Home » Productivity » Office » Excel / Spreadsheets

Get powerful, free office tools with LibreOffice

September 22, 2011 By 14 Comments

Looking for an alternative to paying for Microsoft Office? Tried OpenOffice.org but found it didn’t quite fit? You might find what you need in LibreOffice free office tools from The Document Foundation.

LibreOffice consists of six full-featured office tools. Base allows you to manage databases, and create queries and reports to track and manage information. Calc is basically the same as Excel or any other mainstream spreadsheet program. Draw allows you to create illustrations, logos and flow charts. Impress is basically the same as Powerpoint. Math and Writer are pretty self explanatory from their names as well. Even these names are typical of the whole experience I had with LibreOffice: simple and effective. It is also multiplatform, running on Windows, MacOSX, and Linux.

LibreOffice was originally started by folks who detached from the OpenOffice.org project due to dis-satisfaction with the project’s parent company. That explains the similarities between the two. “Libre” comes from latin, meaning “liberty”.

[Note: this post was written by Freewaregenius contributor B.C. Tietjens.]

Libre2I have used both Microsoft Office and OpenOffice.org and I have to say that I now am a big fan of LibreOffice for two main reasons. The first is as stated above; simplicity. Every tool in LibreOffice is so easy to use if you have no experience with office tools, and even easier if you have experience. The layouts of the menus and buttons and various toolbars are easy on the eyes and intuitive. I never had to search for a button or option that I needed, not for more than a moment or two, anyway. Each of the tools has it’s own help module as well, which can lead you through the learning curve for LibreOffice at light speed. The help modules were some of the best, easiest to follow and understand, that I have seen anywhere. It is apparent that a lot of work and research went into the interface of the tools and their help modules, to make them easy and pain-free to learn and use. There’s no animated paperclip trying to interrupt you every two minutes, and there’s very little in the way of technical jargon in the basic menus. For this reason alone, I would recommend LibreOffice to any one who wants to have the benefits of an office suite without the headaches of learning to speak geek. The main LibreOffice window opens on a choice of projects, giving you options about what you want to do in plain English. Options like “spreadsheet” or “formula” appear instead of some brand named code words for the same thing. The main window also offers a host of pre-made templates for you to choose from, if what you want to do is a common enough project, such as business cards or HTML documents. It also offers handy buttons for learning about it’s features, downloading more templates and features. All for free, of course!

Secondly, LibreOffice is open source. That means the source code is available for anyone to download and modify; this is a nice aspect of LibreOffice that compliments it’s ease of use. From what I have seen, it’s got a decent open-architecture that would make it easy to adapt to any needs you might have.

During my test, I used each of the tools to produce some basic documents in various formats and found that, compared to the other two Suites I mentioned, LibreOffice seemed to run and respond slightly faster and use slightly less resources. This is a boon to those of us who have older, less powerful computers, but still want to multi-task. I was able to run Calc and still have a movie playing in another window, a download going in a third, and a couple of desktop gadgets running as well. I used Calc to work out a sample budget for three months, and before I realized it, I was done and the numbers were all finished. It was completely painless and worked just as I had hoped. No muss, no fuss. LibreOffice even allows import of various file formats!

The only thing I noticed as a possible problem for LibreOffice is that it didn’t seem to mesh well with the customized aero theme I am using. I have my colors set to somewhat unusual ones, and the colors in LibreOffice appeared slightly odd and garish because of it. Luckily, this was easily fixed by switching to a more standard windows theme while using LibreOffice. This may be something that only occurs on my system or it may be something they are planning on fixing soon. Either way, it was a very small annoyance in an otherwise superb experience.

LibreOffice vs. OpenOffice.org: I am sure a lot of you are wondering if LibreOffice is so similar to OpenOffice.org, which one should I use? Well they are very similar but there are some differences worth pointing out. First, Libre supports more languages than OpenOffice.org, which can be a boon for those of us that are multi-cultured and multi-lingual. Secondly, LibreOffice does a better job than OpenOffice.org at handling Microsoft Works, Lotus Word Pro, and WordPerfect documents. One of the biggest differences, that may be important more to companies than to individuals, is that OpenOffice.org offers a premium version that will get them some pro-level support if they have questions or problems. LibreOffice users will have to rely on the community.

LibreOffice also offers some robust support for SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) within the Writer, Impress, and Draw modules. SVG can be exported from many popular drawing applications, like  Adobe Illustrator, Microsoft Visio, and some CAD programs. LibreOffice also has a standalone help file installer, which can be a boon if you don’t think you’re going to need the help files and want to save some tiny bit of space on your hard drive, but doesn’t really matter otherwise. I did note that OpenOffice.org comes with Java bundled into the .msi installer, but it wasn’t the latest version so I had to go update it manually anyway.

All in all, I would say that unless you are running a big company and need the premium support levels of OpenOffice.org, LibreOffice is probably the better bet. However, the community support for LibreOffice is not to be overlooked. I found answers to pretty much every question I had, with a minimum of searching.

Freewaregenius 5-Star Pick

Bottom line: I would recommend this office suite to anyone, no matter their experience level or needs. LibreOffice has you covered, and doesn’t have a price tag. In my book it’s a winner.

Version tested: 3.4.3 – OOO340m1 (Build:302)  on Windows 7 Home Premium 32-bit.

Compatibility: Windows (32bit/64bit), MacOSX, Linux.

To learn more about LibreOffice and to download it, you can visit their home page: http://www.libreoffice.org/


 
 
 
B.C. Tietjens

B.C. Tietjens

Born and raised overseas in a military family, B.C. Tietjens visited and lived in many places all over the world. He has worked on a number of publications and enjoys writing for different audiences, on such diverse subjects as relationships, technology, prestidigitation, self-improvement, entertaining children, and biographical stories. He currently writes primarily for Freewaregenius and enjoys the heck out of it.
September 22, 2011
B.C. Tietjens
14
flattr this!
  • dmx

    I have been using Open Office for years. A few weeks ago I thought I’d give Libre a try.

    It seemed identical, at least in the things I was trying to do with it. But it had a problem that convinced me to go back to Open Office: It had no context-sensitive help — no F1 key basically. Apparently they were still working on the documentation and would refer you to their online help which was very incomplete. I figured it would be some time before they got this straightened out and since the programs were almost identical I went back to OO.

  • michel

    Although every geek website in the world sings the praises of Open/LibreOffice, they apparently never use it as I have. It is simply not good enough if you have to work in the real business world, where everyone buys the real business tool. It is not able to handle MS Office files. It cannot tranlsate the simplest formatting elements (headers, footers, anything with tab spces) and its comments and track changes features will grind your computer to a halt – literally.

    I’ve used it in various versions over the years, inclusing the latest releases,on multiple computers, and simply gave up. Recommedning this to non-geeks is not helpful, it’s leading them to wasted time and dissapointment.

  • http://techlogon.com TechLogon

    Nice article – LibreOffice’s support for Works documents is a clincher for users wanting to access old Works docs.

    @Michel – if you work in the real business world you’re going to be using MS Office anyway. But Open/Libre Office is perfect for home users who just want to write a few letters or tot up bills as it does the job well, saves them $100 and has better security/stability than the bloat of MS Office.

  • Anonymous

    Another problem is that you can’t download and use one component of the suite. You need to download the whole thing to just use one of the tools.

    What’s the difference between the All and Normal versions?

  • BenjaminT

    I wasn’t able to find an “All” or “Normal” version, friend. Can you help me out with a link to see what I can do to answer your question?

    ~Benjamin

  • Anonymous

    The All has more languages.
    I would try one of the applications if I didn’t have to download the entire suite of 6 applications to try the one.

  • BenjaminT

    The amount of space and time it takes to download all of them is pretty minimal, no more so than is bearable. If you don’t have that kind of time or hard drive space, you may be best off going with free websites rather than downloadable freeware. On the other hand, not every program will fit with every person. One of the great things about the internet and freeware is the almost endless variety of programs out there. You’re bound to find something you like if you keep looking. I hope that helps, friend.

    ~Benjamin

  • Julia

    Benjamin, thanks for your article on LibreOffice. I visit this site often and have found your articles most helpful. Keep up the good work.

  • http://www.mahalasoft.co.za Mpumelelo Msimanga

    I wrote my thesis using OpenOffice before Sun was bought out by Oracle. Like MS Word, to get to understand the more advanced features takes time and one has to realise MS Word and Writer are different products. Initially I looked to do things in OpenOffice in the same way I would do them in MS Word. I realised with time that I needed to learn things the OpenOffice way. I think this is one of the things that needs to be emphasized when introducing none OpenOffice/LibreOffice users to the product. It mentally prepares them.

  • http://www.portablefreeware.com webfork

    I agree with user “michel” that OpenOffice isn’t a replacement for Microsoft, but OpenOffice can do other things Microsoft can’t:

    - Opens hundreds of file types versus a very short list in MS Office.
    - Can easily export to PDF
    - Has many more drawing tools
    - Can run portably (from a USB drive)

    Additionally, a lot is made of the Microsoft formats but I only see problems with them:

    - Microsoft is only ever going to be able to reliably edit Microsoft. So if you didn’t like the new ribbon interface in Office 2007, you’re stuck with it. Meanwhile as an open format, there are many editors to choose from for OO documents, spreadsheets, and otherwise.
    - There is no MS Office for your mobile device — even though most people use their phone as much or more than their PC now. For OO files, there are many great free ones available.
    - Microsoft is bad at opening corrupted files and templates. Meanwhile, I’ve actually used OO to fix broken MS Office files.

  • Ambimom

    I switched to LibreOffice earlier this year and was very happy until I needed to issue a “report” from a database. The word processor on LibreOffice works flawlessly. True. But LibreBase is too buggy. The thing crashed 20 times. It just didn’t work and adding insult to injury the crash permanently altered Libre Base. I un-installed it and re-installed Open Office. Was able to finish that report in about 5 minutes with no muss, no fuss. I did file a bug report but this is a major problem that must be addressed.

  • Pingback: The ten best free programs of 2011 via Samer | That's All I Have To Say About That

  • http://ni.ck11.tripod.com Charlie Knight

    I have also used Open Office and advocated it to others before the Oracle buyout of Sun and the resulting debacle. Now that OOo is pretty much in the Apache camp, I might look at it again, but I doubt I will go back.

    As for not being able to do things you do in Microsoft Office. Let’s get one thing straight from the beginning. Microsoft Office is the flagship Microsoft program that is coded just like the rest of the Microsoft products, very poorly. It does things the Microsoft way which HAS to be different than industry standards, to force you to buy their products. Some people are understanding this and are now shunning the clunky and weird nonstandard way that Microsoft codes things. They are learning the standard methods and finding that programs like Libre Office work much better in a mixed environment than Microsoft’s products ever thought of doing.

    Bottom line. The bull in the china shop is Microsoft Office. I am beginning to tell people that and refusing to communicate to them in MS Word files. If they are that stupid as to shell out huge bucks for inferior products, then why should I spend money to deal with essentially losers in the business community. No one praises a business person for spending a lot of money for an inferior product that does not do the job well. Microsoft Office should not be an exception to that rule. Take the ‘ribbons’ idea for one thing. A useless and time consuming frill that does not speed up office production at all. Only a minority of companies are following the Microsoft lead on this one, much different than in the past.

    If Microsoft continues in its Arrogant route it will end up like RCA, a bully that ended its time in the business playing field as a footnote and not a real player any more. The entire business community may do things alike for a short period of time, but when we realize we have been scammed, we dump the product alike as well. Microsoft’s time has come, good bye. Billy Gates did the right thing in leaving the ship before it sank.

    I now carry Libre Office on a flash drive through portable apps dot com so I do not need to be forced to go through the hoops Microsoft Office puts you through to do a simple task.
    I just launch Libre Office from my flash drive and enjoy the time and not try to figure out where Microsoft Office put the fuction this iteration.

    I suggest that the poor business decision is to continue to use Microsoft Office.

  • Joey

    Have to agree with Charlie. All the Microsoft operating systems (except win 7 has some improvements but it is still easier to use Q-Dir for some file management and still quicker to search for files with Search Everything) have been POS systems, and Microsoft Office is worse! And to go from a help system where one could bookmark and annotate files to one where you can’t even bookmark, and when you find the info you were looking for, it is so confusing that you have to go on the net and google help from your fellow microsoft victims – there are always several posts of pissed off people who had the exact same problem. Sometimes you find and answer, sometimes you don’t.
    What a scam!