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SoftMaker FreeOffice?
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Having Adobe support Linux has never been the best answer, but the fallacy became a lot more obvious when Adobe shifted to online-DRM subscription sales model and then discontinued their perpetually licensed software sales. Adobe shouldn't bother to support Linux because they're right: they wouldn't sell very many copies for Linux.
- Linux users mostly haven't had decades of lock-in with these applications;
- Linux users are generally accustomed to investigating and using alternative software;
- Linux users aren't as likely to take the subscription deal as Mac users.
Everyone should have some alternatives, no matter what they're using. Emacs users should be able to switch editors if it should become necessary, and Chromium users can switch to Firefox, and Calligra Suite users to FreeOffice, and even Linux users to a BSD if it should ever become necessary.
Anyone who uses specific software professionally should also have an exit plan. Artists, accountants, draftspersons, microelectronics designers, photographers, programmers, lawyers; everyone.
Open died when Oracle bought it.
The entire dev team quit and made Libre instead - which pretty much instantly became the default Linux office package.
The real alternative is FreeOffice, which is specifically built for MS Office compatibility - whatever that may be worth to you. It's proprietary though, and essentially a demo version of their full, paid suite
I use a Office Suite a lot. But haven't touch MS Windows for over two decades. Been using LibreOffice for all my Office Suite duties. I even been liking FreeOffice by Softmaker. No need for MS Office, when you make the switch to Linux.
That's the problem no one switches to Linux. You actually have to forget everything you learn about Windows and Windows applications and relearn again. You can't bring your luggage or baggage to the Linux world. Lucky me I gave up Windows 18 years ago. Relearning was completely worth it to me. But I had the time and patients. Who in today's world have that kind of time and patients; not many.
I use LibreOffice. But there actually something better then LibreOffice and that would be; SoftMaker FreeOffice
https://www.freeoffice.com/en/
Just join. It's actually worth it.
**FREEOFFICE**
As close a copy of MS office as you going to get.
https://www.freeoffice.com/en/freeoffice
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Its the first MS alternative I have been happy to use extensively.
You might be lost, but have you tried freeoffice? It's offered by default on some Manjaro distros and it might be more up your alley. I haven't used it personally, but I don't know if it might offer you more of what you're looking for.
Whatever you get must be at least an i5 processor, 8GB RAM and a SSD. For bloatware check the: The PC Decrapifier.
Free Office Software - SoftMaker FreeOffice or Google Docs. https://www.freeoffice.com/en/download
Antivirus - Bitdefender Free Edition https://www.bitdefender.com/solutions/free.html
This is a great idea but there are already gnumeric (which does support Python and Freeoffice's Planmaker with some more functionality on pivot tables.
The point is how is this done. If full access to the application was given, a "programmable spreadsheet" could even be the basis for various standalone applications.
Dual boot until you're sure you don't need to use Windows anymore. If you have school work or work work that requires Windows, don't delete your partition.
Some Windows apps you can run with WINE or Proton, and there's a VM layer that integrates virtualized Windows apps into Linux called WinApps.
My suggestion is to dual boot, but also create a Windows virtual machine on your Linux partition to run the Windows apps you need that won't run on WINE, that way you don't have to keep rebooting to use certain apps, you can just use the VM.
Try out Visual Studio Code on Linux, it works great. There's also the FreeOffice suite that isn't actually open source, but is free to download.
Btw, Android runs the Linux kernel, so you've been using Linux all along :)
I tried to get my dad onto linux but the MS office thing was what eventually made him return to windows unfortunately, he is still trying though, I see him every now and then booting into to his Linux Mint partition. Give FreeOffice a try https://www.freeoffice.com/en/ . It's made buy SoftMaker and they also have a pro version. Would love to know your thoughts if you try it out, I don't use spreadsheets etc only my father.
And if LibreOffice doesn't jive, there's also FreeOffice, OnlyOffice, and WPS Office, all which work under Linux. But for 99% of people (including me), LibreOffice gets the job done.
Most people should try out new apps first (ones that have a Linux version). Worst case, even if they end up sticking with Windows 7 or whatever, they've expanded their horizons with some new software.
- Visual Studio Code, written by Microsoft but sharing no code with MSVS, is open source and runs on Linux and Mac. It has Language Server Protocol support, which seems quite clever to me, and which is beginning to be supported by other editors/IDEs/tools.
- Photoshop has no Linux version, but Pixeluvo does, and there are the Gimp and Krita. You can try out all of them on your current Windows installation.
- Besides LibreOffice, there's the open-source Calligra Suite and the free but closed-source SoftMaker FreeOffice and WPS Office. All available for Windows, too.
> Already tried. They are not as good as MS Office.
OpenOffice is essentially an old version of LibreOffice at this point, so if LibreOffice isn't working for you then OpenOffice won't. Couple of items:
- If using LibreOffice, install clone fonts for the new default fonts used since Office 2013, that have different metrics.
- Three other office suites on Linux are Softmaker FreeOffice, WPS Office, and Calligra Suite. The first two are proprietary commercial software, the last one is open source.
Check out FreeOffice (https://www.freeoffice.com/en/) Very good compatibility, runs on Crostini. Not open source, but much more MS compatible than Libre or GDocs. Liked it so much I paid for SoftMaker Office to support it.
Maybe try some office suites on Linux, like LibreOffice or my favorite, Softmaker FreeOffice?
If you go with the later, installing it is quite easy: enable Linux support, download the Linux .deb package, double click it on the Files app and you'll find the icons in the launcher inside Linux apps
LibreOffice is good for a basic to medium workload, you can see the post I had in /r/libreoffice about the problems I encountered doing a 100+ page business plan. It was an extremely frustrating experience.
It's not FOSS, but it's inexpensive and great; also, I wrote to the company and they confirmed that they have no telemetry. My network analysis corroborates that statement.
I use SoftMaker Office, and paid $99 US once for their office suite. They have a free version that is worth it, as well. You might check it out and find, like me, that you like it.
Sure. Note that OnlyOffice is proprietary too, it just costs no money. SoftMaker has a free-as-in-beer version as well, FreeOffice.
The question is whether you're opposed to proprietary or paid software in principle. I'm not (partly because of work, where I have to use things like Zoom and MS Teams, so opposition to proprietary software as a matter of principle will not work out for me), so 80 EUR one-time or 3 EUR per month to support a software company developing for Linux is fine with me.
Of course if it has to be FOSS, then that solution is not for you and then LibreOffice it is.
That didn't stop me. I switch to Linux 19 years ago. I used OpenOffice at that time. Than started to use LibreOffice. Now I use FreeOffice + the online office suites when need to. Most the time I don't need to.
There are many alternatives to buying or subscribing to the Microsoft Office suite. For the free software alternatives, I always liked FreeOffice because it has a nearly identical look and feel to the actual Office suite. If you only need occasional use, then Microsoft offers free web versions of all the Office apps and of course there is Google Docs.
Try FreeOffice... https://www.freeoffice.com/en/ I've started using it full time for opening MS Office documents. I have yet to find a docx it can't open cleanly... I'm sure there's one somewhere, but so far it's been VERY good
Here's one for desktop:
> FreeOffice 2021 is a complete Office suite with a word processor, a spreadsheet application and a presentation program – all seamlessly compatible with their counterparts in Microsoft Office.
I got a really good one that I've been using for a while: https://www.freeoffice.com/en/
It's available on Mac, Linux, and windows so can try it out on whatever. Also really like the auto width cells in the spreadsheet app
Something new, it's hard to relearn something that you already know in another software. Some don't have time or it's actually not fitting for that person. It's just fine for me. But I been using free open software for years. So I got used to it. Since I have to learn it and actually use it as the way I want to use it. But I can understand on your prospective.
- Did you configure Libreoffice first.? I use the official Libreoffice Full- Appimage.
- https://github.com/ether/etherpad-lite @ 12 stars
- https://www.freeoffice.com/en/
- google edocs. you can install desktop short cuts and offline mode.
- https://github.com/search?o=desc&q=pdf+editor&s=stars&type=Repositories
Theres always winapps or proton caller or playonlinux or....
LibreOffice does pretty much everything I need to do in a Office Suite. Sometimes have to wonder onto a Online Office Suite but very rarely. There is FreeOffice if you want something alternative to LibreOffice. I believe it's the best alternative Office Suite for Linux in my opinion.
I always been using alternatives. So I don't have to use wine at all. But you can learn wine and get these going I'm sure.
Alternatives if you want to go that route. Stuff that really works in Linux.
https://www.freeoffice.com/en/freeoffice
https://www.addictivetips.com/ubuntu-linux-tips/great-alternatives-to-fl-studio-to-use-on-linux/
Are you going to install a different Office Suite for Linux? I see that you have successfully remove/purge LibreOffice. I guess because you don't need a office suite, it's bloated, or installing a different one. If a different one, I would suggest FreeOffice by SoftMaker https://www.freeoffice.com/en/download
Been using Linux for the past 18 years. Give me any Windows users Office Suite document. I'm sure I can open it. Either what is on my system. Of go to plan B, which using a Office Suite online application. Either way I can get it done with Linux.
Make sure you install Microsoft fonts on Linux. Should have a package in your repositories. My is;
ttf-mscorefonts-installer
The best Linux Office Suite I think is;
SoftMaker Office/FreeOffice
https://www.freeoffice.com/en/freeoffice
Here are the online ones. If you need them. But I rarely have to go this route while using Linux. But this is plan B if you need it.
There are free and lightweight alternatives to Microsoft Word, with good file (.docx) compatibility:
Free Office is even portable, meaning you can take it along on a thumbdrive to use on any PC without installation.
There are many open source alternatives. Libre office. Apache Open Office But the best one is.
Or u can use Google Docs for remote support (u may need internet to update/ access everytime)
Actually FreeOffice by SoftMaker. https://www.freeoffice.com/en/
It's just not open source but free to use. I actually think its the best Linux Office Suite out there. If you don't mind that's its proprietary software.
I'm using LibreOffice. Just because I used it for so long and know how to use it to benefit me. Now that being said. I think with the best features and all around working applications as a whole. I would have to put my vote in as https://www.freeoffice.com/en/ as the best candidate as a whole. Even though it's not open source, it's free and I actually thinks it does a better job as a Linux Office Suite application as a whole.
SoftMaker FreeOffice
So when ever I do switch my Office Suite application. It's diffidently going to be SoftMaker FreeOffice.
Thanks! Worked perfectly.
(for posterity, the downloads from https://www.freeoffice.com/en/download/dictionaries have a .sox extension; just change that to .zip and then unzip to find the .aff and .dic.)
Pocket Word was actually a product not from Microsoft but from Softmaker - a German software developer
Their Softmaker office was rebranded by Microsoft
They're still in business and still selling their office suite.
There's a faint chance that maybe their current Office suite MIGHT be able to open old versions of their product.
Get the free Trial here and see if it helps
They also have a more limited version of their Office known as FreeOffice freely installable here
Use wine which does support MS office 2007 and even 2013(?). OR, if you want an alternative which is Linux compatible and feels similar, try freeoffice.
Office Suite shouldn't be a deciding factor hereafter as we can even use google docs for that matter. But freeoffice is the ultimate alternative to ms office
Free office by Softmaker is a good recommendation for you. It provides basic user Word, Excel and Powerpoint with similar UI and it is highly compatible with Microsoft office formats. Download here: https://www.freeoffice.com/en/
Really Really dumb and not a good idea whatsoever.
Compare to Freeoffice:
SoftMaker FreeOffice is free to use at home and for business. https://www.freeoffice.com/en/
And Freeoffice is closed source software. Libreoffice needs to avoid creating confusion and needless controversy.
sudo /usr/share/freeoffice2018/add_apt_repo.sh
i typed in this command
https://www.freeoffice.com/en/tips-and-tricks-linux
I followed this instruction to install FreeOffice;
but then I uninstalled it through DPKG, after I run apt update the repo is still there
>Microsoft Office
Besides the online version that works fine, there is also FreeOffice, which is natively compatible with Microsoft Office formats and is such a blatant clone of Office's Ribbon UI I'm surprised nobody's gotten sued yet.
What do you dislike about LibreOffice?
As for alternatives, WPS Office has already been mentioned, and I think it is one of the better alternatives. A couple of other alternatives are OnlyOffice Desktop and FreeOffice. Both are proprietary, but No Charge to use. I find OnlyOffice interesting because it is available as an AppImage, so it does not add anything to your system and removing it is as easy as deleting the file. I think FreeOffice is one of the better alternatives, after WPS Office.
https://www.onlyoffice.com/desktop.aspx
https://www.freeoffice.com/en/
Hvis du vil have noget der er gratis og minder om MS, så prøv FreeOffice. Det ligner MS Office til forveksling, og har næsten alle de samme funktioner. Og vigtigst af alt er de også samme sted, så du ikke skal bruge 1000 år på at lede efter en basal funktion der er gemt langt væk, som LibreOffice nogle gange gør.
Jeg brugte FreeOffice i et års tid og opgraderede så til betalingsversionen en dag det var på tilbud til 80kr. Det er et rigtigt godt alternativ.
Eu descobri o Free Office, que é um clone do Microsoft Office... Tem tbm o WPS Office. Mas sempre tem alguma coisa ou outra que sinto falta e acabo achando o Microsoft Office mais cômodo. Mas pra coisas mais simples eu acabo usando o Google Docs direto no Chrome mesmo e já fica salvo na nuvem.
I took a look on FreeOffice and I really liked it. I will download it and give it a try. After that I'll update the post. Thank you very much for this!
If anyone wana take a look: https://www.freeoffice.com/en/freeoffice
I've got no idea really, but I do know that libreoffice isn't your only option!
you've also got (at the very least); FreeOffice and WPS Office
both are cross-platform, so you can test them out on windows and see if they're behaving as expected
using Office365 in the browser might be an option too, depending on your needs.. but since the machine is running win7, I'm assuming it's fairly old.. chances are you'd want to keep as much as possible out of the browser!
I would suggest you to use FreeOffice instead of LibreOffice if you need to save something as Word document. LibreOffice sometimes has issues with formatting like someone already mentioned. Also, FreeOffice has almost same interface as MS Office.
This is the free version of Softmaker Office. Permanently free, but also nonfree. IIRC you need a (free) code to register it. https://www.freeoffice.com/en/
If you want compatibility with MS Office, it is the best of a bad bunch. :(
Office runs on Linux now, since Microsoft is pushing everyone to their web version so they can charge subscription fees. The "Office" button on a stock Windows 10 installation just opens up the Office Online website in Edge.
Save your documents in a standard format and not the crap Word uses by default and they'll work great in LibreOffice or FreeOffice (which uses DOCX as its native format and is basically a clone of Microsoft Office). Even DOCX will work fine if you go into Office's settings and check the box to make it produce actual DOCX files instead of a half-baked nonstandard implementation of their own file format.
What percentage of computer users use or need Photoshop anyways? I bet it's actually quite small.
Just did a quick Google search. We might want to take a look to FreeOffice?
Layout seems to be very close to Office.
But yeah I hear you. It really depends how often you have to write stuff in your work. I'm my case it is now that much so I'm not feeling the need like you.
https://www.freeoffice.com/en/freeoffice-textmaker
If someone see this comment and have feedback on FreeOffice I would be happy to hear
I will give it a try on Monday
That would be Softmaker Office.
It's not well known for some reason, maybe they never got much exposure but the company has been around for a while now.
They have a free version and a paid version. Free version is called Softmaker freeoffice and paid version is called Softmaker Office 2018. Don't know the difference between them.
There should be a new version this year of 2020.
Don't know about compatibility, I've read a couple of reviews back in the day that said some good things about it. You can try the paid version for 30 days or use the free version.
Here's a link to their website:
Paid version https://www.softmaker.com/en/softmaker-office
Free version https://www.freeoffice.com/en/
For office needs:
- I mainly use MS Office inside a work provided Virtual Machine -- a setup that can be replicated using free tools, as others have mentioned.
- I also use Office 365 Online (again, work provided) -- a fairly complete implementation, unless you need VBA.
- Offline, I use Soft Maker office/ (https://www.softmaker.com). I find it to have better compatibility than Open Office.
- Note, Free Office is a free-beer implementation of Soft Maker Office.
The USB stick will be erased as a prelude to creating the bootable USB. Thus, I would dedicate a USB stick for your Linux installer.
While Firefox is the usual default for most distributions, Google Chrome is available and is fairly easily installed.
For Office programs, LibreOffice is the main one. FreeOffice and WPS Office are also good choices.
If all else fails, the online version Microsoft Office can be run in a web browser.
All distributions are equally good choices for chrome or office programs.
LibreOffice is what I would recommend. There are other competitors, though, such as SoftMaker FreeOffice and WPS Office.
Linux Mint 19.2 Xfce would be appropriate for your needs, and what the above person said.
there are office suites like Free Office, libreoffice is installed by default, really depends on what your needs are as to what suite would be better for you. if you are someone who needs MS compatibility back and forth, then try the first one i mentioned, there is also WPS.
Pinta cant be installed from the default software channel, or use GNU Image Manipulation Tool (GIMP). there are simpler things too.
Firefox is installed by default, you might want to change to home page and go to google to add as search engine.
i dont know what that bleachbit program is, but there are cleaning tools available, either simple apt commands, or bleachbit. clamav can be used to scan for possible malware but its not really useful for linux itself.
all sorts of helpful info is available online, and Mint is helpful. primary way to install software is the software manager (like and app store), then .deb files from official website if needed, then snap or PPA if needed. if you are patient and willing, you should be ok with exploring things. although its simple to use Linux, generally, switching to any unknown tends to throw people off, they make assumptions and dont have patience to actually learn the new way.
1) i3wm - couldn't imagine using anything else now, using the keyboard to navigate my environment is so much more productive, than using a mouse.
2) No hater of systemd, but prefer openrc. I think a lot of the controversy could have been averted if the systemd devs where a little more engaging with the community. As for missing the old days, kind a, but no doubt I'm looking back with rose tinted glasses.
3) Mixture of Centos/Rhel/Debian/Ubuntu(mostly Centos) for clients, my workstation in the office runs fedora(I use Arch on my personal machine). As for why Centos/Rhel is dominant, three factors. It tends to be the distribution that is more widely learnt(plus it has accreditation, and a full learning path), support is available from Red Hat, and the documentation is second to none. I have a lot of affection for Debian, but the documentation is poor. When a new Red Hat release comes out, a comprehensive guide is provided, plus guides for other areas, such as virtualization, high availability, storage etc. Companies like that there are set standard solutions and the Admins aren't cooking them up from scratch.
4) Only use AWS and OpenStack, so don't know about Azure.
5) Don't really use office software. Write my reports in emacs using org mode and latex, then export to pdfs and use neomutt for my email client. I have heard good things about FreeOffice(https://www.freeoffice.com/en/), but haven't personally spent much time with it.
Do yourself a favor and try Freeoffice: https://www.freeoffice.com/en/ It's the primary office program I use and it's free and works great on Linux. It handles Microsoft files better than Libreoffice.
While simultaneously downplaying the revenue related to open-source. Remember, Microsoft's messaging to ISVs was that the Windows market was huge and open^1, but Linux and Unix users didn't buy much software. At the same time, Microsoft's messaging to enterprise and end-user orgs was that the TCO of their products was lower even though the license-management and licensing cost was substantial, through some kind of magic.
Today, their messaging is that gaming on the Linux desktop is niche and you should just sign up for a monthly Xbox subscription. Today their messaging is that LibreOffice and SoftMaker FreeOffice and WPS Office just aren't compatible enough with Microsoft's "open document formats". Today their messaging is about legacy SQL Server (available for Linux), and legacy Active Directory and the need to provision endpoints with GPOs.
- ^1 Well, as long as you weren't a bundled desktop office suite, a non-specialist word processor, or any kind of spreadsheet. Or a terminal server product, like Winframe. Or a directory service or file-sharing protocol, like Netware. Because Microsoft wanted those markets all to itself, in high volume.
Nobody here will tell you how to pirate MS Office. Your best bets are LibreOffice (free) or one of the several other MS Office compatible suites available. One that is practically a clone of MS Office is FreeOffice. They have a paid version with more features available as well. If you need Outlook then checkout Evolution.
https://www.freeoffice.com/en/
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