LibreOffice is free alternative to paying for the Microsoft Office Suite. Microsoft does offer free use of its Office Online Apps at Outlook.com, but you need to be online to use the programs and some functions are only available to paying customers. The developers of Libre Office offer us a complete, permanently updated office suite that you can download and use offline and use as a portable office suite across different devices.
What I like the most to LibreOffice is its portability. Microsoft Office doesn’t provide a portable version, but LibreOffice does. Anyone can download this version from here and install it on a flash drive. This way, you will always have your documents at your fingertips, no matter where you are. Or you can choose a desktop version here.
Another good thing is that LibreOffice is a cross-platform application. Microsoft Office will only run on Linux based systems through a Wine or PlayOnLinux emulator, but LibreOffice can be installed with no problems, preserving its full functionality on Windows operating systems.
In addition the suite offers LibreOffice Draw and LibreOffice Math. These apps compare favorable with any offering from Microsoft. Can you believe that such a great program is free?
But wait, there’s more : almost every Linux distro comes with LibreOffice installed by default. You won’t have to run another installation software, just install the OS and all you need from an office suite is there waiting to be used.
Let’s have a quick look at the entire package. Later I will show you how each inside app works.
The first thing you see when you run LibreOffice is the main screen.
Here you can choose what you want to use. The icons are quite clear, so you’ll know just where to click .
In part 2, I’ll take a look at each of the programs available in the suite one by one.
~ Adrian
Sounds good to me, Adrian. Thank you.
Lucy
Thanks, Lucy. Stay in touch for future detailed articles about inside apps.
Does it come with a program like Picture Manager that was not included in Microsoft 8?
LibreOffice does not come with a photo manager comparable to Picture Manager. However, it does include some graphic filters to alter any image’s appearance inside a Writer document.
Almost any Linux distro comes with a picture manager app and the free Photoshop alternative, Gimp. I believe a Picture Manager inside the office package would be of no use.
This is an excellent program, with hundreds of people who work on it, updating and improving it constantly. It is used by many companies and governments, particularly in Europe. A multi-language, multi-platform suite. Excellent!
It is sooooo nice to download a program where the download doesn’t sneak in 5 or 6 unwanted programs/toolbars and other junk that screws up your PC. Thanks LibreOffice,I can’t wait to try out your writing program.
I downloaded LibreOffice and it converted EVERYONE of my Office Word and Excel items to LibreOffice format. I had to remove LibreOffice from my computer to return them to their original format.
DO NOT USE LibreOffice!!!!
Allan, this is just not possible.
But I suspect something else. When you installed LibreOffice, there is a step where a dialog window asks you if you want every Office documents to be opened and edited with Libre in the future. I’m sure you haven’t pay attention and said “yes”. Am I wrong?
Try to install Libre again and pay attention to this step. You will see that everything goes right after that. Trust me.
And let me and others know if I was right. It would be a shame if other readers would give up this great software just because you had a bad experience, isn’t it?
Sounds great where do I download looked at a lot could not find a download
Follow the download link in the article.
It can be downloaded onto a computer. Is there an app for ios devices yet. I only saw one for “LibreOffice Remote for Impress at the App Store.”