Libre Office
Collabra Office
ONLYOFFICE
All promise compatibility with Microsoft Office and PDF support. Does anyone recommend one over the others?
Itâs hard to recommend because everyone has different preferences and use cases.
For example, I am unable to do my day job without MS Office and Google Docs because of collaboration requirements, but that may be different for you depending on your use case.
How about you try them all and then decide to which one you want to stick?
There is no obligation to use only one package to everything you want to do. Why donât you try a few, and find out what suits you best for the purposes you have in mind?
Just as an example; for texts I use LibreOffice, for spreadsheets Freeoffice, for pdf-editing Only office, for all other pdf thingies Okular. For you that could be different. There is no absolute âbestâ here imho, so you might have all the choice.
The choice might be a bit easier taking into account:
- Collabora is based on the LibreOffice codebase..
- âŠbut the biggest contributors to LibreOffice are actually Collabora developers.
- Collabora focused on being an online, collaborative suite, as an alternative to Google Docs and MS Office Online.
- Collabora last year released Collabora Office for Desktop and Mobile (iOS and Android.
- Collabora Office is hands down way better from a UX perspective. Easier to use.
- LibreOffice is acting childish since, kicking out Collabora developers.
- LibreOffice team doesnât acknowledge that their UX is their weak point. Instead they openly claim their UX is better than Microsoft⊠which means: donât expect LibreOffice GUI to improve any time soon.
In the end, if all you want is to edit and create the MS Office document formats, OnlyOffice is the easiest as the UI is very familiar and it just works. It focuses entirely on MS Office formats.
If you are open to moving away from MS Office formats, Collabora Office is a really nice suite. While it also supports MS Office formats. In some specific cases OnlyOffice might have a bit better support for MS formats.
I have both installed, while I used OnlyOffice by default I catch myself trying Collabora Office more often, especially when I start a brand new document or spreadsheet.
In my experience, OnlyOffice has been the only one that actually just works.
Every time I try LibreOffice, I run into some hideous UI problem that makes it basically unusable, or a compatibility problem with some stupidly-tiny formatting thing that shouldnât ever be a problem.
I know the origins of OnlyOffice are controversial, so Iâm keeping my eyes on Euro-Office, which looks to be a fork of OnlyOffice but with some less-questionable backing.
However, for now, OnlyOffice is the only office I can trust while at work (as long as itâs not the flatpak install because that has bugs),
Donât get your hopes up with EuroOffice. Itâs very questioning, the way that has been set up. Also, nothing really Euro-sovereign about it, since it 100% relies on Microsoft (American-sovereign) formats. The whole purpose of the initiative was to have a European Office suite not reliant on US.. quite a dumb failure, since the suite only supports Microsoft formats..
Collabora Office doesnât have the UI issues that LibreOffice has. And the compatibility issue with files is only related to MS Office formats (which are not properly defined, hence will always have issues outside MS Office suites).
Tried Collabora just now and the UI is a disaster. When in dark mode it changes the entire spreadsheet to dark so of course the text is completely unreadable.
I donât like it, but OnlyOffice has forced my hand. I have to have Microsoft compatibility for my job and OnlyOffice has given me exactly zero issues of any sort.
I use 365 daily for work and Collabora & OnlyOffice 2-3 times a week for mostly personal use:
Collabora dark mode works exactly like Office365: you can simply select the white content on black button. Its exactly the same as Office365, where by default the document is black in dark mode and you have to (once) select the button in the bar to get a white doc. You probably donât remember, since its been set (by you) like that a long time ago in MS Office/365.
Nobody is forcing your hand.. only you do that..
WPS is quite good for presentations, but not without some hiccups.
Colabora seems like an advancement UI-wise.
I install software A, it doesnât work. I install software B, it immediately works.
Pretty cut and dry. Any program that requires a user to hunt around an illegible UI just to activate basic functionality is an objective fail.
Collabora also has the INFURIATING deficiency that was only semi-fixed in LibreOffice recently but still doesnât work right: In a Word document, select some text, and try to drag your selection down to the pages that are out of view. IT WILL NOT SCROLL.
Basic functionality. Completely broken.
I think Collabra Office will be best, as they have pictures of Beavers on their website. Collabora Office - Collabora Online and Collabora Office
Is there any way to download the regular Collabra in RPM, (not the Collabra Classic)?
Iâm trying Collabora. Iâm using it in light mode and I rather like the UI. Very attractive. Also seems functional, at least for the limited time Iâve been trying it out.
The closest to MS Office for me is OnlyOffice by far. I save in PDF format after to send.
My point is, when you do a clean install of Windows and then MS Office, and switch office to dark mode, the document itself will also be black with white text. Just like when you do a clean install of Collabora Office. Exact same âproblemâ.
And just like in MS Office, itâs a button to switch to a white document, while in dark mode.
Personally Iâve been using Libre Office for the last few years (and Open Office before that when I was on Windows). Iâm used to the UI and I donât do many fancy things in it so itâs fine for my needs. If I have to edit a PDF then I use Okular.
The one big thing with any of the office suites is if youâre going to be sending your documents to others then make sure you install Microsoft fonts on your system. Otherwise you could have compatibility issues. And also save in MS formats for your documents.
Always interesting to read the diverse opinions, which depend so much on previous experience and personal preferences. Am I entirely happy with Libreoffice? No, but Iâm very familiar with it and rather like the interface (donât throw stones, please). I like Onlyofficeâs interface better, but had to give up on it. It had a critical bug or two and canât print in booklet format, a feature I use a lot. Isnât it nice that we have choices!
Black background with white text would be fine. But (using the Collabora Office Flatpak) I get the same issue that @darthziplock identified, i.e. black background with black text.
Just like first time MS Office use. And just like MS Office, its just a button on the ribbon to switch to white document, black text, black UI.
Can you clarify?
In post #15 you said that on a new install of Collabora Office, the document would be black background with white text.
The behaviour I saw was a black background with black text.
Which one are you saying is the expected behaviour?
Looks like there are indeed known issues with dark mode that the Collabora devs are working on:
A PR was recently merged, so hopefully improvements are coming to users soon.