What are LibreOffice users saying about the software?

Great alternative to Office with compatibility getting better all the time

David contra Goliat

Es una excelente suite ofimatica para utilizarla de manera personal o en la empresa tiene pequeños puntos en contra en cuanto a compatibilidad con la competencia, su interfaz es muy bien lograda con el uso te vas acostumbrando ya que tiene todo lo necesario para realizar las tareas.

Pros

Uso y he ayudado a implementar en colegios y escuelas LIbreOffice ya que es una suite ofimatica que no tiene nada que pedir a su rival Office, es 100% gratis y su facilidad de uso tanto en la escuela o empresa ayuda mucho en las tareas cotidianas ademas es una muy buena opcion ya que es multiplataforma.

Cons

Falta pulir la compatibilidad con las hojas de calculo de Excel, se debe configurar para que se guarde en formato reconocible para la competencia.

The Best of the Free

LibreOffice is not our answer to replace Microsoft Office for our day to day business needs. However, we have a significant portion of our clientele, as well as our staff, who do not require the vast features Microsoft provides. For this subset of our population, LibreOffice is irreplaceable. It allows us to make document generation available to a much larger audience than we would be able to if we were limited to only our Microsoft licenses. Furthermore, the compatibility with Microsoft products that LibreOffice provides is a marked upgrade from prior open source office products.

Pros

LibreOffice Comes as close as possible to replicating the Microsoft Office suite of products of any of the free products we have tried. We have a limited number of licenses for Microsoft products, but we still have a need to provide our clients with Word processors and other tools so that they can correspond with their loved ones. LibreOffice provides more functionality and compatibility than any comparable product.

Cons

LibreOffice does not replace Microsoft for us. The shortcut keys and other functions that Microsoft has perfected over several decades are still superior to the ones available in LibreOffice.

Not the best(writer review)

Very poor experience. Lack of creativity.

Pros

I have used this software for the better part of a year and altough it is free as mentioned, it is not worth the hassle of downloading and attempting a book with it. I will be moving to bigger software. Still a nice alternative to other more expensive programs.

Cons

Lack of a sufficient choice of fonts and tools necessary. Writing is like art and if I need to do so I must have the correct tools available at all times.

Experience with LibreOffice

We have used it for the generation of reports, comparative graphs, evolution graphs, business presentations.

Pros

The most important feature is that the consumption of resources is lower than that of other software such as MS Office. Many of its functions are different from those of MS Office, but the result is the same and sometimes better. It allowed us to save on the licenses necessary to work.

Cons

The documentation and help that it has is not very detailed or is not well explained, having to resort to an internet search engine to find out how to do an action that was previously done in MS Office.

Many great features, super easy to use!

LibreOffice has many useful programs. I use the LibreOffice Excel and Writer the most. Both are very easy to use and have many of the same features as it's huge competitor. It was super easy to download and install on all our office computers.

Pros

I love that you are not required to buy an annual membership for this product. Donations are appreciated to keep the features up to date and running efficiently. I also really like the "daily tips" it gives when I open LibreOffice Writer.

Cons

What I wish they would improve/add, would be to be able to save the file as a PDF. The ODF file is very comparable, but I still like the features of PDF.

a bit quirky but well worth a try if you want to avoid MS Office

I am using it on a daily basis and wouldn't want to miss it

Pros

I loooooove that some of these stupid Excel errors do not occur. Importing a table allows you to set each column so there is not automatic conversion to date format. Well done!

Cons

It is a bit on the slow side but that might also be my computer ;-)

Libre office all the features as big name guys

Pros

File conversion I get different formatted files from various customers and Libre has no issue handling them.

Cons

Nothing I would use any other office software

A nice little alternative to the expensive MS Office

A good experience. A pleasant surprise. A honey of a tool. Nice to see MS get some competition.

Pros

When I got my new laptop, which did not come with Microsoft Office, I thought "egad, I have to buy this again and it's another subscription payment." Truthfully, I was pleasantly surprised. Libre works just fine for my at-home and occasional use when I am not at the office. It's simple, remarkably close in look and feel and documents seem to transition flawlessly from Word. In other words, documents don't turn into a mess. Best of all, I don't have to shell out a couple hundred bucks every year for word processing software.

Cons

I have nothing here. No improvements to recommend.

Best totally free standalone software office suite and good alternative to Microsoft Office.

Libreoffice is a great free alternative to Microsoft office or 365. It has almost the same features though different icons and ways to do things so there may be a little learning curve if you normally use Microsoft office. Few more steps to save it into Microsoft formats, but it is amazingly useable and feature rich for free.

Pros

It's totally free and open source and it gets regular updates which is awesome!! It is close enough to Office suite that it can be used as a great alternative to Office if you don't want to pay for it or didn't get it included with your computer.

Cons

The most annoying thing is saving documents into office file types. You have to actually export the document and then pick from the many file types. If you have just save it saves it into LibreOffice's own file type which when sending it to clients they don't know what that is or how to use it.

LibreOffice, an alternative to MS Office

My experience has been great, I can use LibreOffice on my laptop with Debian, which I couldn't do with MS Office. In addition, if the company to which I provide my services requires that all project computers have legal software, using Debian and LibreOffice meets those requirements without having to pay for Windows or MS Office licenses.

Pros

What I like the most about Libreoffice is that it is free, even for commercial use, this is a great help for those who are just starting their business and cannot spend a lot of money on a paid alternative like MS Office

Cons

For users who expect a lot of assistance for software, if it will be a disadvantage that LibreOffice does not have a support or assistance line, as MS Office does, in the same way those who are used to working with documents in the cloud will be a disadvantage that LibreOffice does not have integration with its own server

One of the best productivity software suite!

I have been using LibreOffice for over a year now, and I can honestly say that it has never failed me. The developers are always working to improve the quality of the software, but there is always a sense of 'rough around the edges' feeling about the product. That being noted, I would highly recommend it for anyone who needs low-budget

Pros

I love how simple it is to use and that it doesn't throw too many options at me. It is a great option for small businesses or people looking for a simpler interface.

Cons

LibreOffice is a great productivity suite. If you don't mind not having the fancy templates that Microsoft Office has, then this is a good option for you. There are some good features and some bad features. I do find the LibreOffice interface to be cluttered but it's useful if you're looking for something free and open-source.

A different option for linux

its good, its a great option if you are in Linux and any of them distributions

Pros

This is the Word office for Linux, have almost all functionalities, and is part of a package of other software than you can find in Office, it's very intuitive

Cons

even is pretty similar to Word Office for male this software more similar need add more additional apps, like dictionaries or other languages

Free, open source, versatile and super compatible Suite

I'm a student and use Writer and Calc on a daily basis and Impress and Base when needed be. They are easy to use, free and compatible with many OS and programs (you can also open .doc documents from Word of the Office suite, for instance).

Pros

As mentioned in the title, this software is free, is open source and can ran on every O.S. (be it one of the countless Linux's distributions, Windows or Mac OS). One thing to notice is that this is a complete Suite, not a single software. In fact to my knowledge 6 software are included: - LibreOffice Calc (spreadsheet): it's your daily spreadsheet companion and I think it's actually neater than his cousin from the Office suite... I mean its design is a bit simpler but I like some little things, like having the default shortcut for "save as" as a simple ctrl+shift+S. I mean, everything is about where I would expect it to be. - LibreOffice Writer (for formatted text documents): it's got everything you need for well formatted text documents with images. Set you own style, choose everything bout your text, from font and color up to the detailed hyphenation parameters, write what you need then export your file in pdf if needed be. - LibreOffice Impress (for presentations with slides) - LibreOffice Base (for databases): I don't have that much to say about this module as I haven't used it a lot but from my experience it seems to have all the basic functionalities and is intuitive enough - LibreOffice Math: it's basically a math support useful for writing formulas, and can be used as an integration for the Writer module. Useful if you don't use any LateX or LateX-based software. - LibreOffice Draw (for simple computer graphics): can't say much since I don't think I have ever used it

Cons

- About LibreOffice Math: I've hardly ever used though since I find LateX based software a lot more useful and intuitive in case I need to write many formulas and integrate them with the rest of the document... I might reevaluate this module in the future but for the moment. - About LibreOffice Writer: if your document is too long and has many images, the programs gets a little slow, especially when saving (it gets up to 10 seconds for documents of about 50 pages and a good number of figures), so when I use it to write my classes' notes I usually fragmentate them in more than one document. Overall you can create very nice documents but if they are too big and you have a little bit of time I would suggest to use a LateX based program (as mentioned above). - About LibreOffice Calc: I have noticed that if you make many copies of a sheet with graphs and apply some changes, sometimes it doesn't update everithing right away... it looks like, as for writer, very large documents are not (yet, who knows about future versions) advisable.

Un parfait complément au logiciel Microsoft Word

Je tenais à faire ce petit retour d'expérience afin d'éclairer les autres utilisateurs. Comme beaucoup d'autres personnes, j'étais convaincu que Word était le seul logiciel de traitement de texte valable et efficace. Que nenni, Libre-Office a su me montrer au fil des années qu'il faisait tout aussi bien voire mieux que Word sur certains points, notamment au niveau de la fluidité de traitement et l'intuitivité du correcteur d'orthographe, pour lesquels Word me semble moins performant que Libre-Office en dépit de la gratuité de Libre-Office. Je dirai tout simplement que Libre-Office est idéal pour des utilisateurs occassionnels d'outils de traitement de texte, nul besoin de passer nécessairement par Word.

Pros

Libre Office est un logiciel certes classique dans son interface, mais redoutablement efficace au niveau de ses fonctionnalités. Libre Office est un logiciel qui, incontestablement, joint la sobriété à l'efficacité. Le traitement de texte s'avère d'une grande intuitivité et le correcteur orthographique est parfaitement adapté. J'ai bien apprécié les fonctionnalités de correction de Libre Office car je suis amené dans le cadre de mes missions à rédiger des écrits. Et je cherchais à cet égard un logiciel dont le correcteur orthographique n'était pas trop envahissant. Et je l'ai trouvé avec Libre Office, qui corrige notre texte seulement en cas de fautes évidentes ou de fautes de frappe, contrairement au correcteur orthographique de Word qui n'a de cesse de souligner en rouge notre texte alors même qu'on a commis aucune faute. Autre aspect particulièrement positif que j'ai pu relever chez Libre-Office : sa grande rapidité de traitement. J'ai été particulièrement surpris, dans le bon sens du terme, par la fluidité de Libre Office lorsque j'ouvrais des fichiers Office sur mon ordinateur. Libre Office présente également l'atout majeur d'être compatible de manière universelle, quelles que soient les versions Windows de nos ordinateurs.

Cons

Il ne fait aucun doute que Libre-Office est moins perfectionné que Word. Libre-Office reste un peu léger pour certaines fonctionnalités comme l'élaboration de tableaux, qui est moins poussée que dans Word. Le choix de tableaux est trop restreint. D'autre part, je trouve que Libre-Office s'avère insuffisant dans sa compatibilité avec les autres logiciels. Il reste encore difficile à l'heure actuelle d'ouvrir des documents Word dans Libre-Office sans que le document ne soit complètement désorganisé.

Greatest document management solution for Linux users

In the last months i have been testing different Linux distributions, leaving Windows i had no longer their Office package and i needed a new software for Document management. Once i installed Kubuntu i found LibreOffice extremely helpful, trustworthy and intuitive.

Pros

I'm very satisfied with its variety of options, inside this software everyone can access databases management with LibreOffice Base, presentation creation and edition with LibreOffice Impress, general text document creation with LibreOffice Writer and even calculation and information analysis with LibreOffice Calc. It automatically saves the progress made every several minutes preventing progress loss, what's more, it has a feature for data recovery that allows to continue any assignment or document as it was left before any accidental occurrence happened. Their format compatibility provides helpful overall usage and saves time as file conversion is no longer needed. You can export text documents as pdfs or odt formats which tend to be more common among MacOS and Linux users. As a work environment their user interface is very customizable, making it highly flexible for reading oriented tasks as well as document producing ones.

Cons

One relevant downside is the fact that it lacks mobile app deployment, what may result tedious if the personal mobile phone is closely related with work activities. Nonetheless, for Desktop-centered activities it proves to be highly reliable and efficient.

Good if not Better than other office products

I use this product to prepare my weekly lessons and lectures at our church. I use it for writing welcome letter to visitors and a variety of other things for my ministry.

Pros

I like not having to pay for a monthly subscription to use a software I use every day. This software allows me to use files from other word processors and office suites without having to worry if I will be able to open them or not. I don't understand why the bigger companies have gotten so greedy with these monthly cloud services when little guys like Libre can offer the same capabilities at a fraction of the cost.

Cons

The only gripe I have of the software is: 1) I don't like how the track changes is automatically applied to documents that were from other platforms 2) It may have it, but I have yet to find a label maker on the software.

Great office toolset for those who want to avoid the market leader

I used LibreOffice for all basic "office" work, mainly writing documents and creating spreadsheets. I really like the fact that is so fast and light to use, compared to for example the newest versions of MS Office, which to me seems like getting bulkier every year. I only need the basic features, so I didn't dive really deep into the features. But I am sure that an average user can get very far with LibreOffice.

Pros

The software offers everything that I expect from an "office" type of software combination. It is lightweight, and that is great especially if running on a machine with an older processor or not much memory. Also, there is a certain feeling of "older" MS Office versions, so if you are looking for something like that, this software is a good choice.

Cons

I guess the user interface could be a bit more modern, some like it, some don't. I don't mind. I don't really have any issues or dislikes regarding this software, even though you can't even expect perfection for this price. Overall, great product.

Best alternative to MS Word

Outstanding. I use LibreOffice every day to review, edit, and translate documents in English and Chinese. The software handles multiple languages well.

Pros

I have used LibreOffice since 2010, when it forked from OpenOffice which I began using in 2003. From the beginning it has offered a viable alternative to MS Office. - Easy to use - Intuitive old-school menus, but offers an optional ribbon toolbar - Excellent track-changes features - Good document layout tools - Open standards

Cons

It has trouble handling long documents. When I edit dissertations of 100 or more pages, LibreOffice can become sluggish and responds poorly. However, been less of a problem in recent versions (ie current version 7) but has not been completely resolved. When adding Comment to a document, if the text in the Comment is too long, it cannot be seen without scrolling inside the Comment bubble. This makes makes it difficult for the user to scan a document and read all of the Comments without constantly using a mouse to scroll through Comment text. To resolve this, LibreOffice needs to add a Comment Bar on the side where all comments can be see in full text. MS Office includes this feature. To avoid problems when editing very long documents, I tend to stick with MS Word, despite finding it more awkward and inefficient.

The new go-to Office suite!

LibreOffice is a perfect alternative for other Office suites. It's opensource, it handles multiplatform collaboration very well, and it's a breeze to switch from any other office suite.

Pros

LibreOffice is unbelievably easy to hop in for a newcomer - no matter what you've been using previously. Because most of us, its users, are probably "switchers", either from MS Office or OpenOffice, LibreOffice not only makes up for the software we've been using before - it also does a lot more, and does it in very intuitive, effective manner.

Cons

I hate the fact that I've hesitated so long to actually try LibreOffice. But after installing it and giving it a chance to shine - it was love from the first sight.

Open Source version of Microsoft Word

It's Microsoft Office with it's older user interface that we are all used to. And it's free. There is no need to pay hundreds for Microsoft Office when LibreOffice does the same thing but free.

Pros

It's basically the free, open-source version of Microsoft Word. I have been using it for over a decade now (back when it was called Open Office), before Google Docs even came out. If you need to open a Word document that Google Docs can't open but you don't have Word, LibreOffice is great for that.

Cons

It doesn't open word doc format perfectly all the time. There are still some marginal differences some times. Which is okay, it is not expected to. But it can be great if that could be done.

Excellent Quality, Price Right

We are a small women's monastery and don't have a big budget, so we look for inexpensive but dependable ways to keep costs low. LibreOffice certainly does this. I would recommend it both to individuals and organizations.

Pros

LibreOffice is similar to MS Office, enough so that moving from MS to Libre is seamless. Impress (Powerpoint equivalent) works well for slide presentations--and I also use it for desktop publishing. The only function it lacks for that use is text flow from column to column, which I always found troublesome anyway. I've been doing newsletters in Impress for many years and recommend it. I also like Libre because from the beginning it could read .doc and .docx, whereas MS Word has only been able to read open document formats like .odt since 2010. So collaboration with those who use MS products has always been possible, because Libre has always had the ability to save in MS formats. Back when PDF editors were not common, I used first OpenOffice Draw, then LibreOffice Draw to edit PDFs. I find Calc, the spreadsheet part of Libre, good to work with except for one function which I mention below. LibreOffice is open-source software, meaning that anyone who has the skills can contribute to its development. And although The Document Foundation, which manages the development of LibreOffice, always appreciates donations, the software itself is free of charge.

Cons

There is one function which may not be missing in Calc, but which for me is more difficult to use than the same function in MS Excel. That is searching for and deleting duplicates, for example in a mailing list. I wouldn't say it's intuitive in either software, but easier for me to figure out in Excel. The only other thing I can say that can, but doesn't always, make for difficulties, is if you are collaborating with a group using mixed operating systems, e.g. Linux and Windows. The versions of LibreOffice for each of these OSes are just slightly different, as one might expect. A certain amount of alertness is necessary when one OS sends a document to another--occasionally formatting can change when opened in Libre on a different OS. But we have not found that to be a big problem although we have used a mix of Linux and Windows for many years.

A solid MS Word alternative

Very fast up time, small footprint, efficient and effective with a familiar interface. I use it for first drafts of my books. I use it alongside MS Office (which has no problem dealing with the files) knowing that if I should ever be unable to maintain my MS licence, all is not lost. Definitely recommended for those who need some serious power without a serious price tag.

Pros

For many people, MS Office is bloated, expensive and a resource hog. While Libre Office doesn't sport all the powerful features of MS Office, as a practical, no-nonsense office suite it can do just about anything you want except the very fancy stuff which, to be fair, few of us use!). For those on low incomes or even those more used to older versions of Office, this is a very efficient alternative with a familiar front end and a much smaller footprint, making it ideal for laptop computers with minimal hard-drive space. It's kept up to date, there are forums where any issues can be highlighted and it does what it says on the tin. If you're looking for an alternative to MS Office that's free and will do the job in most cases, this is the one you want.

Cons

There are features in MS Office full version you won't find here, but as most of us are used to using a Word Processor with occasional forays into spreadsheets, the bulk of users won't miss them. There are, of course, other open source alternatives to those programmes too. The point is, if all you're looking for is the basics, this'll do it and it has the overwhelming advantage of being free (though you can donate if you care to). If you want more, you may have to download others that aren't fully integrated, which is rather more fiddly but is doable.

Everything you can ask for from a free office

I use LibreOffice almost daily mainly for reading and file conversion tasks, also because many companies and governments have used the OpenDocument format, which is much better worked on Libre. The improved support for CSV is really fundamental for my work, especially when I exchange data between programs and I need to make adjustments. I just don't use Libre completely, because standard Microsoft files like DOCX and XLSX open better and look better in MS Office - LibreOffice often messes up these types of files.

Pros

I love the fact that it maintains the purity of the traditional office layout, while in other programs everyone switches to the ribbon tabs (I particularly hate the ribbon). I really like Libre Office Calc's CSV support too, which lets you deal with different row / column separators. Command line automation options are also great for solving document conversion and repetitive tasks with scripts, even when calling by other programs.

Cons

There is nothing I dislike about LibreOffice, for the purpose for which it is intended. Perhaps the fact that standard Microsoft files, such as doc / docx and xls / xlsx, do not always open correctly, as it is relatively common in more elaborate files, that LibreOffice makes a mess. But that usually doesn't affect me and I alternate between the two programs.

Excellent for small businesses!

Overall, LibreOffice was a very nice and useful tool to have in the office, before transitioning to GSuite. The features in LibreOffice are more powerful than GSuite, generally speaking, and there are far more use cases. However, the likelihood of incompatibility or data corruption when transitioning between LibreOffice to other similar software is a little bit higher, even if it can be negligible. That said, it is still a fantastic choice of software, and it's up to you to determine whether or not the pros balance out or exceed the cons. I believe it's worth a shot!

Pros

The software mimics Microsoft Office quite a bit, so the learning curve is very small. Being that the software is free and open source, it's an excellent ethical addition to the workplace especially during a time where pirated software can be frequently found in the small business world.

Cons

Compatibility between MS Office and GSuite can be dicey sometimes. Most use cases are fine and not worth worrying, but if you do a lot of work with importing and exporting data and need a consistent way to edit/parse it, LibreOffice may not be your best initial choice for the workplace. LibreOffice can also be slow depending on your computer; a lot of the stuff that is trivially quick to do in a program such as Excel can be a little bit of a crunch with LibreOffice's equivalent.