FOSS Friday - Libre Office

It's FOSS Friday!

I've been using Libre Office a lot lately and I'm completely impressed with how far it has come and how beautifully it renders documents coming from Microsoft Office. I can actually use templates from MS Office now.

The documents created on Libre office also save and open in Microsoft Office flawlessly. It's super impressive how far the programs in the Libre Office Suite have progressed since the last time I used it years ago.

The Suite includes:

• Writer – word processor
• Calc – spreadsheet
• Impress – presentations
• Draw – diagrams
• Base – database
• Math – formula editor
• Charts

If you have used Libre in the past and been unhappy with it, give it another go. I sincerely think that you will be pleased with it now. Plus, what have you got to lose? It's free and open source.

Download the office suite today and give it a try. It's easy and free.

There is a Libre Office Viewer (editing is still in development) Android Play Store. Google Docs have no problems with files from Libre Office though, so the native Google programs should handle them just fine if you don't want to bother with another program on your phone.

There are paid versions of the suite on the Microsoft Store ($10) and Mac Store ($8) apps - both are LibreOffice Vanilla. (As an aside, this is how FOSS works. The developers took the free and open source software and developed it as an app for the MS and Mac platform stores. Developer then charges for the convenience of having it available on the platform. Yay for Open Source!) Again, Libre and native Microsoft play fine together, so it may not be necessary.

There are other options for the program and plenty in development. If you are interested in Libre Office for business or personal use, but have questions, contact us and we'd be happy to talk about it with you.