Options
Is libreoffice 100% compatible with MS Office
[Deleted User]
Posts: 2,583
Forum Member
✭✭✭
I'm refurbing one or two cheap units for some friends and if it were me I'd stick Linux on 'em since they are free.
Friends need MS Office for work and are really resistant to change.
I only have rudimentary experience of Libre (I type the odd letter etc), how good are these free suites now and how compatible are they with Libre.
One deal breaker is if they can't load existing Office documents into Libre with all the correct formatting etc. It must look and behave exactly as the original document when it was created.
Friends need MS Office for work and are really resistant to change.
I only have rudimentary experience of Libre (I type the odd letter etc), how good are these free suites now and how compatible are they with Libre.
One deal breaker is if they can't load existing Office documents into Libre with all the correct formatting etc. It must look and behave exactly as the original document when it was created.
0
Comments
Surely if it's for work it's better to stick with MS Office?
Well that's what they tell me. Its not the main work unit. They will be home units that have a requirement to do work at home. So inter-changeability is required with documents.
How close is pretty close though, that's the question.
That's kind of the impossible question to answer - it will depend a lot on exactly what they are doing but personally if it's for work it's not worth the hassle of using something that may or may not work.
Unless it is very light editing in which case they can use the Office Web Apps for free which do preserve formatting.
My mother inlaw loved it because it looked just like she used to use at work when MS office was "pre-ribbon".
It depends how complex the documents are as regards formatting etc. If there are excel spreadsheets with a bunch of forumals the chances go up that there will be quirks (or it just be broken). Same with word formatting with customised tables etc.
The only issue is I would need to fork out for Windows OS licences.
The items I am working on are, 1 old laptop which has no recovery partition (since the previous owner already wiped the drive), no recovery discs. The other unit is a desktop but has no HD in it, I am supplying one of my old ones.
This is a very broad-brush statement and depends entirely on the licence agreement the company has.
It's compatible enough for a casual Home User, but not for the work scenario.
In the work scenario where they use MS Office, then that's what should be installed and used. That's as near 100% compatible as you can get.
I have MS Office installed here on the Home PC for the very reason you are asking. MS Office is used for work related stuff.
I have Open Office installed as well but it is used for personal trivial uncritical stuff.
One has xp pro coa but I don't have or know anyone that I can borrow discs from.
There is no coa with the Desktop.
Didn't realise they were that much incompatible. Looks like they need to stick with MS Office then.
True. How many different EULAs for Office are there? I've experienced two different ones regarding Office and they both allowed installation on a single home computer for work use.
Most times MS Office will be more compatible, but sometimes OpenOffice.org/LibreOffice will open files that MS Office can't.
Unless the place you are building for has some kind of volume licencing agreement (which I doubt they would since it would also mean they would be likely to have in-house IT) then as a minimum you are going to need an OS for the desktop.
You could download XP Pro OEM CD but the issue is finding a copy that hasn't been tampered with. Since there is less than a year of support left I'd say it would be better to just go down the Win7 Pro route on both.
One was definitely retail. The other... not sure what it would be called. Basically I briefly worked for a reseller and support company and they had a master disc of everything MS related. We could have a copy of whatever we needed on our work machines as well as a copy on our home machines for work use.
have to admit, one of biggest plus marks for libreoffice for me is the classic non-ribbon interface & now that it copes better with even docx/xlsx I see no reason to downgrade to a newer version of office .... there are whole government depts in some countries using openoffice/libreoffice & unless you use plugins from other programs that demand ms office I think many private businesses could do likewise ... can depend how big they are, how paranoid they are ...
I Have been doing some CVs for somebody, set and layed them out, filled it in, using LibreOffce, thought great job well done
But had a thought, best double check it, so sent it to e.mail and opened it using several versions of Microsoft Office.
Tried all the comp settings etc, but no matter what i did, when Microsoft opened a LibreOffice Doc, it was all over the place.
That wouldnt have impressed a HR Dept trying to read the CV
So re did it using Mcrosoft Office.
PS Nothing to do with Office. But they got the job
Yes, Microsoft Office is poor at showing some docs, although that may be because LibreOffice supports ODF 1.2, while Office is lagging behind on 1.1.
It's a great package, and has not let our office down yet when opening Word or Excel files. I'd highly recommend it, it's a brilliant piece of free software.
Mark
That's what you get for using Office. If you'd created the CV with something that adhered to standards it would work fine