Listing of StarOffice (LibreOffice and OpenOffice) variants

Share interesting information or links related to portable apps here.
Message
Author
User avatar
webfork
Posts: 10818
Joined: Wed Apr 11, 2007 8:06 pm
Location: US, Texas
Contact:

Listing of StarOffice (LibreOffice and OpenOffice) variants

#1 Post by webfork »

I keep coming across either outdated or deceptive links to productivity/office tools that are really just some variant on the old StarOffice so I decided to compile a list of variants.

Active

LibreOffice - The default install on the great majority of Linux distributions, very stable, strong MS Office compatibility (especially creating MS Office files, less so when opening their formats), and lots of speed improvements over previous versions. Really the only version on this list you should be using. I'm especially a fan of the "Still" or enterprise version - it's very stable, has more features and probably the most secure option on this list. Website: http://libreoffice.org and official entry

LibreOffice Vanilla - probably to compete with the loads of garbage knock-off versions on Microsoft Store (some mentioned later in this thread), a $10 (USD) version of the above program. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/libreoffice-vanilla

Apache OpenOffice - Note that this will probably move to the inactive list in the near future. Their last update was minor, over a year ago, and 2 years after their previous update. It's still good software but probably due for retirement and has had some security issues. https://openoffice.apache.org/and official entry


Inactive/outdated versions

OxygenOffice - some graphical extras
https://sourceforge.net/projects/ooop/

NeoOffice - Mac-friendly version with a "dark mode"
https://www.neooffice.org/neojava/en/index.php

Lotus Symphony - IBM's attempt to not use Microsoft Office
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Lotus_Symphony


Junk, knock-off versions (to be avoided)

Nitro Office
- just repackaging as a freeware with some minor cosmetic changes
https://nitro office.com/

Trio Office - a very basic repackaging with a commercial license / freemium like most things distributed on the Microsoft Store
https://www.m icrosoft.com/en-us/p/trio-office-word-slide-spreadsheet-pdf-compatible/

---

Where are ooo-build, Go-oo and Oracle? I've seen no references to those programs anywhere other than on the Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LibreOffice

Please post if I missed any. Please break direct links to knock-off versions as I've done above to avoid giving them any SEO benefit.

User avatar
SYSTEM
Posts: 2041
Joined: Sat Jul 31, 2010 1:19 am
Location: Helsinki, Finland

Re: StarOffice (LibreOffice and OpenOffice) variants

#2 Post by SYSTEM »

webfork wrote: Fri Sep 18, 2020 8:16 pm Where are ooo-build, Go-oo and Oracle? I've seen no references to those programs anywhere other than on the Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LibreOffice
Archived Go-oo homepage

The Document Foundation merged all Go-oo patches into LibreOffice, making Go-oo and OxygenOffice Professional obsolete.

Oracle discontinued Oracle Open Office when they donated OpenOffice.org to Apache because it wasn't selling.

I don't know about ooo-build.
My YouTube channel | Release date of my 13th playlist: August 24, 2020

User avatar
JohnTHaller
Posts: 714
Joined: Wed Feb 10, 2010 4:44 pm
Location: New York, NY
Contact:

Re: StarOffice (LibreOffice and OpenOffice) variants

#3 Post by JohnTHaller »

SYSTEM wrote: Fri Sep 18, 2020 11:07 pm
webfork wrote: Fri Sep 18, 2020 8:16 pm Where are ooo-build, Go-oo and Oracle? I've seen no references to those programs anywhere other than on the Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LibreOffice
Archived Go-oo homepage

The Document Foundation merged all Go-oo patches into LibreOffice, making Go-oo and OxygenOffice Professional obsolete.

Oracle discontinued Oracle Open Office when they donated OpenOffice.org to Apache because it wasn't selling.

I don't know about ooo-build.
Pretty sure ooo-build died out. https://wiki.openoffice.org/wiki/Ooo-build

I think at least a few of the devs from it work on LibreOffice now.
PortableApps.com - The open standard for portable software | Support Net Neutrality

User avatar
juverax
Posts: 355
Joined: Mon Jun 11, 2018 5:19 am

Re: StarOffice (LibreOffice and OpenOffice) variants

#4 Post by juverax »

LibreOffice vs OpenOffice

https://www.theregister.com/2020/10/15/ ... ce_taunts/
LibreOffice rains on OpenOffice's 20th anniversary parade, tells rival project to 'do the right thing' and die

. . . To mark the 20th anniversary of Apache OpenOffice, the project's main rival, LibreOffice, published a letter asking OpenOffice to tell its users to switch.
Personally, occasionally I use an old version of OpenOffice (v.3 from 2008), that I like very much because it is very fast, and good enough for what I want to do.
Excerpt from one commenter (Oct 2020):
Why I use OO. Have both on MacOS.

Size:
OpenOffice: 391MB
Libre Office: 780MB

Opening time from cold:
Open Office: 10s
Libre Office: 24s

Open Office does everything I need. I downloaded Libre Office as it's supposed to have better compatibility with MS Office but I didn't find it any better on documents I dealt with.

User avatar
webfork
Posts: 10818
Joined: Wed Apr 11, 2007 8:06 pm
Location: US, Texas
Contact:

Re: StarOffice (LibreOffice and OpenOffice) variants

#5 Post by webfork »

juverax wrote: Fri Oct 16, 2020 11:30 am https://www.theregister.com/2020/10/15/ ... ce_taunts/
LibreOffice rains on OpenOffice's 20th anniversary parade, tells rival project to 'do the right thing' and die
I don't think OpenOffice is a bad program nor do I want to push people off of using it, but I took issue with the Register article. In addition to their standard hyperbole (they like to work ALL CAPS and “f*ck” into their headlines), it's substantively a bit of a whiff as the article conveniently brushes over the fact that OO has had security issues that went unfixed for months (as noted in the first post in this thread). Also, the suggestion that LO gets code from Apache but not the other way around supposes that Apache has contributed much useful code (15,000 code commits vs. 595 from OpenOffice).

I recommend actually reading the letter from TDF. It points out several things that are not really in dispute (including the first post in this thread) — that LibreOffice is an active project and OpenOffice hasn’t been active for some time now. It’s neither controversial nor unique to suggest that it's time to pass the torch.
juverax wrote: Fri Oct 16, 2020 11:30 am Open Office does everything I need. I downloaded Libre Office as it's supposed to have better compatibility with MS Office but I didn't find it any better on documents I dealt with.
I'm all in favor of old software and using what works for you (part of what I love about this site) but I've had very good luck with their export tools saving to MS Office formats. Import is just okay -- not great -- but nothing really is. I've recently even seen Office 365 have issues with Word files saved in Office 2016. As I'm fond of saying here on the site, DOCX is a junk format.
Last edited by webfork on Fri Oct 16, 2020 6:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.

User avatar
juverax
Posts: 355
Joined: Mon Jun 11, 2018 5:19 am

Re: StarOffice (LibreOffice and OpenOffice) variants

#6 Post by juverax »

... @webfork

No!, I did not write:
juverax wrote: ↑Fri Oct 16, 2020 11:30 am
Open Office does everything I need. I downloaded Libre Office as it's supposed to have better compatibility with MS Office but I didn't find it any better on documents I dealt with.
That was in a comment in The Register.
;-}

User avatar
Midas
Posts: 6705
Joined: Mon Dec 07, 2009 7:09 am
Location: Sol3

Re: StarOffice (LibreOffice and OpenOffice) variants

#7 Post by Midas »

I use neither -- but thank all for the insights. :thumbsup:

User avatar
webfork
Posts: 10818
Joined: Wed Apr 11, 2007 8:06 pm
Location: US, Texas
Contact:

Re: StarOffice (LibreOffice and OpenOffice) variants

#8 Post by webfork »

juverax wrote: Fri Oct 16, 2020 7:58 pm That was in a comment in The Register.
Whoops -- I didn't look through the comments.

What productivity tools are you using?

User avatar
juverax
Posts: 355
Joined: Mon Jun 11, 2018 5:19 am

Re: StarOffice (LibreOffice and OpenOffice) variants

#9 Post by juverax »

I use
MS-Office at work
LibreOffice (latest edition), only for complex tasks
OpenOffice (2008 ed) for regular documents (most of the time)

User avatar
webfork
Posts: 10818
Joined: Wed Apr 11, 2007 8:06 pm
Location: US, Texas
Contact:

Re: StarOffice (LibreOffice and OpenOffice) variants

#10 Post by webfork »

juverax wrote: Sun Oct 18, 2020 8:44 am I use
MS-Office at work
LibreOffice (latest edition), only for complex tasks
OpenOffice (2008 ed) for regular documents (most of the time)
Understood, thanks. I'd actually like to know what *everyone* on the site is using and why. Should probably setup a poll for that or something.

Emka
Posts: 290
Joined: Fri Sep 17, 2010 9:31 pm

Re: StarOffice (LibreOffice and OpenOffice) variants

#11 Post by Emka »

I mostly use MS Office at home. I still prefer its interface and usability even though I am not a power user by far.
Mostly Libre Office at work (cheaper for the boss, which is OK for me), sometimes OpenOffice at work (on some older machines that the admin didn't update...), sometimes our cloud-based solution (no idea what it is based on).
My wife even prefers an old, now unsuppported version of MS Office over Libre Office or Softmaker. (For her as a Luser, a different UI is too deterrent...)
We sometimes use Office 365 on an Android tablet.
When I buy my next desktop machine (the current one is 4 years old and still doing well), I might dump MS Office and save the money for something else.

User avatar
Midas
Posts: 6705
Joined: Mon Dec 07, 2009 7:09 am
Location: Sol3

Re: StarOffice (LibreOffice and OpenOffice) variants

#12 Post by Midas »

I struggle with a fairly recent iteration of MS Office at work -- and mostly revert back to SM Office (2012 version) that I have in my personal workstation. At home, I have a more recent version of FreeOffice (2018), because Linux...

Before that and somewhat like Emka, I was a die-hard fan of MS Office 2000/XP, but had to let it go in the switch to 64-bit software.

User avatar
juverax
Posts: 355
Joined: Mon Jun 11, 2018 5:19 am

Re: StarOffice (LibreOffice and OpenOffice) variants

#13 Post by juverax »

For those curious and willing to experiment with other productivity / office suites, there is also:
IBM Lotus Symphony (freeware): https://www.softpedia.com/get/Office-to ... hony.shtml

Background information:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Lotus_Symphony
The suite includes: word processor, spreadsheet, presentation tool and a browser (from wikipedia)
Discontinued (last release 2012)
Untested
Portability (probably not portable)
Size of installer file: 550Mb

User avatar
vevy
Posts: 795
Joined: Tue Sep 10, 2019 11:17 am

Re: StarOffice (LibreOffice and OpenOffice) variants

#14 Post by vevy »

If there is something MS had me convinced of for a long time (until not so long ago), is that there is one good office suite (theirs) and then some failing attempts far behind!

I mean, more than it convinced me of something similar with Windows and other operating systems!

User avatar
Midas
Posts: 6705
Joined: Mon Dec 07, 2009 7:09 am
Location: Sol3

Re: StarOffice (LibreOffice and OpenOffice) variants

#15 Post by Midas »

juverax wrote:There is also:
IBM Lotus Symphony (freeware)

I might give it a go sometime, on account of it being the heir(?) of the Wordperfect of old, the first word-processor I managed to give any serious use -- first with DOS, and later under Windows up to 95...

EDIT: my bad, Corel Wordperfect is pretty much alive as a commercial suite -- nothing to do with Lotus Symphony, which looks quite dead BTW.

Post Reply