Scan & Fix 50 registry issues FREECNET Editors' review
When it comes to creating documents, spreadsheets, databases, and presentations, MS Office is the suite that comes to mind. But let's face it: Office is a pricey piece of software. Thankfully, there are cheaper alternatives out there, but they don't always live up to their promise. LibreOffice offers up a free alternative, and we found it on par with its more popular competitor.
LibreOffice opens with a main menu that let us select which application we wanted to use: Base, Calc, Draw, Impress, Math, and Writer. Each application's interface will look very familiar to you if you've used MS Office products. We started with LibreOffice Writer, the suite's word-processing application. We typed up a document and formatted it without any issues. The application saves documents as .odt files by default, which cannot be opened by MS Word. But to solve any compatibility issues, it does allow you to save it as a .doc file. We proceeded to check out Calc and Impress, the suite's spreadsheet and presentation programs. Like Writer, each program introduced a familiar interface. We were able to bypass the default .ods and .odp file types to MS file types and open them without any issues. And the Math and Draw applications were just icing on top of the cake of this capable suite of tools. Should you need it, each application includes a link that takes you to the Web site for support.
LibreOffice installs and uninstalls cleanly. Its tools work just as well as their pricey competitor's, and it's free. What else can we say? We highly recommend the program.
Publisher's Description
From The Document Foundation:
LibreOffice is an open-source personal productivity suite that gives you six feature rich applications for all your document production and data processing needs, writer, calc, impress, draw, math, and base. Support and documentation is free.
What's new in this version: Version 4.0.3 contains many exciting new features, and is suitable for early corporate adopters and private users.
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All versions:
4.0 starsout of 138 votes
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Current version:
3.6 starsout of 5 votes
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My rating:
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Results 1-5 of 5
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"4.0.3 continues to be the best alternative to M$ Word"
Version: LibreOffice 4.0.3
Pros
It has most of the bells and whistles that M$ Word has but without the bill to go with it! It is fairly easy to navigate and does what is marked on the tin
Cons
Updates seem to be a bit frequent but one must assume that the benefits (to some) must warrant that. I find that the separation of "Labels" from "Envelopes" a bit strange, considering that they both can be related in use at times. Word does make this possible with a combined link together with the ability to refer an address (say in a letter text) to copy the details to paste into the label or envelope input.
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"cannot use it, or anything after 3.6.4.3"
Version: LibreOffice 4.0.3
Pros
There are no pros if I cannot use it
Cons
All versions after 3.06 I have ever downloaded, always began when opened in "recovery mode"; and when files were recovered (supposedly), they continued to return as needing to be recovered. These are not large files, maybe 100 - 300 kb
Summary
I cannot and use this product as I stated; I still use 3.6.4.3; anything after that has been completely and totally useless to me
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"Not perfect Office replacement."
Version: LibreOffice 4.0.3
Pros
Works with MS Word and excel files.
Works with Powerpoint files.
Easy to install just download and run.
Not as bloated as MS Office.
Really good substitute for MS Office.Cons
Only one real con and that is does not have an Outlook equivalent.
Summary
Great program for what it does. Overall, can replace MS Office for the most part. For what it doesn't have, there are other alternatives.
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"A comprehensive suite and it is free"
Version: LibreOffice 4.0.3
Pros
I Use this suite for more than one year and the suite is really comprehensive
Cons
Never found any real problem
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"LibreOffice works good except in BASE"
Version: LibreOffice 4.0.3
Pros
Text and Spreed sheet work great
Cons
Base has problems with large Databases, stops and has to do something every few lines. Apache OpenOffice has similar problem. OpenOffice 3.3 does not have this problem so still using it tell they fix the newer ones.
Summary
Good for Doc. and Excel files but not worth anything for Access files. I Do not use PowerPoint.
Results 1-5 of 5
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