MS Office 2003 vs LibreOffice - which is better?

Question

I have been using MS Office 2003 suite on my main business computer for several years. My question is would you rather continue to run the MS Office 2003 suite (which includes, Word 2003, Excel 2003, Outlook 2003, etc) or go completely free and open source by switching to the the latest verision of LibreOffice suite and Mozilla Thunderbird for email client?

Note the latter option would also mean I get continuous updates, which I am not getting by sticking to MS Office suite 2003.

Answer 1

I prefer Microsoft Office on Windows and LibreOffice for my Linux machines. There is simply nothing better than Office since it's been the standard office suite across the Windows platform for a little 20 years now. You can't argue that the LibreOffice spreadsheet program is better than Excel, even if it's the third best spreadsheet program I've ever used after Lotus Symphony's spreadsheet program (which is also free). The best office software that I've used that's free, but not open source, is Lotus Symphony from IBM; a lot of people forget about IBM products and they're some of the best alternatives to the Microsoft programs if you don't want to go open source.



@RJ LibreOffice is a significant enhancement over OpenOffice because it's based on the same code but has better Microsoft document format compatibility. Further enhancements include a refined user interface, cleaner and more efficient code (which means faster execution and a more responsive program) and, when comparing OpenOffice Calc against LibreOffice Calc at least, LibreOffice has the more powerful and more versatile programs.

Answer 2

Libreoffice Vs Microsoft Office

Answer 3

Office 2003 is far, far more powerful; however, if you're not doing anything that requires the extra functionality, go with LibreOffice. A good example of this would be VBA apps running through Excel or Access,, or some of the more complicated functions that Excel allows.



*If* you have a domain environment, Office 2003 gives far more security and management options.



EDIT: Avoid OpenOffice. LibreOffice was created from OpenOffice when the majority of the developers left the original project due to mismanagement by Oracle.

Answer 4

i say go open source. it could take some getting used to, but if you give programs like LibreOffice a chance, they can be good. also, if worse comes to worse, and you cannot accomplish what you need to with LibreOffice, you can always uninstall and switch back to Microsoft Office, and not have to worry about losing money by getting rid of LibreOffice, since it was free to begin with.

Answer 5

Libre Office is a good alternative if you can't afford Microsoft Office. But there is no office alternative that is better than Microsoft's Office software.

Answer 6

I found a free download of LibreOffice here http://bitly.com/1rmrbEG



A great alternative to Microsoft Office, LibreOffice is a must-try for managing your various office projects.

Answer 7

MS office 2010, you can get it free! Hehehe

Answer 8

Oracle's Open Office is better than either one of the one's you ask about.

http://www.openoffice.org