LibreOffice -v- OpenOffice -v- MS Office

stockhausen · 2 Jul 2011 at 13:40

I have used OpenOffice for years; I always put it on any system I build for anyone else or other person's system on which I work; I think that it is a perfectly suitable product for most people.

I know of but have never used LibreOffice which I know was forked off OpenOffice when Oracle adopted the usual "Suits" approach to it. It seems that Oracle have now unloaded OpenOffice but the open source teams working on LibreOffice and OpenOffice are still not working together on a single product which does seem sad

My question is - has anyone got any experience of LibreOffice and what is your opinion of it?

Cooper · 2 Jul 2011 at 14:15

Its the same as open office, same source code, just a different name thats all....a few obscure features may have been added since branching off, that i have yet to use, but stability wise, its just as good as OO....

Basically, if your happy with OO, there is no reason to fear switching to LO....

Fillado · 2 Jul 2011 at 16:08

Actually, LibreOffice is OpenOffice + Huge Code Cleanup + New Features. New Features are both minor and fairly major as they are able to put in things that Sun/Oracle felt like blocking.

In other words LibreOffice will always be better

opethdisciple · 2 Jul 2011 at 16:58

I would like to say that Libre Office is 'better' than open office, but I have no real evidence of this.

What I will say, is that open office is no longer 'open'.

Libre office which is a spin off from the open office project, is a creation of a bunch of coders, who didnt like the direction Oracle was forcing open office down so branched off to go back to the ethos that open office originated from ie open source community based office.

They even asked Oracle for the rights to thte name open office, becuase open means just that open, which libre is and open office isnt.

I think Oracle have plans to turn open office in to another star office which was a paid for app.

Libre office is the open source version of open office.

Its only been a few months since the split so the the programs look similar still, but I would anticipate that Libre Office will see a lot more developement and innovation compared to open office given time.

Simples.

Energize · 2 Jul 2011 at 17:19

Does Libre office still depend on Java?

opethdisciple · 2 Jul 2011 at 18:46

Energize said:
Does Libre office still depend on Java?

Yes

Energize · 2 Jul 2011 at 19:53

Still sucks then.

Mattus · 2 Jul 2011 at 20:10

Neither OpenOffice nor LibreOffice is a patch on MS Office 2010. MS Office has a much better UI and many more features. It's one of those cases where it's worth getting the commercial product if at all possible.

opethdisciple · 2 Jul 2011 at 20:36

For the casual office/home user, Libre office more than meets your needs.

Tomsk · 2 Jul 2011 at 20:46

Mattus said:
Neither OpenOffice nor LibreOffice is a patch on MS Office 2010. MS Office has a much better UI and many more features. It's one of those cases where it's worth getting the commercial product if at all possible.

I use both Office 2007 and LO at the moment and I would agree with you about Office 2007 - it's better than LO. However I still haven't got used the the 'ribbon' yet.

Macro · 2 Jul 2011 at 21:42

opethdisciple said:
I would like to say that Libre Office is 'better' than open office, but I have no real evidence of this.

What I will say, is that open office is no longer 'open'.

Libre office which is a spin off from the open office project, is a creation of a bunch of coders, who didnt like the direction Oracle was forcing open office down so branched off to go back to the ethos that open office originated from ie open source community based office.

They even asked Oracle for the rights to thte name open office, becuase open means just that open, which libre is and open office isnt.

I think Oracle have plans to turn open office in to another star office which was a paid for app.

Libre office is the open source version of open office.

Its only been a few months since the split so the the programs look similar still, but I would anticipate that Libre Office will see a lot more developement and innovation compared to open office given time.

Simples.

You are mistaken...

"In April 2011, Oracle announced that it would discontinue commercial development of OpenOffice.org, and that it would become a "purely community based project"."

opethdisciple · 3 Jul 2011 at 00:09

There is still an issue withthe licensing its going to be under however...

Also its late for open office to go community based, the community version is Libre Office.

Mattus · 3 Jul 2011 at 00:34

Tomsk said:
However I still haven't got used the the 'ribbon' yet.

Yeah, it does take some getting used to. Once you get accustomed to it, though, it's much better than the dated interface used in OpenOffice.

opethdisciple · 3 Jul 2011 at 16:29

Article here.

Aod · 4 Jul 2011 at 01:16

Tomsk said:
I use both Office 2007 and LO at the moment and I would agree with you about Office 2007 - it's better than LO. However I still haven't got used the the 'ribbon' yet.

the UI in 2010 is much easier to get to grips with than the enormous monster that is the Office2007 ribbon

Burnsy2023 · 4 Jul 2011 at 12:00

Mattus said:
Neither OpenOffice nor LibreOffice is a patch on MS Office 2010. MS Office has a much better UI and many more features. It's one of those cases where it's worth getting the commercial product if at all possible.

Absolutely. Office 2007 was a huge step forward and anything that looks and feels like office 2003 feel extremely clunky.

blu3shad0w · 3 Dec 2011 at 01:10

libre office is great if you want an office suite but you do not want to pay for it. If you want all the extra fancy features of MS Office, then well you can pay the extra and buy it...

stockhausen · 3 Dec 2011 at 08:46

Burnsy2023 said:
Absolutely. Office 2007 was a huge step forward and anything that looks and feels like office 2003 feel extremely clunky.

I would agree that MS-Office 2007 was a significant improvement over MS-Office 2003 but from what little I have seen of it, I hate MS-Office 2010 and really can't be bothered to learn it for no particular advantage to me.

For personal use and installing on economical builds for others, I am perfectly happy with LibreOffice.

JustBen · 5 Dec 2011 at 14:46

MS Office 2007 is great and in my opinion a better product however if i was made to pay for it i would go down the opensource route as i'm skint haha

opethdisciple · 5 Dec 2011 at 15:10

If you want the real thing then get Office 2010.

If you want a free alternative, depending on your requirements then Libre office will do.

LibreOffice -v- OpenOffice -v- MS Office

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