LibreOffice An Alternative to Microsoft Office

LibreOffice is a powerful and free office suite, used by millions of people around the world. Its clean interface and feature-rich tools help you unleash your creativity and enhance your productivity. LibreOffice is compatible with a wide range of document formats such as Microsoft® Word (.doc, .docx), Excel (.xls, .xlsx), PowerPoint (.ppt, .pptx), and Publisher. You can open your Microsoft document in LibreOffice.

But LibreOffice goes much further with its native support for a modern and open standard, the Open Document Format (ODF). With LibreOffice, you have maximum control over your data and content – and you can export your work in many different formats including PDF. LibreOffice includes several applications that make it the most versatile Free and Open Source office suite on the market:

Writer (word processing)

The writer has all the features you need from a modern, full-featured word processing and desktop publishing tool. It’s simple enough for a quick memo, but powerful enough to create complete books with contents, diagrams, indexes, and more. You’re free to concentrate on your message, while the Writer makes it look great.

Calc (spreadsheets)

Calc is the free spreadsheet program you’ve always needed. Newcomers find it intuitive and easy to learn, while professional data miners and number crunchers appreciate the comprehensive range of advanced functions. Built-in wizards guide you through choosing and using a comprehensive range of advanced features. Or you can download templates from the LibreOffice template repository, for ready-made spreadsheet solutions.

Impress (presentations)

In Impress, creating and editing slides is very versatile thanks to different editing and view modes: Normal (for general editing), Outline (for organizing and outlining your text content), Notes (for viewing and editing the notes attached to a slide), Handout (for producing paper-based material), and Slide Sorter (for a thumbnail sheet view that lets you quickly locate and order your slides).

Draw (vector graphics and flowcharts),

Draw lets you produce anything from a quick sketch to a complex plan, and gives you the means to communicate with graphics and diagrams. With a maximum page size of 300cm by 300cm, Draw is an excellent package for producing technical drawings, brochures, posters, and many other documents. Draw lets you manipulate graphical objects, group them, crop them, use objects in 3D, and much more.

Base (databases)

The base is a full-featured desktop database front end, designed to meet the needs of a broad array of users. Base caters to power users and enterprise requirements, providing native-support drivers for some of the most widely employed multi-user database engines: MySQL/MariaDB, Adabas D, MS Access, and PostgreSQL. In addition, the built-in support for JDBC- and ODBC-standard drivers allows you to connect to virtually any other existing database engine as well.

Math (formula editing)

Math is LibreOffice’s formula editor and can be invoked in your text documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and drawings, enabling you to insert perfectly formatted mathematical and scientific formulas. Your formulas can include a wide range of elements, from fractions, terms with exponents and indices, integrals, and mathematical functions, to inequalities, systems of equations, and matrices.

You can start Math either as a stand-alone application directly from the LibreOffice Start Center or directly from within other LibreOffice applications such as Writer, Calc, Impress and Draw.

Charts

LibreOffice includes the ability to create and embed charts. Their style, color, and size can be customized in a broad variety of ways – pie charts, square and round columns, trend graphs, dots, 2D and 3D charts, and so much more.