Office to Open Source

How do these open source suites differ from Microsoft Office Should your office consider one of them, and will they make sense for your users and infrastructure

To help you decide, we compared key features of the latest version of Microsoft’s suite, the Office 2013 Professional edition, to Apache OpenOffice 4.0 and LibreOffice 4.1, both released in July 2013. Both open source suites offer a tool called “Base” that’s similar to Microsoft Access, a tool called Draw similar to Microsoft Visio, and an equation editor called Math, while Microsoft Office includes the desktop publishing application Publisher, but for the purposes of this article we will look at the word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation tools.

Open Source vs. Commercial:

The philosophical differences between the three packages and how they might affect how you purchase and use the suites. Commercially licensed software like Microsoft Office is developed by a single vendor sales help fund product-testing and development, marketing and sales, and salaries and shareholder dividends. In contrast, open source software is developed collaboratively, often by volunteers, and distributed freely to allow anyone to use, redistribute, adapt, or improve the code free of charge.

The open source philosophy is not just limited to software, and can attract loyal adherents who believe that information should be shared. The flipside is that some consumers are more comfortable with a for-profit model they feel rewards ingenuity and innovation. If you have deep a conviction in either direction, it’s not likely that we’ll change your mind—for the rest of you, each model has tangible advantages and disadvantages that we’ll look at in closer detail. Updates to the latest-and-greatest versions of the open source applications are also free, but the same is not always true for Office 2013. Users have to buy new versions of the software Office 2010 users who want to upgrade to Office 2013 have to pay for the new edition, for example but smaller updates between major releases are free. If you currently hold a valid license of Office with Software Assurance a support-and-benefits service available to volume licensing customers, you may be able to upgrade to newer versions released during your coverage period for free.

In the pricing area, licensing is another advantage because of the open source suites’ looser licensing requirements, you don’t have to worry about installing unlimited copies around the office or at home. You can download and install the software on as many machines as you like. However, when you buy or receive a version of Office 2013, you may only install it on a specified number of computers within your organization that number depends upon which edition of the suite you purchase, so you’ll need to keep track of exactly where it’s been installed. Another advantage of open source code is that you can do what you like with it. You can study OpenOffice or LibreOffice and customize them to your needs, improve them any way you see fit, or use the code to create something completely new and release your changes to the public. If this is important to you, Microsoft doesn’t offer anything comparable. Commercially licensed software has its advantages, too it comes with all the benefits of the company behind the code. Microsoft relies on the sales of Office and other software applications to remain profitable, giving it a strong incentive to offer the features, support, and interface that will make its software attractive to users and competitive in the market. Microsoft has built a vast pool of talented developers, a mature platform, and polished user interfaces, and the success of Office has provided it with a large user- and support base.

The mandates for open source applications are fuzzier than for commercially licensed software. The tools tend to be driven by tech-savvy programmers, a practice that can result in somewhat less-polished interfaces and limited documentation. But because their source code is available to all, OpenOffice and LibreOffice are not solely dependent on their current crop of developers and corporate sponsors even if all those people supporting the project were to disappear, the code would still exist, and other people could pick up where they left off. The same is not always true for commercial projects. That said, it doesn’t appear that Microsoft is in any danger of going bankrupt in the foreseeable future.

Comparing Suites:

Whether open source or commercial, how does each of the three suites compare against the others.

First, a little about the two open source tools: OpenOffice and LibreOffice are very similar products, both built upon the same source code. When Sun Microsystems purchased OpenOffice, and was subsequently taken over by Oracle, the community split and LibreOffice was created in parallel. The OpenOffice project has since been handed over to the Apache Foundation. In a practical sense, users won’t see much of a difference between the two tools, and deciding between them will likely come down to personal preference or word of mouth rather than features.

Usability and Interface:

Microsoft Office is nearly ubiquitous in office settings these days, making its interface the  standard for how office suites operate. Office 2013 keeps the ribbon toolbar interface first introduced to some controversy in Office 2007, with slight modifications that include returning the File menu to the tool bar to make it easier for users to find the controls to open and save documents. The pretty, modern interface lends additional polish.

OpenOffice and LibreOffice, on the other hand, lack the ribbon toolbar and instead offer a more traditional interface which makes them intriguing options for Office 2003’s steadfast supporters. Anyone who has used Word or Excel 2003 will feel comfortable using their open source competitors, Write and Calc, while those familiar with newer versions of Office will find it somewhat retro.

Document Sharing

In general, files created by all three suites can be read by the others, though there are caveats. In the case of Office 2013, Microsoft has established  file standards such as .DOC and .DOCX for Word documents and .XLS and .XLSX for Excel. If you need to share files with anyone running Office 2003 or older, you may need to convert them to older formats. Microsoft offers a free utility to do this.

Apache OpenOffice and LibreOffice, on the other hand, use open standards for their native files, but can read and write files using Microsoft’s format. In fact, users can choose to automatically save files in .DOC or .DOCX formats by default. The open source community has invested a lot of effort in ensuring that Writer, Calc, and Impress users can share documents with Microsoft users, and has succeeded in all but a few specific cases.

If you have created Word documents that make extensive use of columns, header formats, and embedded images, the file is likely to show up in Writer with minor formatting issues that have to be adjusted manually. This isn’t likely to be prohibitive for a document or two, but could be time-consuming for a whole library of templates and collateral. However, both OpenOffice and LibreOffice have begun to implement better support for Microsoft file formats for example, LibreOffice has improved its utility to import .DOCX files to handle more images and formatting. Office 2013 and its open source competitors are also incompatible when it comes to macros or spreadsheet pivot tables while all three suites support both features, you will not be able to use macros or pivot tables created in Office 2013 with the open source tools, or vice versa. You may also have minor issues translating charts between the suite’s spreadsheet programs.

Interestingly, OpenOffice can open files saved in substantially older versions of Microsoft Office than Office 2013 can and even some corrupted Word files that Office 2013 can’t open. For an IT department, it might be worth having a copy installed for that reason alone. Finally, all three applications provide the ability to export any file as a PDF, ensuring that viewers see the document exactly as you intended.

Remote Access:

In Office 2013, Microsoft continues the web collaboration features it introduced in Office 2010, and Office 365 the subscription-model edition provides even tighter integration with SkyDrive, Microsoft’s online site for file storage, hosting, and suite of web apps, allowing for more portability of documents and the ability to edit documents and access full-featured versions of the tools from any computer. For better or worse, SkyDrive makes it easier to share documents between computers and collaborators. OpenOffice and LibreOffice offer none of these features and operate on a pure desktop model. You can email files to yourself or others or use shared drives, but you can’t edit them directly via the web or collaborate with others in real time.

Security:

Microsoft Office, OpenOffice, and LibreOffice are reasonably secure as long as you follow standard security procedures, including installing updates and patches as soon as they’re released and maintaining firewalls, antivirus, and antispyware software. However, while the open source community publicizes possible security issues with both open source tools allowing users to protect themselves and hackers to potentially exploit issues Microsoft keeps security issues close to the vest in an effort to prevent hackers from finding out about them.

This approach can have the unintended consequence of forestalling the ability of users to take protective measures beyond the standard Microsoft-provided security updates. But generally speaking, with the standards precautions, all three tools are safe.

Specific Features: A Comparison:

Let’s get on with it, then ready for a head-to-head comparison of features It turns out such a comparison is difficult, primarily because the three suits are so fundamentally similar for years, they’ve been copying each others’ best enhancements and innovations. Your needs must be pretty complex before you start to find one of them lacking.

Grammar Checking. Both Microsoft Word and LibreOffice have built-in grammar-checking tools. The Open Office community has provided a few add-ons that you could install to provide grammar checking, but they’re generally less robust than Word’s default options.

Conditional Formatting. All three spreadsheet packages offer conditional formatting the ability to automatically format cells based on the properties of the data within them but Microsoft offers a lot more flexibility and control in this realm. On the other hand, OpenOffice and LibreOffice tend to be somewhat simpler to understand, and can output to more useful file formats.

Suite-Wide interface. Both OpenOffice and LibreOffice provide a gateway to easily access any of the individual components, while users need to open each Office 2013 application separately.

File Size. In general, the native formats of OpenOffice and LibreOffice will create smaller files than Office 2013. When saving files into Microsoft file formats, however for example, to create files that can be opened in Word file sizes are similar to Microsoft’s. With increased hard drive capacity, email clients allowing larger attachments, and online storage, file size is less of an issue for most users than it once was.

HTML Production. All three tools let users create and edit files in HTML, the coding language behind the web, but purists tend to favor the open source suites’ Writer’s HTML markup to Word’s though few people with knowledge of HTML use any word processing program to produce web pages. For simple tasks, Writer’s Web Wizard makes it incredibly easy to produce web pages incorporating HTML, PDF, and images.

Recommendations:

Differences, features, prices you have got all the information you need to make a decision. Still looking for a little guidance We will leave you with a few specific scenarios for when one package might work better than another:

Most free or open source alternatives to Microsoft Office have the basics applications for office productivity: word processing, spreadsheets and presentations. Several of the alternatives provide more, including drawing applications, database tools and storage options.

If you are looking to retire Microsoft Office, here are the details on five full-featured alternatives worth a try.

Apache OpenOffice: 

The free, open productivity suite

Apache OpenOffice is one of the better-known open source office software suites available. It provides tools for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics and databases. Apache OpenOffice lets you save documents in the OpenDocument format, read Microsoft Word documents and save your work in Microsoft Word format.

The full Apache OpenOffice suite includes six tools for managing office tasks:

• Writer, the word processor, can handle anything from writing a quick letter to producing a book. Features include design wizards, autocorrect, formatting, styles, HTML and MediaWiki export, tables and desktop publishing tasks.
• Calc, the spreadsheet application, will calculate, analyze and present data in numerical reports or graphics. Features include options to pull in raw data from databases, natural language formulas, a quick sum button, wizards, styles and a Scenario Manager for "what if" analysis.
• When creating multimedia presentations, Impress supports multiple monitors and a complete range of views. including draw, outline, slides and notes. Drawing and diagramming tools, slideshow animation and effects are also available.
• Draw is an image application that can produce everything from simple diagrams to 3D illustrations.
• The database tool,Base, can create and modify tables, forms, queries and reports within Apache OpenOffice.
• Finally, Math can create mathematical equations through either a graphic user interface or by directly typing formulas into the equation editor.

Apache OpenOffice is released under the Apache License, Version 2.0 and can be downloaded and used entirely free of any license fees. The current version, Apache OpenOffice 3.4.1 supports the Microsoft Windows, GNU/Linux and Mac OS X operating systems. Third-party extensions and frameworks for OpenOffice are available.

LibreOffice: 

A powerful open source productivity suite

Developed by The Document Foundation, the LibreOffice suite is a fork of OpenOffice, meaning the underlying source code is the same, but the software has gone in a different development direction. (LibreOffice was created in 2010 by OpenOffice developers worried about what Oracle, which had acquired Sun Microsystems, the original developers of OpenOffice.org, would do with the code base.)

LibreOffice boasts the same six applications as Apache OpenOffice-Writer, Calc, Impress, Draw, Base and Math-but the two suites differ in terms of applications features, usability and community support. Specifically, LibreOffice is often considered to be more actively developed than OpenOffice; the standard package, for example, offers PDF import, a presentation minimizer and a Wiki publisher. Users can expand functionality with extensions and templates as well.

LibreOffice is licensed under the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) 3.0. The current version of LibreOffice, v3.5.6, supports Windows, Macintosh and GNU/Linux systems.

NeoOffice: 

Office applications for Mac OS X

The NeoOffice suite is an OpenOffice fork that was created before OpenOffice and LibreOffice supported Mac OS.

NeoOffice has nearly all of the features found in OpenOffice.org but, in focusing on the unique needs of Mac users, offers a Mac-like installation process and better support for Mac features, including integration into the OS X interface and use of Mac OS X fonts and printing services.

The newest version of NeoOffice, v3.3, supports high-resolution text drawing on Retina displays, compatibility with Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion and Gatekeeper, and native Mac OS X text highlighting. It also lets NeoOffice Mobile users securely share NeoOffice files with other users, computers and devices.

NeoOffice is distributed under the GNU General Public License. Support is available from the suite's developers for a fee.

Google Docs: 

Create, share and collaborate online

Google Docs is an office productivity suite that lets anyone with a Google account create, share and collaborate on the Web. Google offers tools for documents, spreadsheets, presentations, drawings and forms, all centrally stored and accessed via the cloud-based storage service Google Drive.

• The Google Documents online word processor lets you create and format text documents and collaborate with people who have been given edit, comment or view access. Google Documents converts most file types to Google Docs format, includes revision history and provides margin, spacing and font options. Files can be downloaded as Word, OpenOffice, RTF, PDF, HTML or zip files.
• Google Spreadsheets can create and format spreadsheets, charts and gadgets. Google Spreadsheets supports .xls, .csv, .txt and .ods data, and the application features formatting and formula editing. You can embed a spreadsheet in your blog or website.
• Google Presentations lets you create, share and edit visual presentations; convert existing presentations into .pptx and .pps file types, and download presentations as a PDF, a Microsoft PowerPoint or .txt file. There are also options to insert images and videos, format slides and offer real-time viewing of presentations online.
• Google Docs also includes Google Drawings, an image editor for creating drawings, images, shapes and lines that can be used in any Google Doc, and Google Forms, which creates online forms that can be shared from a link, in an email or embedded on your website.

Google Docs integrates with a number of other Google services, including Gmail, GChat, Google+, Google Calendar and Google Drive, and can be accessed from any device with a browser and Internet connection. 

KOffice: 

The integrated office suite

KOffice offers the three main tools of any office suite: a word processor, a spreadsheet and a presentation application.

• KWord is the word processing and desktop publishing application. You can include images, charts and shapes within your documents and resize and rotate this content easily. KWord features styles, word count, page count, easy zooming and print preview.
• The KCells calculation and spreadsheet tool can be used to create business-related spreadsheets listing, for example, income and expenditure or employee working hours. The application features automatic economic or scientific formula creation.
• Showcase is a presentation application that supports elements such as graphics, text, charts and images. Features include support for layouts, transitions and notes. A plug-in makes all KOffice content elements available in the Showcase application.

KOffice is open source and licensed under the LGPL 2.0. It is available for Windows, Linux, FreeBSD and Mac OS X systems. The latest release is KOffice 2.3.3.