LibreOffice is a powerful and free office suite, a successor to OpenOffice(.org), used by millions of people around the world. Its clean interface and feature-rich tools help you unleash your creativity and enhance your productivity. LibreOffice includes several applications that make it the most versatile Free and Open Source office suite on the market: Writer (word processing), Calc (spreadsheets), Impress (presentations), Draw (vector graphics and flowcharts), Base (databases), and Math (formula editing).

What are the differences between LibreOffice and Microsoft Office?

LibreOffice has been designed to compete directly with MS Office so both include similar productivity tools with similar functions. The equivalent for Excel is Calc, then you have Word and Writer for word processing, PowerPoint and Impress for presentations. LibreOffice also includes Draw which is a vector graphics application and Base which is a database management system.

Microsoft Office on the other hand has other utilities like Outlook which is an email client, Publisher which is a desktop publishing program, Access which is a database manager, Microsoft Teams for team communication and Skype for business, all of these seamlessly integrated.

In addition to LibreOffice being free and MS Office requiring users to purchase a license, there are other differences that can be highlighted such as cloud integration, team collaboration, autocorrect and templates that are found in the latter and not in the free office suite. Ultimately, Microsoft Office runs on Windows, macOS, iOS and Android while LibreOffice runs on Windows, macOS and Linux, which Office doesn't.

Can LibreOffice open Microsoft Office documents?

LibreOffice can both save and open files in all popular Microsoft Office formats such as ".doc" ".docx" ".xls" ".xlsx" and ".ppt" ".pptx" just to name a few. LibreOffice is also compatible with older formats of Microsoft Office including 6.0, 1995, 1997, 2000, 2003, and XP.

In addition to LibreOffice, are there other good (and free) MS Office alternatives?

In addition to LibreOffice, you can download FreeOffice, Apache OpenOffice, Polaris Office or try the online Google Docs suite, which are all free and direct substitutes for Microsoft Office.

Features

  • Load and Save ODF documents in flat XML to make external XSLT processing easier
  • Make license information accessible via the Help menu
  • Made on-line Help available on-line, via the WikiHelp
  • Added "Experimental" mode, to allow users to test out as-yet-unfinished features
  • Bundled Linux "Libertine G" and Linux "Biolinum G" fonts
  • Added the LibreColors to the palette
  • Implement import of alpha channel for RGBA .tiffs
  • Show all appropiate formats by default on "Save As"
  • Use radio buttons widgets to clarify complex menu option intentions
  • Add option to enable saving of documents with non-visible changes
  • Added Quickstarter for Unix builds (enabled only in distro builds)
  • Fix synthetic small caps resizing factor to improve look and interoperability