Have you been hiring or looking for a job recently?
If so, you know just how ubiquitous Microsoft Office has become. Knowing your way around Word, Excel, Outlook, and the other tools in Office’s belt.
The problem is, MS Office isn’t free. As demand for these skills keeps growing, many companies and individuals are eager to find free alternatives. One such program is LibreOffice, the successor to OpenOffice.
Boasting free, open-source tools, how does LibreOffice stack up? In this LibreOffice review, we’ll go over the features and how they fare against other suites of office tools.
What is LibreOffice?
Screenshots from LibreOfficeLibreOffice is a suite of free, open-source productivity tools created and maintained by the non-profit The Document Foundation (TDF). It’s one of several continuations of OpenOffice, a popular MS Office competitor that was updated from 2002-2011.
LibreOffice’s suite contains everything you’ve come to expect: a word processor, a spreadsheet tool, a presentation maker, and much more. Let’s review LibreOffice features and see how each one fares.
LibreOffice Review: Features
LibreOffice exists as a single app download, taking up much less storage space than MS Office. Once you download the app off their website (and donate to TDF, if you like), you’re greeted with this charming menu.
You may notice that the dashboard design is a bit dated. If you’re used to slick, flowing, modern designs, this boxy look might be jarring. Still, some users like an old-school aesthetic.
The pictured menu has relatively few options. Other than opening one of LibreOffice’s applications, you can select a template or open a file you’ve saved. You can also access remote files by connecting to services like Google Drive, OneDrive, and SharePoint.
LibreOffice Review: Writer (word processor)
When you open LibreOffice Writer, you’re greeted with a fairly familiar layout. Other than the gray angles in each corner, it’s a fairly standard word processor layout. You can start typing right away and use a variety of features including charts, shapes, and special characters with ease.
If I have one complaint, it’s the relative lack of automation with LibreOffice Writer. Bulleted or numbered lists aren’t created automatically, for instance. You have to actually click the list buttons in the upper right corner.
Still, this is a perfectly good word processor. It supports a wide range of documents, including .docx, .odt, .xml, .txt, .html, and more. If you’re concerned about getting acclimated, don’t worry. While you might have to learn some new habits, it’s very easy to jump in.
LibreOffice Review: Calc (spreadsheets)
Spreadsheet programs typically have more bells and whistles than word processors. As such, getting started with Calc may be more of a challenge than Writer. Still, it has all the math and formatting tools you’d come to expect. With its well-laid-out upper menu, it might even be a great learning tool for people looking to make great spreadsheets.
Like Writer, Calc supports many different file types, including .xlsx, .ods, .dbf, and .html. An Excel pro may take some time to learn their way around Calc, but it’s still a feature-rich and intuitive spreadsheet maker.
LibreOffice Review: Impress (presentations)
Where LibreOffice’s old-school design can largely be seen as charming, it becomes a bit of an issue with Impress, their presentation making tool.
Design is an ever-changing field. When you’re designing a presentation, a dated look can reflect negatively on you or your company. Impress’ templates aren’t all bad, but you’ll need to flex your own design skills to make them pop.
Other than that, Impress is a great presentation tool. It has a ton of great features, but they require a bit more know-how than software like PowerPoint. You’ll want to get the hang of it a bit before you rely on it for your presentations.
One last note: I’m not sure if it’s the display, the typeface, the software, or my own insanity, but the kerning on some of the fonts feels off.
LibreOffice Review: Draw (graphic documents)
If you’re expecting a digital art tool like Photoshop, then perhaps “Draw” is a misnomer. Draw is mostly useful for creating charts and visualizations. You can place your own images, text boxes, or use a library of premade elements to make graphic documents that pop.
You may be asking yourself, “Can’t you do all that in Word?” Yes, but to be fair, you can also do it in Writer. Draw does, however, have one big advantage. You could even say it’s a huge draw for LibreOffice as a whole. And it’s a doozy, so make sure you’re sitting down.
You can use Draw to edit PDFs.
As far as I’m concerned, that’s the real purpose of Draw. Everyone who’s needed to edit a PDF has probably found their way to some dubious website and crossed their fingers that their sensitive documents weren’t being stolen. This clean, easy-to-use, cloud-free PDF editor makes all its other useless features worthwhile.
LibreOffice Review: Math (formulas)
If you need to express formulas in your documents or presentations, Math is the tool for you. While it doesn’t have an Office equivalent, this powerful tool is perfect for high-level math teachers and scholars.
Formulas expressed with this tool can be easily brought into Writer, Impress, or any of LibreOffice’s other software. In addition to the app itself, Math is a formula tool that can be found within several of LibreOffice’s programs. It’s a niche tool, but a stunningly thorough one. It’s the best tool for producing formulas I’ve seen, but to be fair, I haven’t seen many.
LibreOffice Review: Base (database)
If you thought Math was too technical, you’re not gonna like Base. This administration tool is a front end for databases. It allows you to connect to, create, or read databases using virtually any database engine. This includes support for MySQL, Adabas D, and Microsoft Access.
Admittedly, this program is out of my depth, so I’ll avoid looking like an idiot. It seems useful and it offers a fairly intuitive design. If you’re looking for a free alternative to MS Access, I doubt you’ll be disappointed.
Conclusion
As a free alternative to MS Office, LibreOffice has a lot to love. Writer is as strong a free word processor as you’ll find. Technical tools like Math and Base give it a broad range of appeal.
At the same time, the software reminds me less of modern-day Office and more of the mid-’00s version I used in elementary school. The dated look is charming for Writer but becomes a drawback for aesthetic-driven programs like Impress and Draw.
Still, if only for convenient PDF editing with Draw, I do think I’ve been converted to a LibreOffice user. It lacks the style and comfort of some other office suites, but its functionality is impressive.
Final rating: 9/10 🎉
Looking for other free MS Office alternatives?
If LibreOffice isn’t your speed, here are some other free office suites you can consider:
- Google Workspace: Web-based. Includes Docs, Sheets, Slides, Forms, Drive, Calendar, and Gmail.
- Microsoft 365 Online: Web-based. Includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Sway, Calendar, and OneDrive.
- Zoho Office Suite: Web-based. 5GB of free storage. Includes Writer, Sheet, Show, Mail, Projects, Sign, and WorkDrive.
- FreeOffice: Download. Includes TextMaker, PlanMaker, and Presentations.
- WPS Office Free: Desktop or mobile download. Includes Writer, Presentation, Spreadsheet, and PDF Editor.
