Remember Open Office or OpenOffice.org? Well, we won’t blame you if you don’t. The open-source office software gained a lot of popularity in the yesteryears as a viable Microsoft Office alternative, thanks to it being a pretty decent free solution. However, if reports are to be believed, Open Office, now known as Apache Open Office, is going to shut down soon. The software hasn’t seen a lot of updates in the recent past and while the Apache takeover was promising, we haven’t seen any major developments.
While the tool is still a pretty decent offering packing tools for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics and databases, it’s pretty dated. Its slow or no development has given a rise to a slew of great Open Office alternatives. So, if you are still an Apache Open Office user, here are 5 Open Office alternatives you can use:
1. Libre Office
Libre Office is undoubtedly the best Open Office alternative because it’s a fork of Open Office with even better features and community support. It’s arguably the best free office suite available today and it’s not surprising. The software brings a clean interface and includes applications for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, vector graphics, flowcharts, databases and formula editing. Like Open Office, Libre Office supports various document formats including Microsoft Office files, ODF (Open Document Format), PDF and more.
Also, it supports extensions and there are a number of great extensions, thanks to a very virbrant user community. Overall, if you want the Open Office experience with more updates and a better interface, you cannot go wrong with Libre Office.
Download (Windows, Linux, macOS)
2. Polaris Office
Polaris Office is a a very good Open Office alternative, as it brings a ton of amazing features while being free (for personal use). Firstly, it’s available for almost all major platforms out there (except Linux), unlike Open Office and it supports almost all different file formats including ODF and TXT. There’s also support for viewing, editing, converting PDF files. Plus, it brings access to various popular cloud services like Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox etc., so that you can easily save your files on the cloud.
Another cool feature of Polaris Office is real-time collaboration, which lets you share your documents via URL, email attachment, instant messaging or SNS and then, use the co-edit feature and see the changes in real time. If you need a modern software to use instead of the dated Open Office, this is it, you should be installing Polaris Office right away.
Download (Windows, macOS, Android, iOS)
3. SoftMaker FreeOffice
SoftMaker’s FreeOffice is another great Open Office alternative, thanks to its similarity to Apache’s offering and its own unique features. It offers tools for word processing, spreadsheets and presentations. The software offers great compatibility with Microsoft Office files, as it’s the only software to offer loss-free opening of files. It also supports PDF files extensively, with support for creation, editing, tags, comments and more. That’s not all, it lets you easily convert documents or PDFs to ePUB files, so that you can create your very own e-books. Also, each of its tools bring something extra like spellcheck, automatic hyphenation and more.
While FreeOffice works very well, there’s a catch, the software does not save files in Microsoft Office file formats. Well, you can get the SoftMaker Office (starts at $69.95), which lets you save files in Microsoft Office’s formats and brings features like synonym dictionaries, document tabs, macros, label printing and more.
Download (Windows, Linux, Android)
4. WPS Office
WPS Office is more of a Microsoft Office alternative, rather than an Open Office alternative but if you were using Open Office as an alternative to Microsoft’s offering in the first place, then this is a great solution. The WPS stands for word processing, presentations and spreadsheets, so these are the tools it offers. It also supports all the file types from Microsoft Office along with PDF. While most other software including Open Office haven’t been able to mimick Microsoft Office’s interface, WPS excels on this front. Plus, it’s pretty lightweight, which makes it a great Open Office alternative.
While the usual office features are available for free, some additional features like the ability to convert PDF to Word, split and merge PDF files and removal of ads are available for a one-time purchase of $49.99 or an yearly subscription of $19.99.
Download (Windows, Linux, Android, iOS)
5. Neo Office
Neo Office is another great Open Office fork only available for macOS users. The application brings its own set of unique features to differ from Open Office and Libre Office. Along with support for Microsoft Office documents, the software also supports Open Office and Libre Office documents. Plus, it brings some native Mac features like the ability to be available at launch menu, restore previous version of documents, file locking, grammar checking, text highlighting and floating Mac windows.
It’s available in a free “viewer” version, which only lets you test NeoViewer and you cannot save documents with it. If you want all the features, you can get the version from the Mac Store ($39.99), which gets future updates or the classic Neo Office version ($15) from the official website. We know it’s quite pricey but it’s the best Mac-aimed Open Office alternative.
Download (macOS)
SEE ALSO: 5 Best Microsoft Office Alternatives
Try out these Open Office Alternatives
While not all the tools we’ve mentioned above are open-source or totally free like Apache Open Office, most of them are more feature rich and better supported. Also, you can give online office solutions like Google Docs, iWork, Office Online etc. a shot too, as they work on all platforms. We are pretty sure you will not miss Open Office once you’ve used the aforementioned solutions, so try them out and let us know the one you like. Sound off in the comments section below.
