this post was submitted on 21 Oct 2023
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Looking for an alternative to Microsoft Office for the Linux.

I've already tried:

  • LibreOffice (It doesn't have the same experience as Microsoft's apps.)
  • OnlyOffice Desktop Editors (I like it)

What else would you recommend?

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[–] [email protected] 55 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Once you get used to libreoffice ms office will feel like a gimmicky toy

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (2 children)

You haven't used LibreOffice's pivot tables have you?

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[–] [email protected] 47 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Stick with LibreOffice , you'll get used and it is most likely the best alternative.

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 year ago

You can easily change LibreOffice to have a tabbed layout like MSOffice (view > user interface). The only thing to note is that LibreOffice has great documentation, but it can be a bit difficult to follow with a different layout.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Nothing has exactly the same experience as MS. I don't think there is a clone project for it.

The two you listed are your best options.

Does LibreOffice have any issues that prevent you using it? If not, it's probably that your expectations are set by your comfort and familiarity with Office and that is the problem you need to solve.

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago (3 children)

You could always do in-browser Office if nothing else works. Or g-suite

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I can't speak for the whole suite, but Excel sucks in the browser. The browser version do not have all the same features as desktop. I only use Office if I'm forced to and use LibreOffice or Latex otherwise

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Over my dead body...

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Honestly, if your willing to learn to use LibreOffice, it's way more powerful than OnlyOffice. It took me a minute to get used to it too, but once you do, it's pretty awesome. And if your worried about UI, you can change some of those things in the settings, like you can make it have a MS-style ribbon at the top. If I were you, I'd spend two weeks trying LO, I think you'll get used to it pretty quick

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

LibreOffice, it’s way more powerful than OnlyOffice

How so? More features? If so, some people just use a small handful in MSOffice, and just want those for their office clone. Maybe OOP is willibg to sacrifice feature-completeness for a similar UI.

In fact, based on their negative assessment of LibreOffice for not being enough like Microsoft, I'm willing to be that's the case.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

much prefer the ribbons for the UI. it's much more convenient imo and I was lost otherwise. glad libreoffice had that as customisation options!

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

@mypasswordis1234
OnlyOffice is good. Very similar to MS office

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I found onlyoffice to have the best compatibility with documents imported from/exported to MS Office. For most people, their coworkers/teachers/professors or whatever will be using MS office, and if the formatting is borked everytime you move the file between libreoffice and ms office users, it gets old fast. That was my experience with libre office and why I ended up on onlyoffice. Of all the suites i've tried it has the best compatibility between itself and ms office for formatting.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

I think you'll be pretty disappointed with anything else that's available. Of those two I'd say stick with OnlyOffice.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

honestly, I've only clicked on this post because of your username

"Foss Microsoft Office for Linux actually it isn't in Opensource"

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

If you pay to crossover, they will help you to install Microsoft Office on Linux. https://www.codeweavers.com/compatibility/crossover/microsoft-office-365

And I think you need to pay for the support because Microsoft is always doing changes to break the compatibility, and they need to do many patches to make it work. Microsoft is not going to make it easy.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

At that point, just use their browser based products.

They have extensive "telemetry" either way.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You can block telemetry requests.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

That would also help fund further development of wine and proton.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (6 children)

Is there a reason a few are being developed rather than focussing on one? Are there key differences/use cases for each of them?

LibreOffice vs. OpenOffice vs. OnlyOffice

I remember once reading that one of them (or some other FOSS alternative) was bad for privacy/FOSS, but I can't find that anymore

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Basically the only commits to OpenOffice now are things a full project lint would catch. There are some security updates here and there. Last I looked it’s basically one dev fixing spacing.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Forkers gonna fork. OnlyOffice seemed like it was going after Google Docs, but with a MSOffice look and feel. The live sharing and editing worked well when I tested it.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Ah I see. So LibreOffice for local stuff, then OnlyOffice for the google docs type of work

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

Not quite. OnlyOffice has an offline/local suite too. When most people talk about OnlyOffice, they are usually referring to the local suite.

OnlyOffice has better compatibility with MS Office file formats (and a similar UI), so some people prefer it over LO.

The downside is that because the UI is written in HTML5, it's slow and sometimes clunky compared to LO, which is (mostly) a native app. This is especially visible with large spreadsheets - OO takes a long time to render them, whereas in LO they open in a reasonable time.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I remember once reading that one of them (or some other FOSS alternative) was bad for privacy/FOSS, but I can't find that anymore

Not sure if you're thinking of WPS Office (formerly known as Kingsoft Office). It's development is funded by the Chinese government, but although Kingsoft claim that the Linux version is developed by the community, they haven't really published the source code anywhere, so it's considered a high-risk software.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

It's bloatware and adware imo.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Why did Linus start developing Linux when he could have just contributed to FreeBSD which already existed?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

No, it didn't. FreeBSD didn't exist until 1993. 386BSD wasn't until 1992. Linus has said that if a free, unencumbered BSD for PCs existed in 1991, he indeed would not have made Linux.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)
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