LibreOffice Writer, shown here in its Mac version, offers multiple options for formatting text, including a traditional dialog box and an optional sidebar. Microsoft abandoned this convention years ago in favor of the new Ribbon interface, and LibreOffice now offers a similar option, too. LibreOffice defaults to the familiar toolbar-and-icon menu structure that millions of users learned from older versions of Microsoft Office. What's worse is that some of the most useful features in Microsoft's apps never arrived on LibreOffice, partly because features seem to get added to the suite only when someone volunteers to do it. If you click inside a page header, you see a little box telling you that you're in a page header-just as Microsoft Word does it, though LibreOffice clutters the little box with extra detail, like the current formatting style.Ī disadvantage of this approach is that almost every interface feature that has even been in Microsoft's apps remains in LibreOffice, long after Microsoft radically simplified its interface to reduce clutter and overlap. In the same way, many LibreOffice features look a lot like Microsoft's similar features. For instance, Alt-equals acts as the Autosum key in Calc, just as it does in Excel. If you don't know which keystroke to use in LibreOffice, there's a good chance it's the same as in Microsoft's apps. One advantage of this approach is that it makes LibreOffice more easily accessible to former Microsoft Office users. The suite has always tried to emulate Microsoft 365's apps, right down to Office's menu structure and shortcut keys. The long history of LibreOffice and its ancestors, OpenOffice and StarOffice, helps explain how it looks and feels today. You can also open each of the separate word-processing, spreadsheet, and other apps directly from the Start Menu. LibreOffice’s main menu lets you create or open any kind of document that the suite can create, and displays previews of recent files. But it's much more convenient to have them already at your fingertips with Google Workspace, Microsoft Office, or Apple iWork.

You can visit LibreOffice's vast library of third-party add-ons for some of these features, but the add-ons always have an awkward feel. Other things you don't get include built-in translation and research features, a dictation option, or a note-taking app.

Keep in mind that LibreOffice doesn't offer mobile apps or online collaboration, which you get for free from Google Workspace most for-pay modern office suites have mobile apps and collaboration, too. Whatever you use is likely to be more modern and elegant than anything LibreOffice provides. You don't get anything for managing email, contacts, or calendars, but you probably use something else already.

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