LibreOffice: Open Source, Free, Functional. Cut the proprietary cord!
November 24, 2018
LibreOffice: Open Source, Free, Functional. Cut the proprietary cord!
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with LibreOffice
I have been using, and introducing/supporting clients to use, LibreOffice for over ten years. I began using OpenOffice over a decade ago and continued once it became LibreOffice a few years ago. I also shared it with my students over a decade of teaching, as I worked in poor, rural communities where proprietary solutions like MS Office were simply not viable.
- It converts MS Word very well. This is a strength for the same reasons I mentioned in my summary - LibreOffice is a free and open-source office suite but most importantly, it provides identical functionality to MS' version, empowering those who otherwise cannot afford it. More than MS Word, it opens almost any word processing format
- It also does a great job of opening/editing spreadsheets, also virtually any format.
- For those of us who are using Linux OSs, this is your go-to Office alternative.
- The Impress Presentation application does not open all MS PowerPoint files well. It seems it cannot translate the applied themes, at times. It DOES open them, and you can navigate slides well enough, but once opened, it often loses enough quality that you would not want to share as-is in an actual presentation (I've found using Google Docs to convert is more effective here).
- The ROI is through the roof. One main reason I use Linux is because it is both free and quality, not to mention relatively user-friendly (more so with each new version of OS or apps, as in this case). I cannot imagine ever going back to Windows, after more than a decade away, just as I cannot envision a return to MS Office or any proprietary office productivity suite.
Again, it is both free and functional. What more could anyone want?