Embedded PDF export with a lot of features complements this really well.
  • Both Writer and Calc support doing elegant operations using regular expressions for example for a sophisticated find and replace, or in Calc in formulas.
  • The Office suite is perfectly cross-platform and has binaries available for all three major desktop operating systems: Windows, Mac OS X and GNU/Linux. Native support for Linux allows working in a mixed environment with zero compatibility issues. Lack of support of MS Office on Linux makes it complicated to collaborate between Win/Mac users and Linux users if one party repeatedly saves and opens the document in MS Office and the second one in LibreOffice, creating compatibility issues all the time.
  • Calc lacks Macro recording feature, or has it in an unusable state, compared to a very useful Macro recorder in MS Excel.
  • Incompatibility and a more difficult syntax of Basic especially useful in Calc. Writing the same macro in Excel is much easier than in Calc and converting macros from Excel to Calc or vise versa is complicated if not impossible. Most tutorials on how to achieve various tasks are written for Excel only and cannot be reused for Calc.
  • Calc should add the feature of dynamic previews of Pivot tables, instead of the need to generate one, delete it and try another time if the settings were not perfect. Excel shows the example how this could be done. More users can start using Pivot tables if the barrier to understand the concept is lowered.
  • There should be much more visually reasonable formatting templates for Calc tables. The current list is absolutely impractical and visually very suboptimal. Several colours, odd/even stripes should be added, as Google Sheets or MS Excel has.
Individuals who need to make some nice text documents, easier tables without macros, or presentations, should use LibreOffice instead of buying or subscribing to commercial office suites, because it is mostly a waste of money in such scenarios. Libreoffice can do 90% of tasks perfectly for most home users. Even smaller companies that don't absolutely require the functionalities of Excel (mostly macros, dynamic pivot tables, PowerPivot etc.) could save a lot of money by using Libreoffice.

Power users that know very well recent versions of MS Office and rely on some of its advanced features may, however, find LibreOffice subpar and their productivity may go down when trying to use Libreoffice and re-learn how to achieve the results they already know how to achieve in their former office suite. Then it may not be a good idea to spend this time to re-learn to this new office suite.
  • During the development of a very small company of 4 employees 5 years ago until last year when it had over 20 employees using Libreoffice instead of a commercial office suite. That saved perhaps a few thousand EUR on license fees, without any significant disadvantages so far with some exceptions. (A rew licenses of MS Office and standalone MS Excel were used by a few people in parallel but most documents were created in LibreOffice anyway.)
  • The desire of the management to switch to MS Office only (due to the desire to use collaborative editing feature of Office365, SharePoint and OneDrive) recently generates an issue with what to do with the hundreds of OpenDocument files in the current document server (.ODT, .ODS). These cannot be seamlessly migrated to MS Office and thus all employees now need to have both MS Office and LibreOffice installed, and be aware of NOT editing an older .ODS/.ODT documents in Excel/Word even though these apps seem to open them somehow, as doing so would damage the file and lead to an irreversible loss of some formatting or functionality.
MS Office is a very good office suite but in the early days of the company spending hundreds of EUR on licenses was not the priority and the added value of MS Office at that time could not compensate the costs. Google documents are used in a limited way for a few collaboratively edited documents but the incompatibility of the native Google Docs format with both Libreoffice and MS Office, and the need to use only the limited feature set of web-based office suite makes it impractical for more complicated documents.
25
All business functions from the regular office workers doing customer support, orders; people in the manufacturing part using it to write and print various documents, to the top management.
2
A power user who knows how to do various tasks and resolve common issues/errors. Knowledge of just MS Office is not enough because a lot of questions from the users are regarding the different behaviour of Libreoffice and the skill to quickly be able to show how to do achieve the desired functionality is an important thing. This may be things such as how to do some complex formatting, using styles, locking cells in Calc etc.
  • Writing regular documents, letters, memos (Writer)
  • Maintaining table /primitive databases of product photos, barcodes, pricelists etc., using formulas to generate filenames etc. (Calc)
  • Manipulating tables in CSV and dBase format to import/export data from accounting software that accepts only these file formats with an exotic codepage not supported by MS Excel or any other office suite (with the exception of other Libreoffice forks and/or original software based on OpenOffice)
  • Using formulas in Calc to generate unified filenames for all product photos used on the e-shop and offered to resellers
  • Using LibreOffice Base as a front-end to access data in a relational database such as MySQL, replacing some more complex Calc tables by accessing the data via forms and similar UI
We use it consistently and have a lot of documents in the OpenDocument format so it will be necessary to use LibreOffice or a compatible product such as Openoffice in the future to be able to open these files. Because the license fee for Libreoffice is zero it is not very costly to keep using it - the costs are mostly for keeping it installed on the office PCs and regularly updated, and solving employee issues with the user support.
No
  • Price
  • Product Features
  • Prior Experience with the Product
Before adoption of Libreoffice the small company was using some free versions of pre-installed MS Office on the laptops, Google documents but without any conscious system, just using what was available "out of the box". My 10+ year experience with OpenOffice and LibreOffice when I joined the team as the IT specialist was lead me to deploying LibreOffice as a reasonable solution without the need to ask for any extra budget for licenses. I was able to offer the user support for any issues that emerged in the upcoming years so it worked very well for several years this way.
I still believe it was a good decision at that time and I would not change it.
  • Implemented in-house
No
Change management was minimal
  • people using MS Office had more issues with getting used to LIbreoffice than beginners or those already accustomed to Openoffice or Libreoffice
  • some people were used to recognize text documents as those having DOC or DOCX extentions and were not confident in seeing ODT for text, ODS for table etc.
Generally easy to perform, issues are how to ensure regular automatic updates on Mac OS X. Fortunatly we have only a few machines with OS X run by management and we can do these updates manually occasionally. Windows updates are quite easy with the support of third party software such as Ninite or Chocolatey, and Linux updates are super-easy thanks to the package manager (apt-get).
No
It was not needed yet, we were able to resolve most issues ourselves or with the support of freely available help or support.
As a open source project it has well documented support channels and bugzilla and developers or other users reply to the tickets and are generally helpful.
Yes
Some case yes, some cases were not considered as a bug ot were considered as a low priority ones and were postponed to future releases so it took much longer to get improvement in the issue.
Compared to most commercial software from big brands where getting a bugreport resolved in a reasonable time I was succesful with LibreOffice to get my bugreport in bugzilla really resolved in the next release of the software.
  • defining styles for paragraphs, characters, tables, bullet lists etc. in Writer
  • exporting PDF files from any app with refined settings
  • sharing a document with users running Windows, Mac OS X or Linux, without compatibility issues, because all users can have LibreOffice installed on their OS and don't have to rely on opening the file in another app with some compatibility issues
  • developing macros in Calc
  • using pivot tables in Calc
  • understanding that there is some incompatibility with MS Office and it is better to use native .ODS / .ODT format when exchanging documents with other LibreOffice users, and using .DOCX / .XLSX format only when need to send documents for external users without forcing them installing Libreoffice as well
No
Most people can quickly start using Writer or Calc or Impress for basic tasks even if they see Libreoffice for the first time, because the interface is similar to older (97-2003) MS Office or other software. Some features are less intuitive than in recent MS Office and some power users of MS Office need to re-learn some things before being proficient in Libreoffice.
With more users using it in the company there are more cases when a simultaneous editing of the same document is needed and this feature is lacking in Libreoffice even though the files concerned are shared and synced by some solution (we use ownCloud). Google Docs or MS Office365 via Sharepoint/Onedrive offer a better function for this.
Libreoffice is a desktop app not requiring any server part so it is always available when the PC is working normally. Installing it on another machine if one PC fails is very quick and easy. This is a non-issue.
For big/imported tables or text documents with images loaded from the internet it is sometimes getting very slow, RAM and CPU intensive, and sometimes even hangs due to some memory leaks or other bugs. This is a long-term problem and is still not resolved perfectly.
We tried to use plugins for ownCloud to be able to edit Libreoffice documents via the web interface of ownCloud but the functionality offered by this at the time we attempted it was not convincing so we gave up and while we still use ownCloud to share Libreoffice files in the company only one person can edit it simultaneously, and only in the desktop app after the file is synchronized by the desktop sync app of ownCloud.

Regarding Zotero it is working very well to use a citation database and embed citations and bibliography to LibreOffice Writer document.
  • OneDrive/Sharepoint, ability to simultaneously edit a document shared via these Microsoft platforms.
No
There are some options for integration in other software but they did not fit our requirements / use cases yet.
Find already working examples on the internet and ask a professional for help with achieving such task if unsure.
Yes
We use mostly Ninite or Chocolatey for deploying new versions of LibreOffice and other software. Upgrading Libreoffice is usually smooth and without issues, except some not yet fully resolved bug when using the Chocolatey method of auto-update. Manual update was successfull in 100% of cases both on Mac OS X, Windows and Linux.
  • Better MS Office compatibility
  • New features of Calc
  • Fixing bugs present in older releases
  • Even better MS Office compatibility
  • UI improvements for a more intuitive use
  • Improving pivot table functionality in Calc
No
No
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