Libreoffice or Openoffice - which is better?

Office technologies, which are understood as the totality of information products that allow to optimize the work with text, tables, presentations, images and formulas, are needed today not only for managers, journalists, accountants and other professionals whose professional activities are directly related to the above-mentioned actions. Text editors are used by students and students, the table processor is suitable for planning your personal budget, and database management systems allow you to systematize large amounts of information of various kinds.

The cost of the latest version of the most popular office software package Microsoft Office 2016 is about six thousand rubles for one computer. This fact forces many users to look for free alternatives. These are the software packages LibreOffice or OpenOffice.

Composition of office software packages

Free Microsoft Office equivalents in many ways duplicate the composition of the flagship solution for creating, viewing and editing text documents, tables, images and formulas. LibreOffice and OpenOffice, the differences of which are extremely insignificant, and the convenience depends on the preferences of a particular user, include the following programs:

1. Text editor Writer.

2. The spreadsheet editor Calc.

3. Program for creating Impress presentations.

4. Draw graphic editor.

5. The program for editing formulas Math.

6. The program for creating databases Base.

Similar paid software products are MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Visio for image editing and Access - database editor.

LibreOffice or OpenOffice are cross-platform software, applications run on the most common Windows, and on Linux or Mac OS X. In addition, LibreOffice is developing versions of editors for mobile iOS and Android.

Interface and functionality of software products

If you do not know what kind of product is installed - LibreOffice or OpenOffice, - the interface at a glance can not be distinguished. Правка”, “Вид”, “Вставка”, “Формат”, “Таблица”, “Инструменты”, ”Окно” и “Помощь”, в том или ином виде характерные и для MS Office, и для онлайн-сервиса Google Docs. On the toolbar all the same "File", " Edit", "View", "Insert", "Format", "Table", "Tools", "Window" and "Help", in one form or another characteristic for MS Office, and for the online service Google Docs. All the basic elements of text editing are available immediately: print, scale, font and font size, markup and so on.

LibreOffice (OpenOffice comparison wins here, but the competitor's custom functions fill this gap) is not equipped with a sidebar that is convenient for use on widescreen screens, otherwise the interface and functionality of graphic editors converge. By the way, in LibreOffice the latter option is included in the "experimental capabilities", so it is quite possible that the developers will eventually display the side menu in the default display.

Comparing OpenOffice / LibreOffice and a macro by user name is also equivalent: scripts are created in a similar way, no significant differences are observed.

Compatible with MS Office formats

Microsoft Office is installed on 85% of devices, and the "native" format of .doc or .docx (or respectively .xls and .xlsx for tables, .pptx for presentations) is ubiquitous, so it is impossible to consider the compatibility of the compared software packages with MS.

Documents prepared in LibreOffice or OpenOffice are most likely to be viewed in standard MS Office, so correct mapping is necessary. The leading position in this issue (except, of course, recognized by MS Office) is LibreOffice, which can directly edit files from Word or view documents from Visio. OpenOffice also opens .doc or .docx, but when saving, it suggests changing the extension to its own format or saving the file in the old MS Office extension.

In the case of presentations, everything is somewhat more complicated: there are no problems with static slides, whereas dynamic ones can be distorted when opened in a different format. So before the performance, it is better to double-check the correctness of presentation presentation in another editor.

LibreOffice vs OpenOffice: unique features

Despite the external identity, the programs differ and some unique functions. отличается решениями, которых, к сожалению, не наблюдается у прямого конкурента. More precisely, LibreOffice differs solutions, which, unfortunately, is not observed in a direct competitor. For example, in LibreOffice the function of dynamic display of the number of words and symbols is realized, whereas the competitor of the office program displays only the number of the current page in the bottom menu.

In addition, LibreOffice supports embedded fonts. This means that the face and other text attributes or styles applied when creating or editing the original file are saved when the document is opened on a computer where the font used is not installed. The text file will not be distorted, which is not provided in OpenOffice.

Performance of software products

A small advantage of OpenOffice before the competitor is speed. In tests conducted on a personal computer with a memory of three gigabytes and the operating system Windows 7, the office program is somewhat ahead of LibreOffice in terms of the speed of saving, opening the file or translating the document into a different format.

On average, OpenOffice Writer and Calc are 20-23% faster than a similar product from the LibreOffice package. Of course, this fact is not decisive when choosing a package of office programs, but it is rather important in circumstances when it is necessary to send an urgent report or to displace corrections to the previous version of the document.

The popularity of office software packages

OpenOffice, as a rule, is the first product, which is transferred in the process of searching for alternatives to Microsoft Office. So, for the first quarter of 2010, this package of office programs was installed on 21% of the devices of German users (they were taken into account as individuals using this package, as well as commercial organizations, public funds, administrations and other government departments). In Russia, the product is used by Rostelecom, the Federal Bailiff Service and the Pension Fund.

However, by 2011, mass migration to LibreOffice started by French, Spanish and Italian users, residents and companies of Denmark, military departments of Italy and the city administration of Valencia. In 2014 (in connection with the introduction of sanctions) the transition to a freely distributed package of office programs was launched by the Russian metallurgical and mining company Evraz.

And how are things at the moment in the confrontation of LibreOffice vs OpenOffice? занимает лидирующую позицию по распространенности как среди частных лиц, так и в корпоративном сегменте пользователей. Not taking into account a similar package of products from Microsoft, we note that LibreOffice takes the leading position in terms of prevalence both among individuals and in the corporate segment of users.

Development speed and new versions

Today, as already mentioned, the difference between LibreOffice and OpenOffice is negligible, but with time everything can change. The speed of developing new versions and eliminating the shortcomings of previous versions of the program is higher in LibreOffice, the developers of OpenOffice have slowed down the pace for code audit, which is also not bad. You can expect that the shortcomings of previous versions of the program will be eliminated, but it is not worthwhile to hope for new functionality too.

According to experts' forecasts, in the near future LibreOffice will be more actively developing, so, perhaps, users who work a lot in text, table or graphic editors, as well as with databases, the choice should be stopped on this particular software.

So what is better - LibreOffice or OpenOffice?

We examined the advantages and disadvantages of software packages, but, as they say, it is better to see once than hear a hundred times. Better yet, potestit, because the answer to the question: "LibreOffice or OpenOffice - what is better?" Is rather difficult to give without trying both products. Both OpenOffice and LibreOffice are freely available, so it's easy to verify the convenience, functionality, speed and compatibility of software products with other common formats on personal experience. This is the only way to finally determine the free analogue of a recognized market leader.