News - LibreOffice 4.3: "you can't own a better office suite"

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The popular open source office suite now claims to have 80 million active users worldwide.

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LibreOffice is probably one of the best FOSS office suites, but if I was putting my business documents through a suite, I'd still want it to be MS, purely because on-the-go support is baked in. Not only things like cloud storage across sites, but mobile versions for heading out with them. If you don't need those features, LibreOffice will get you by just fine for SOHO users.

I wonder how long it will be until they start offering 64-bit versions for Windows, as they already do for Linux and Mac.

While I've used OpenOffice and Libre, to one extent or another, I'm a little leery of "can't own better" type claims.

For my use, and I'm firmly in the SOHO category MaverickWill referred to, Libre is fine, perfectly adequate, and .... free. And for my purposes, one of my issues with MS (Office, and Windows) is precisely that cloud support is increasingly baked-in. I've come across some IT managers in medium, and even large, companies with some issues over that, too.

"LibreOffice brings the control of the PC desktop back into the hands of the users"

I spent some time in a general office with sales and marketing staff, and that sentence makes me shudder. Most users of word processors and spreadsheets couldn't care less what is under the bonnet as long as it is familiar and works.

Whether you like MS Office or have a moral objection to paying for software it is ubiquitous. If the figure of a billion users is correct the next person to walk in and sit down at a desk is 12,500 times more likely to be able to start using Word (whatever its flaws) immediately than this.

When my Office365 was due to expire I looked into OO but the fact that any part of it requires java lead me back to M$.

It's free, it works and is (largely) compatible with MS office.

Why would I spend x on a copy of MS Office for home use?

I have grown very fond of Microsoft Office 2013 edition, the increasing use of cloud storage is a massive bonus to me for university work as I can work from my desktop PC or my laptop on the go, no need for USB sticks and loosing them along with hours of essays, but also as a good back up of all important documents.

Then again I'm also a fan of Windows 8.1 over Windows 7 so most likely I'm hated by most... I know the IT managers at work didn't like me when I asked why we can't upgrade straight to Windows 8 instead of Windows 7!

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Originally Posted by MaverickWill

LibreOffice is probably one of the best FOSS office suites, but if I was putting my business documents through a suite, I'd still want it to be MS, purely because on-the-go support is baked in. Not only things like cloud storage across sites, but mobile versions for heading out with them. If you don't need those features, LibreOffice will get you by just fine for SOHO users.

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Hmm, I recently heard a Microsoft sales-man/person/droid say nearly the exact same thing. Then one of our FOSS advocates pointed out that it's only really compatibility you need - and Libre is very compatible with ye olde style Office (pre that god awful 2007 UI update). That said I recently transitioned from Libre to "proper" Office at home - but that's really only because I needed something specific in Excel and the price for Office (about the same as a large computer magazine) was too good to resist.

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Originally Posted by th3_f15t

I have grown very fond of Microsoft Office 2013 edition, the increasing use of cloud storage is a massive bonus to me for university work as I can work from my desktop PC or my laptop on the go, no need for USB sticks and loosing them along with hours of essays, but also as a good back up of all important documents.

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Get a free Dropbox (or Box or even Google Drive) account and then just save your Word/Excel files to that. I've been passing files from Word/Excel (Windows7) to Libre Writer/Calc (Ubuntu12.04) for many, many months. And best of all you're not tied into the Microsoft ecosystem.

Unlike Saracen I'm quite happy to use cloud (because it suits the way I float around between machines) and find it a real convenience. Especially if there's the ability to force a sync of docs to local storage for those times when you're not near WiFi. But, as the cliché says, ymmv and I can easily see the arguments for "blue sky computing" (no clouds)...

As you say, crossy, YMMV. Whatever floats your boat. Each to his own. etc.

I can see why the cloud appeals to many. Just not me. I don't see that changing. I do see the cloud becoming an integral part of a computing paradigm involving online 'services', like Office, online storage, increasingly dumb handheld devices, and a subscription to link it all together. That is, tbe death of the PC as we know it, for mainstream computing. Personally, I'm not going there. But it seems to me that that's the strategic direction MS, Adobe, Google, etc want us going in. Well, to hell with that, IMHO.

Oh, and for gamers, powerful consoles, be it XBox Two or PS 5. :D

But, increasingly, tied in, dependent on 'accounts', always-on net connections, and a big corporate knowing every time you fart .... a big database commitment for them, in my case. :D But they'll know what you had for lunch, and the sound volume in decibels.

Oh, and if they incorporate an odour detector, they'll regret it. :D

After 17 years of using office I switched to libreoffice around 6 months ago and its been great. I used to be quite skeptical of FOSS because it always seemed a bit rubbish but after trying linux mint on the home server for nearly a year im sold, FOSS isnt as as bad as I thought it would be.

Interesting. Maybe I'll give this one a try.

Libreoffice provides 99% of what office 2003 does, including the classic interface.

Why use anything else.

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Originally Posted by barry2811

When my Office365 was due to expire I looked into OO but the fact that any part of it requires java lead me back to M$.

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That is exactly my objection. I refuse to run Java on my machine. Also, both LO and OO are just stuck in their ten year old interfaces. Whether or not you like the ribbon, at least it was new and tried to address the interface for useability sakes. We need to move on from the menu/icon mentality, it is just not intuitive. Don't like the ribbon? Fine, but come up with SOMETHING new instead. This is why people are flocking to tablets as their interfaces are built around a very intuitive system.

haven't used microsoft products in years since libre office

With gapps now supporting native office document handling I'll just stick to that.