Hard to Beat at the Price Point
Updated March 27, 2018

Hard to Beat at the Price Point

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with LibreOffice

I have used LibreOffice throughout my undergraduate degree, and later as the main offline office productivity suite on my Linux desktop. LibreOffice is a free and open-source office suite that includes applications for spreadsheet creation, word processing, presentations and database design. I use it to read documents, prepare presentations, and edit invoices.

Pros

  • Free to use, includes many core office applications including CAD
  • Relatively mature offerings and full featured software; applications such as Calc and Writer support macro functionality
  • Easy to get started with using if you're familiar with older versions of the Microsoft Office suite

Cons

  • Stability of the applications is a concern. It has improved over the years but expect at least a couple of crashes a month in Writer or Calc.
  • Does not support VBA scripts if importing documents from Microsoft Office
  • Weird formatting and rendering inconsistencies with switching between file formats or importing from MS Office.
  • Saved a lot of money; sometimes you just need to view a document's contents and LO is adequate.
  • Presentations are not as slick or professional-looking as I'd like and I have switched to other software for when making a polished impression is important
  • Its free price is sometimes offset by the time needed to complete business objectives in the application between crashes and rendering issues
Microsoft Office 2016 is the premium option for word processing, but in my line of work the content is more important than the presentation. I am mostly content to work in Google Docs unless working with documents of a sensitive nature. Then I use LibreOffice.
LibreOffice is your best bet if you appreciate working on documents offline and want to keep storing them locally. It is perfect for students. For Linux systems it's one of the best native offerings you'll get, short of spinning up a Windows virtual machine and paying for a MS Office suite license. A bit more effort will be required if you want to create Word documents or presentations that look slick, professional, and modern - so if presentation and time are important to you, go for other office suites instead. LibreOffice is free, so there's no harm in trying it out and seeing if it's sufficient for your needs.

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