Download LibreOffice 7.6.3

Not so long ago it was still believed that the leader in the production of office suites was the unchanged Microsoft Office. However, relatively recently, the slightly tired company has another opponent who undoubtedly deserves your attention, his name is LibreOffice.

Let's have a great battle in which we will figure out once and for all what is better - LibreOffice or Microsoft Office.

It would not be slander to say that both packages of famous companies have a lot in common, but there are also differences. The first of these differences is the compatibility of the LibreOffice package with the vast majority of operating systems, including such well-known operating systems as Windows, Linux и OS X. But with the new office from Microsoft, things are much poorer, because it is only suitable for new Windows operating systems, starting with Windows 7 and higher.

The question is not even which office suite is cooler and not where there are more opportunities; anyway, you will never know about the overwhelming number of them. The point is rather what will be more convenient for you to use in the future for more than one year. It was only with the release of version 4.1 that LibreOffice began to make real sense in comparing these two undoubtedly outstanding companies.

Writer and Word: working with texts

It would not be amiss to mention that among the abundance of office products on the market, LibreOffice with its Writer and Microsoft with Word are undoubtedly the best text editors. And since they are very similar in appearance, the transition from one editor to another will not be difficult for anyone. And in many ways, the younger Writer is even outdoing the eminent and ubiquitous Word.

In terms of the functions they perform, these text editors are also very similar to each other. All major Word functions have been successfully duplicated by Writer. Of the many of these very functions, it is worth mentioning: a wonderful grammar editor, a reliable system for automatically saving file contents, support for a wide list of different formats for saving a file, and so on. They work and look almost identical; wake you up in the middle of the night and you'll probably think they're the same thing. As already emphasized, switching from one editor to another is very simple. In addition, for complete beginners in this business, it will be much easier to start with Writer, it is easier to understand.

Word has been respected all my life for its multi-option text editing capabilities and tracking of changes made to the text. However, Writer today also has all these functions and works at the proper level.

Compiling tables in Excel and similar Calc

One of the main functions of Excel, which is part of the Microsoft Office suite, is the ability to compilation of tables. The company has been and still remains a recognized leader in this area. But for the average user, the functions offered by LibreOffice Calc will most likely be sufficient. But for professionals in this matter, it is better to stay in the old place, or rather on Excel.

In appearance and in basic operation, the programs work identically. For a novice user, the difference in performance will hardly be noticeable. Calc will perform small and simple calculations and create tables at the proper level. But for creating large macros and other multi-labor-intensive tasks, only Excel is suitable.

The developers of the Calc program decided to create their own macro language, which is in many ways incompatible with the Excel language. Therefore, the ability to write a table in one program and successfully run it in another is absent; more precisely, it makes one think about a long and tedious rework of all the incompatible parts. But, as already mentioned, such problems can only arise for users who are involved in this business professionally.

Impress or PowerPoint: creating presentations

At its age the name PowerPoint programs was almost synonymous with the word presentation. There were, of course, good reasons for this, but now PowerPoint has strong competitors. LibreOffice boldly named its presentation software Impress. Again, those who are seriously involved in presentations do not need to remember this word, because the main task of the Impress developers was to create a simply convenient and easy-to-use product, and not a professional program with many hidden and complex functions.

Again, there are some issues with opening presentations made in PowerPoint on Impress. Either the fonts are not supported, or the pictures are out of place.

Access or Base: for creating databases

An important component of all high-quality office packages is a database management system. Microsoft Access has been installed by default on computers around the world for centuries, but today the Base application from LibreOffice gives Access good competition.

The main difference between these programs is compatibility with operating systems. Otherwise, the applications are as similar as two peas in a pod. Base can easily be used to compose and manage small databases, but when it comes to more advanced or multi-level databases, only Access can handle it.

The fact that other office suites have a “smart” and intuitive interface is terribly similar in use. As we can see, all programs from the LibreOffice office suite have absorbed the best from Microsoft. LibreOffice is always free and this is a big plus, but it is not as professional. Verdict: regular users should use LibreOffice, and advanced users should stay with Microsoft.

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