Open office, which?

[bojan]

Today I downloaded Open Office installer (Not sure if this was from OpenOffice.org...)
While I used the OO before (10y ago? I wasn't impressed then, there were a lot of issues with MS compatibility, so I gave up), and now, being always at alert, I did not install crap that was obviously offered 'an passant'.. and finally declined the whole thing (I hope) because it was not clear to what I am giving my consent to..

Could anybody recommend the good website for something like that?

Is LibreOffice any good? (LibreCAD is quite OK.....)

[gts055 (Mark)]

Hii, I use Open Office 4.1.3 downloaded from https://www.openoffice.org/ I have used it for many years mainly for Office Calc which is like Excel spreadsheet. It appears to be compatible with Excel as I send reports from my business to another office running Microsoft Excel. I refuse to buy Microsofts office. Mark

[AstralTraveller (David)]

We have Libre Office on our Linux box and it runs very well. It has all the features most users will ever need and is fairly compatible with MS Office. My wife has to share docs with Office users and it is OK for typical docs but for highly-formatted docs she still uses Office (which is running under Win 7 in a VM).

I believe Libre Office is a fork from Open Office but I'm not sure why the Linux community use Libre Office. Perhaps it is better supported?

[bojan]

Hi Mark, thank you..
Is that the same as Apache Open office?

[gts055 (Mark)]

Hii Bojan, yes it is Apache Open Office. Mark

[bojan]

Excellent, thank you guys for your replies.
I will try both Libre and ApacheOO...

[lazjen (Chris)]

LibreOffice has better support then OpenOffice. I can't remember why the split happened, but at the time, the core development went to LibreOffice.

[DarkArts]

As Chris said, LibreOffice has better support. It's available for Windows, Mac, Linux, Android and iOS in multiple formats and languages.

OpenOffice was "bought out" by Oracle when it bought Sun (which had previously been a benefactor of the project) and is no longer completely open source. There were always closed-source add-ons for OO back in the day, but you could be assured of getting a fully-open suite if you wanted. That is no longer the case.

Most of the OO developers left in a huff and started The Document Foundation (LibreOffice makers) when the Oracle acquisition occurred.

www.libreoffice.org

[luka]

LibreOffice all the way.

Let me quote Wikipedia explaining in what state Apache OpenOffice is:

In January 2015 the project reported a lack of active developers and code contributions.[9] After ongoing problems with unfixed security vulnerabilities through 2015 and 2016,[10][11] in September 2016 the project started discussions on possibly retiring AOO.[12][13][14] Security issues in Version 4.1.3 were known from January 2017,[15] with 4.1.4 not being released until October 2017.

And to clarify more, there are:
1. LibreOffice is where main development is happening.
2. Apache OpenOffice which mostly lags LibreOffice in features is slowly decaying as described in the above quote.
3. OpenOffice or OpenOffice.org which is dead now which was originally StarOffice. Note that Apache OpenOffice kept the openoffice.org web address.

[bojan]

Thanks, guys.
LibreOffice it is, then.... downloading (it is quite slow, last night it stopped completely).

[sil (Steve)]

LibreOffice is usable. I've switched to Google's offerings for my needs (probably not an option for you) which are pretty simple. As much as I hate cloud crap I really need to be able to access certain files from many locations and mobile is really handy. Never really found a good replacement yet for Office that lets me work on documents in both without losing data (eg working on at home and working with what we are supplied at work). Sort has forced me to simplify, mostly I work with a single (now massive) text file and using evernote has help organise my documents and make them available whenever i need them on any device pretty much. good luck with libre, hope it meets your needs.

[baileys2611 (Simon Bailey)]

+1 for LibreOffice. I use it on all my home computers (Ubuntu as well as Windows).

I also use GimpShop instead of Photoshop.