One of the most
common objections to open source applications such as LibreOffice is
that there may not be quite the same features in open source
programs. They are simply not good enough - it is said.
Let's have a
look at some of the areas where LibreOffice is actually BETTER than
the competitor Microsoft Office.
PDF
PDF is one of LibreOffice's very strong areas. Here are a few
examples:
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With LibreOffice you can create PDF-files of very high
quality. In fact, such high quality that they live up to most
government requirements for PDF files for document exchange. It's
the special document format called PDF/A-1a. PDF/A-1a has two
particular advantages: they can be read by machines, so for example
a screen reader (used primarily by blind people) and that they are
self-explanatory, making them completely independent of software
from one vendor. The latter is important for documents that are to
be long time archived. In a 100 years from now, it is not certain
that [insert a product name here] exists.
-
With LibreOffice you can (with the drawing application
Draw) make corrections to existing PDF files. For instance you can
do what is normally called merge-and-split (e.g., you can pick a
single page from one PDF file and paste thar page into another PDF).
You can actually do minor changes to the content itself.
-
It is possible to export to PDF with comments (comments are
converted to PDF comments).
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With LibreOffice, you can save the editable ODF file as
part of the PDF file. The result is a rather large PDF file, but you
can open it with LibreOffice and edit the content. This also applies
if it is a spreadsheet.
-
With LibreOffice, you can create PDF forms with input
fields.
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With LibreOffice you can sign PDF files digitally if you
have a digital signature.
Import filters
Another of LibreOffice's very powerful features is all import
filters. LibreOffice can open virtually all relevant file types,
including old Microsoft file types, that even Microsoft Office can't
open.
Here are some examples:
-
LibreOffice supports the SVG-formatet. Inserted SVG-images can be ediited directly from e.g., Incskape through the contect emnu "edit with external tools...". After editing the image with Inkscape you can save the changes back directly to the LibreOffice document.
- Import of graphic formats: DXF, MET, PBM, PCD, PCX, PGM,
PPM, PPM, RAS, SGF, SVM, TGA, XBM, XPM.
-
Import of MacOS older vector and bitmap graphics formats:
Beagle Works, ClarisWorks, Great Works, MacPaint, MacWorks, Super
Paint, MacDraw, MacDraw II, ragtime for Mac 2-3.
-
Importing video and audio formats FLAC Audio flac, Flash
Video (flv), Matroska Media (MKV), OGG Audio, Ogg Video, Quicktime
Video, WebM Video, Real Audio (.ra), RealMedia (.rm), Digital video
(.dv) Audio Codec (.ac3) and Ogg Opus (.opus).
-
Older Mac OS word processing documents: MS Word for Mac (1
to 5.1), MS Works for Mac (1-4), ClarisWorks / AppleWorks, Write
Now, MacWriteII / MacWritePro, DOCMaker 4 FullWrite Professional,
HanMac Word-K / J, LightWayText for Mac 4.5, Mariner Write Mac
Classic 1.6 to 3.5, MindWrite Document, Nisus Writer Classic Mac 3.4
to 6.5, TeachText / SimpleText 1, Tex-Edit 2 Writer Plus, Z-Write
1.3, eDOC 2 Acta Mac Classic, Beagle Works / WordPerfect Works 1,
Great Works, MacDoc 1 MoreMac 2-3, ragtime for Mac 2-3
-
Older DOS / Windows word processing documents: Microsoft
WinWord 5, Microsoft Word 6.0 / 95, Hangul WP97 and Text 602 (T602),
Lotus WordPro.
-
Import of e-book formats: Fiction Book 2.0, Broadband,
Plucker (Palm) eReader (Palm), zTXT (Palm), TealDoc (Palm), PalmDOC
(Palm), AbiWord files.
-
DocBook import and export.
-
Import of MS Visio files.
-
Import and export AportisDoc (Palm), Pocket Word documents.
Specific features
You can use color palettes from GIMP as palettes in LibreOffice.
Writer works almost as a DTP-program with frames, styles and conditional formatting.
In Calc you can format celles with styres and conditional formatting.
With Draw you can edit and manage your diagrams, show them in Writer, Calc or Impress; Draw is a small «Corel Draw» with underestimated power; use it to annotate bitmaps too, bitmaps that can be enhanced with filters directly in Draw.
Impress has a built in "Presentation console", that gives the presenter access to his notes, the outline of the presentation and a preview of the next slide. All at the same time as the current slide is on the main monitor or projector.
The Navigator
The so called Navigator in LibreOffice is a unique feature that is
not available in MS Word. With the Navigator you can always get an
overview of your document, and everything the document contains.
The Navigator shows among other things an overview of all the
headings, and you can click on the headings and jump directly to that
location in the document. You can also move around the headings and
change heading level. The text in that section follows the heading.
You can thus move around the chapters and sections in one simple
process.
At the same time, you have an overview of all your tables, text
frames, pictures, bookmarks, etc.
Frequent updates
LibreOffice is released with new versions every six months.
Between versions, is published on a monthly basis bug-fixing versions
for the last two or three main versions. The frequent updates may
seem like an inconvenience to end users, but you don't necessarily
have to upgrade every time. It is perfectly possible to upgrade once
or twice per year.
The advantage of the frequent updates is that the development of
e.g., the user interface is ongoing, and you will experience only
small improvements in each version. Often brand new features are not
mandatory to use in the first few versions. This is unlike
proprietary products, which often takes several years between
updates, and you will therefore experience major changes every time.
The advantage for users is that you, the user does not experience
going through a period of learning each time the application is
upgraded.
One can explain it in the way that LibreOffice is evolutionary,
whereas MS Office develops revolutionary.
Free support
Most home users and small business users can easily use the free
support that can be found on the Internet. There are user forums in
many native languages, and on the international level, there are a
number of places where users help users – this applies to both
beginners and advanced users.
If you use LibreOffice professionally, you may need professional
support through a consultancy company that offers such support.
Similarly, you have the opportunity to submit bug reports and
ideas for new features. If you are not qualified for this, you can
get help from local companies or consultants who are better
qualified. I have reported a number of major and minor bugs and got
most of them corrected in subsequent versions.
Working across computer types
You can run LibreOffice on Windows, Mac, Linux and BSD and
Documents can move freely between these environments without any
problems.
LibreOffice can both open and save OOXML and Microsoft XML
formats. The opposite is unfortunately not the case to the same
extent. LibreOffice even supports the "clean" OOXML format,
namely OOXML Strict, which Microsoft Office do not. LibreOffice is
also found in a "portable" version, which you can run from
a Windows computer without first installing the program.
Enhancing with plug-ins
LibreOffice can be enhanced with extensions e.g., containing
images, templates, special settings or code. The code can be Basic,
Python, Java, JavaScript, or C ++. Such extensions are normally also
usable across computer systems.
Other functions
Writer supports complex spreadsheet calculations in text tables.
Writer supports master documents.
Open source
You get a wide range of advantages as a result of the open source
license.
Openness
With LibreOffice, you are not bound by specific, often quite
expensive, cloud solutions, that a particular supplier has chosen for
you. You are not bound by anything, simply because you have the right
to change the program's source code. LibreOffice already supports a
variety of standards and protocols, including CMIS and WebDAW, which
makes it possible to work directly from document management systems,
such as Alfresco, Google Drive, Nuxeo, MS SharePoint, MS OneDrive,
IBM FileNet LotusLive Files, Lotus Quickr Domino, Open Data Space or
OpenText ELS.
LibreOffice uses a file format which is an open standard - not
only by name. In fact it has been instrumental, so that other office
applications use the same file format. For example, WebODF an editor
for websites, where you can edit text files and get the result as
odt-files. And it means that the application Calibre can convert
ODF-files to a wide range of e-book formats.
Transparency
Although only very few people care about it, you have as user the
opportunity to look the project over the shoulder. You can improving
the code, and even that fewest people have resources to proofread the
source code, the possibility is there. You can see both the source
code, but also follow the bug list and the internal mailing lists.
There are professional consultants who specialize in this kind of
work like the company Coverty who have machine analyzed the source
code in LibreOffice, and reported a number of potential errors. Most
of these errors has subsequently been corrected by the community. The
latest statistics from Coverty suggests an error density of 0.02
defects per thousand lines of code. Commercial software vendors
probably implement similar analysis, but the results will not be
published.
Free as in free speech
One of the basic advantages of open source is the right and the
opportunity to develop new features or fix bugs in the program. This
is a possibility which is certainly not found in Microsoft Office. It
may well be that you don't have such skills to hack the code you
self, but you might find a freelance consultant or a local company
who can do it for a fee. And maybe there are others who have the same
needs as you have, and so you can team up to pay the consultant. A
good example of this, is a group of German and Swiss authorities who
together made a public tender to improved implementation of OOXML in
LibreOffice.
It is also the same "freedom to improve the program"
that enables us to translate LibreOffice into Danish and many other
languages. LibreOffice comes in more than 100 different languages,
including some of the "narrow" language that Microsoft
Office doesn't support. If you need additional languages, you can
download them for free.
Free as in free beer
LibreOffice is free and you are under no obligation to buy
expensive subscriptions from a particular supplier. You are welcome
to make a donation, but it is optional whether to pay or perhaps help
us translate the next version. At the same time you risk nor the
supplier suddenly change the license terms.
Free applies as mentioned before, if you need additional language
packs or dictionaries. You can get lots of dictionaries for spell
checking, but also grammar of English – and its all for free.
This weekend I was contacted by my good friend Ove Larsen, from the organization FAIR, that are currently working in Malawi to prepare computers for use in high schools. Computers that are disposed in Denmark, but which can easily be used by students in the third world. The message was about compiling a spellchecker in LibreOffice for the language Chichewa, which is the main language in Malawi. Malawi is on the UN top-10 list of least developed countries, and there exists no official dictionary.
Dictionaries are parts of the efforts to make information technology more relevant and accessible. Open source is absolutely fundamental, and schools in the projects enjoying the results and expressed great enthusiasm for, among many others; Ubuntu, Wikipedia and LibreOffice. The latter is now officially supported in the examination at secondary schools.
About FAIR
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