Microsoft Office Alternatives
Looking for an alternative to the cost and licensing issues of Microsoft Office. Check out open source alternatives like LibreOffice and Apache OpenOffice. These office suites have matured to become viable alternatives. The best part is that both are available at NO COST other than what you spend downloading then off the Internet.
Both suites include word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation applications, a vector graphics editor, a WYSISYG HTML editor, a Math Formula editor, and a database management program, similar to Microsoft Access.
Both can import and export most Microsoft documents. Formatting may not be preserved completely on complex documents.
LibreOffice 5.2 vs Microsoft Office 2016
Chris does an in depth comparison of LibreOffice vs. Microsoft Office, looking especially at the word processing and spreadsheet applications and the ability to switch back and forth between the two office suites.
- YouTube URL
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBln5VRWQK8

Apache OpenOffice vs. LibreOffice
Apache OpenOffice and LibreOffice are two branches of the same original software project. Each has some advantages and disadvantages. Both are user friendly and powerful office suites, completely free to use, and updated regularly.

Apache OpenOffice
The official site for Apache OpenOffice. You can get up-to-date information and download the latest version of Apache OpenOffice here.

LibreOffice
The official site for LibreOffice. You can get up-to-date information and download the latest version of LibreOffice here.
This is the suite our webmaster uses and recommends.

LibreOffice Templates
100's of templates & extensions are available for LibreOffice. You can find similar sites with Google.

It started with StarWriter in 1985, which became the free StarOffice in 1998. Sun Microsystems was looking for a cross-platform alternative to Office, purchased StarOffice, and used it as the basis for OpenOffice.org, an Open Source project. Oracle purchased Sun Microsystems and shut down OpenOffice.org. But others took up the project, including Apache OpenOffice and LibreOffice.
"Open Source" projects are now a viable alternative to traditional software offerings. Many state and local government agencies have found them to be of high quality and much less expensive to buy and service that the traditional alternatives.
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