Microsoft Office Alternatives On Linux ...

this is Microsoft Office the industry standard for creating documents calculation sheets presentations and much more and it unfortunately doesn't have a native Linux Port yet while there are ways how you can get it to run through compatibility layers especially older versions the question is do you really need it there are a couple of solid Alternatives which all serve the purpose of providing you with a similar and sometimes even better experience than before and let's get straight into it first on the list is of course the typical program Suite that is often being named the Linux alternative for Microsoft Office Libra office now the opinions if Libra office is actually a worthy substitute for Microsoft solution are quite different and part of the reason is of course its user interface but first things first Libra office is typically the office weed that you find pre-installed on a lot of different distributions it typically comes with an application called writer which is similar to word Cel similar to Excel and impress a presentation application like PowerPoint the full Suite however also comes with a drawing program which is by the way also very nice for editing PDFs and base a database management tool you can find all of the different programs or even the whole bundle in your Linux distribution software store when you start Libra office up it's going to prompt you with some tips which you can of course disable I would have however recommend you that you go through this guide at least once as there is some useful stuff in there that you can quickly configure iPhone ones like Libra office to look a bit more like Microsoft Office not really because of familiarity but since I like having a wider and more easily accessible view of the top bar the default one is kind of cramped in my opinion you can also choose if you want to apply this style only to the program you have currently open or the entire Suite now I'm personally not really a huge fan of deer ofice design especially in dark mode since the icons look a bit too thick and my eyes often get lost in the similarity however that is for once a dark mode or even just a Mii problem otherwise it is pretty easy to use you have your typical settings for the fonts the orientation bullet points margins and templates which sometimes can be a bit finicky to select but usually you should be able to edit them with a regular double click if you want more detailed settings you can also go to View and enable the sidebar whereas you get a couple of different menus on the right by clicking on the settings icon you can change your user interface to something else if you missed it during setup add more toolbars and fine-tune the menu items to your specific needs Oh and before I forget you can also add a Google drive or some other services like Microsoft SharePoint pretty updated and the setup can be a bit tricky in some places but it has that option I personally would recommend you you to just connect your drives via integrated methods of your desktop environment it's much faster this way overall speaking all of the apps of Liber office have a pretty rich feature set and for most it's more than enough but it's rather outdated looking user interface the visibility in dark mode as well as the slightly different workflow for a lot of elements make it a bit more challenging to master at first I personally like to use a different office suite only office only office is another office Suite of programs that runs natively on Linux if you have a higher resolution monitor then I recommend you to verify the scaling settings and I personally also like to change the theme to contrast dark but for the sake of this video I'll keep it on its default value for now now in contrast to lib office only office features a much more cleaner and more modern looking user interface which also looks a lot closer to Microsoft Office by default at the top we again have our typical categories with all of the expected settings but there are some key differences the formating styles for example seem to work differently as you can only update the style with some text you previously edited however on the right we can expand a sidebar which exposes a couple more settings with only office you can also sign your documents add notes for others which is especially useful if you connect it to a compatible Cloud Appliance and something that I actually didn't know before also send documents via mail if you have a program for that installed there is also an inbuilt plug-in manager with a Marketplace that features a couple of useful things like translation and autocomplete tools AI integration code highlighting and much more now only office does not have as many features as Libra office if we count them by number however it does have a lot more unique ones does have a more familiar user interface and slightly better Microsoft Office file format compatibility and it's also my personal favorite office an office weite at the moment but let's keep moving if you're looking for a program that is as close to MS office as it can be then look no further than WPS office now this Suite is actually not open source in any way and it's also from China if that is not a concern to you personally then what you get is a quite literal clone of office in any way menus submenus and even the Color Picker essentially everything that was possible is the same and I guess you can tell that there was at least some intention behind this since even their Cloud offer is called WPS 365 so yeah now there is not much to say about WPS office besides that it looks really good it's easy to use and essentially just Microsoft Office not being made by Microsoft that sums it up pretty well and if you really want to use solution that is not being made in China then there is always the online version of office yes it lacks a lot of features and for some reason also doesn't have the best compatibility with the offline version especially when adjusting stuff like margins and all that but if you're just going to use it for a couple of documents spreadsheets or PowerPoint presentations or heck even use the online version exclusively then this will not be a concern for you the limited functionality is often not really a problem in the personal space and you don't even need to buy a license for it if however you have one then what you can do is to install some applications like Outlook via a Progressive web app and then there's of course Google workspace that in the eye of many even better online suite for Office programs and yeah I mean it's pretty good and some smaller companies even use it exclusively so that seems to be a just fine option all right so are these Solutions proper substitutes well I'm going to say it depends there are still many companies who still use macros in office files even though they really shouldn't because macros can be quite dangerous especially if you exch change these files with external Partners the problem here is that Microsoft uses the programming language Visual Basic while many open Solutions tend to just use basic instead so that means that there might be some slight compatibility but it's best to not rely on it and then there's of course the file format compatibility now I myself haven't discovered any problems yet and they seem to be pretty rare with most files anyway so essentially only people who frequently exchange editable files files are affected by this but then again the partners could just use the Open Standards which Microsoft Office also supports so it's actually just a management thing and takes some time to adjust but yeah those were some of the best and also most common Used Office programs on Linux a lot of them depend on your personal preferences and your actual needs I personally couldn't think of anything that I couldn't do with these Solutions but there are probably some use cases where Microsoft Office is still better NE expecting the wve integration since that's actually pretty huge so let us know in the comments what office applications you use personally and if you think that these Solutions can be a proper substitute if you have liked this video then also make sure to show it with a like and also subscribe to the channel for more Linux content like this thank you for watching and all that's left to say now is good morning good afternoon or good evening wherever you are I'll see you around

Channel: Michael Horn

Views: 17,652

Keywords: microsoft office on linux, microsoft office linux, microsoft office alternative linux, microsoft office free alternative, microsoft office free, how to install office on linux, how to install office 365 on linux, how to install office 365 on chromebook, best office alternative linux

Id: suPR7Qu4-kM

Length: 8min 28sec (508 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 01 2024