GROUP TEST OFFICE SOFTWARE

OFFICE SOFTWARE GROUP TEST Ben Everard now has an office, so sets off in search of some office software.

On Test Office Suites ffice suite is an odd term, include some form of visual Libre Office since it seems to assume tool. URL www..org Othat everyone does the For the purposes of this review, VERSION 4.3 same thing in an office. It obviously we’ll focus most strongly on the LICENCE LGPL/MPL can’t include all software that is , , As the dominant office suite for , needed by anyone in an office (after presentation tool and diagramming LibreOffice sets the standard. all, this author has used Steam in software, since in our experience, his office). Similarly, it can’t be these are by far the most used part Apache OpenOffice software that is only needed in an of most office suites. URL www.openoffice.org office, because for many people, Good office software should VERSION 4.1 word processors are only needed have a shallow learning curve. It LICENCE Apache for personal work. It can’t even be should be easy for a beginner to get Can Apache rejuvenate this suite now it’s software that is used the majority started, yet have plenty of power for been released from Oracle’s clutches? of the time in an office since, many advanced users. Above all, a good Linux Voice readers probably spend office suite should make a typical more office time using a text editor office worker more productive. or IDE than a word processor, but In other words, it shouldn’t be URL www.calligra.org that doesn’t mean Vi should be frustrating to use – it should just VERSION 2.8 LICENCE GPL considered part of an office suite. get out of the way and let you do ’s main contender is getting closer to However, rather than there being your work – and it mustn’t lose your challenging the status quo. any logic to what an office suite is, work in the event of a crash. over the past 30 years, a certain It should also let you collaborate consensus has built up on what to with people using other software. Gnome Office expect from one. This means it must be able to URL www..com/gnome-office The core of an office suite is open documents. VERSION various undoubtedly a word processor While we may wish that this wasn’t LICENCE GPL and spreadsheet. Without these, necessary and that the world used Not really a suite, but a collection of it’s hard to claim that a particular open formats, the fact is that the applications from the Gnome project. bundle of software is an office majority of people using office Kingsoft WPS URL www.wps.com “A certain consensus has built up on VERSION Alpha 15 LICENCE Proprietary what to expect from an office suite.” A newcomer to the Linux world with an excellent interface. suite. There is generally some suites are using Microsoft Office. form of vector drawing ability This also means that it must be Softmaker FreeOffice (often included for its ability to able to use Open Document Format URL www.freeoffice.com create diagrams rather than pretty files. While these are no where near VERSION 690 pictures), and a presentation tool. as prevalent as Microsoft’s format, LICENCE Proprietary Beyond this, it becomes a little they are becoming more common Fast, lightweight, and with excellent less standard. Some suites include especially now the UK government document format support. email, contacts management and has committed to using them as and calendar software. Others standard.

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LibreOffice The office suite you probably already have installed.

ibreOffice is the default office suite for the vast majority of Linux distros, but Lit hasn’t been for long. Up until the start of 2011, most distros came with OpenOffice.org, but LibreOffice forked from this due to concerns about the way the project was being led. Most distros very quickly adopted LibreOffice even though, at that point, the two suites were very similar. LibreOffice consists of six applications – Writer, Calc, Draw, Impress, Math and Base – which are a word processor, spreadsheet, diagramming tool, presentation tool, maths and database respectively. One area that LibreOffice has rapidly improved is support for MS Office files. Most MS Office files open, but complicated formatting can be lost. This becomes less of an issue with each new release. Impress’s controls are scattered about the window, and the sidebars disappear on some tabs. Easy interface The layout of Writer is based around a tool that’s improved the most under the in LibreOffice. It’s confusing menubar and sidebar. Together, these give LibreOffice banner is Calc. This is now faster, and unintuitive. It’s possible to create good plenty of access to features, while still supports larger and has more presentations using Impress, but doing so providing enough screen space to display advanced formatting options. It also isn’t a nice experience. the document. The sidebar is quite a new supports GPU acceleration, which allows addition, and it doesn’t feel like the choice of faster visualisation of real-time data. This is VERDICT features on it is optimal just yet, as there’s most commonly shown-off as a way of LibreOffice is the default office suite in most Linux no clear split on what goes in the top bar showing stock-market data, and will distributions for a good and what goes in the sidebar. In fact, most probably remain a novelty for most users. reason. controls are simply duplicated on both. The Impress is the one exception to the good

Apache OpenOffice The veteran Linux office suite.

hen LibreOffice split from OpenOffice. This flow of code will probably support for Microsoft Office files, and a better OpenOffice.org, Oracle handed the reduce as the two code bases diverge status bar. Wproject over to the Apache because it will become harder and harder to OpenOffice has become a usurped foundation, and it’s now known simply as translate code across. product. If you find yourself with a system Apache OpenOffice. The biggest problem with OpenOffice is that has OpenOffice, you probably won’t have OpenOffice is at a disadvantage compared simply that LibreOffice is just a little better too many problems, but there’s little reason with LibreOffice, because it uses a more than it in almost every area. There’s not so to actually install it if you have a choice. restrictive licence than LibreOffice (The much different that you would immediately Unless OpenOffice can find a niche, it’s likely Apache 2 licence rather than the LGPL). notice, but as you use it, you become aware to slowly fade into obscurity. This means that LibreOffice can take any of little things that just make the experience new code from OpenOffice, but OpenOffice nicer. For example, LibreOffice uses standard can’t take code from LibreOffice (unless of GTK dialog boxes for opening and closing VERDICT The once mighty office course the original author agrees to license files, whereas OpenOffice uses custom-built suite is struggling to find it under the Apache Licence). For example, ones that don’t fit in with the look and feel of its purpose. LibreOffice acquired its sidebar from the rest of the . LibreOffice has better

www.linuxvoice.com 57 GROUP TEST OFFICE SOFTWARE Calligra More applications doesn’t mean more productivity

here must be something about bar is minimal, and almost all activity office suites that makes people takes place in the sidebar. The tabs Twant to fork them. Calligra split are clear and well labelled. In some from KOffice in 2010 and quickly ways, it’s a little like a vertical version of became the more popular of the two. Microsoft’s ribbon interface. It can take KOffice stopped development shortly a little while to get used to the sidebar afterwards and now Calligra is the only having all of the controls if you’re used major open source office suite based to looking at the top of the screen, on Qt. Traditionally, this has meant it’s but once you’ve used it for a while, it the office suite of hardcore KDE distros, becomes second-nature, and it makes but perhaps we’ll see it gain some good use of the available screen space. popularity on LXQt, the relatively new The sidebar seems particularly well desktop that aims to provide a fast suited to Words and Stage, but it doesn’t Calligra writer keeps the features in a well-ordered sidebar, working environment using Qt widgets. work as well in Sheets. Perhaps this is and leaves the writing area distraction-free. Calligra is made up of Words because of an inherent difference in the (wordprocessor), Sheets (spreadsheet), way users interact with a spreadsheet issue. We would struggle to describe Stage (presentation tool), Flow or perhaps the Sheets interface just the interface of Stage (the presentation (diagramming tool), Author ( needs a little refinement. tool) in positive terms, but it is probably editor), (vector graphics Words and Sheets both epitomise the least bad open source presentation editor), (a database tool), Plan (an option. organisational tool) and BrainDump. is the shining jewel in Calligra’s That’s a lot of applications, but much “Once you’ve used the Calligra crown. It’s an excellent digital drawing of it will be irrelevant to most users. sidebar interface for a while, tool. However, it’s not for diagramming, Good software is more about quality but creating art and, as such, it falls too than quantity. it becomes second nature” far outside of our definition of an office Calligra supports ODF files very well. suite for us to count it here. MS Office formats are also supported the term ‘alright’. If your needs are fairly The other pieces of graphics quite well for import, but there’s no basic, both will probably fulfill them. software in the suite are also good. option to save in the most recent However, neither one really shines, and Flow is a great tool for creating formats (DOCX etc). power users will probably find things symbols-based diagrams. It’s probably Like LibreOffice and OpenOffice, missing. Stability has long been a the best such tool available for Linux, Calligra’s interface is based on a menu problem with Calligra, and it seems to and it comes with a huge library of bar plus sidebar. However, the menu be improving, but it’s still an occasional artwork to include in your diagrams. Karbon, on the other hand, is a more general-purpose vector graphics tool. If you only have light office needs, and want to keep your desktop Qt-only, then Calligra will give you what you want. However, if you’re using an office suite regularly, you’ll probably find you need to move up to something a little more capable. Calligra has the potential to be a great office suite, but it’s still quite a way off that right now. New releases are coming out every six months at the moment, and, if the team can continue the current pace of development, it will be a real contender in a few years.

VERDICT An useful interface with potential, but lacking in Calligra’s presentation application, Stage, includes a few slide backgrounds aimed at power for now. Linux users including penguins (shown here) and KDE artwork.

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Gnome Office This doesn’t mean a desk set up in the garden Because spreadsheets can’t do everything.

e haven’t included database tools in our definition of office suite Wreviews because (in our opinion), they’re not part of regular office software. They’re more like IDEs for simple data-driven software than the rest of the office suite. However, three of the suites here (Calligra, LibreOffice and Gnome Office) do include graphical database tools. Kexi (from Calligra) has an excellent user interface that’s easy to navigate and is just generally pleasant to use. It makes it easy to create tables, queries, reports and forms. LibreOffice’s Base has roughly similar capabilities to Kexi, but isn’t quite as nice to work with. Glom from Gnome Office is the least well known of the three, and it’s also the least powerful. It works for simple tasks, but AbiWord’s simplicity is great if you don’t need any complex word processing features. doesn’t have the power of Kexi or Base. The real problem isn’t with any of these here isn’t actually an official probably the best looking of all the programs, but with the idea behind the genre. Gnome Office. However, there are diagramming tools, and it’s really easy to To use any of these, you have to know how to Ta selection of Gnome applications use, but it loses out to Flow when it comes model data in a relational database, and most that fulfill the role usually taken by an to features – particularly the range of people who know how to do this are more office suite. Colloquially, these are often symbols available. Similarly, is a comfortable using general-purpose databases known as Gnome Office. This software is: good vector graphics tools, but isn’t well like MariaDB or Postgres. There’s also the AbiWord (word processor), Evince suited to low-powered machines. issue that these pieces of software run on the (document viewer), Evolution (email client), desktop of a single computer, and this isn’t the (spread sheet), Inkscape (vector A mixed bag most useful way of running database-driven graphics), GnuCash (accounting) and Dia. What this all means is that someone software. Usually you want some form of The lack of a suite also means lack of a looking for a good office suite for a networked client-server model. Something like single vision. AbiWord and Gnumeric have low-performance computer will need to Drupal is far more useful in practice, though it carved out a niche as good tools for find a different graphics tool, yet someone is more complex to use. low-resource computers. This was looking for a fully-featured office suite will This leaves graphical database tools with particularly true a few years ago when have to find a different word processor a very small target audience. Should you find OpenOffice.org was a bit of a resource- and spreadsheet. If you’re happy to pick yourself a member of this exclusive group, hogging snail. Now, both Open and and choose what’s best for you, that’s fine. we’d recommend Kexi, but only marginally. LibreOffice have improved significantly in Supposedly, Gnome’s getting a this respect, so AbiWord and Gnumeric presentation tool called Ease. However, don’t enjoy as big an advantage as they development seems to have stalled about did. However, the Gnome options will four years ago. In principle, you could probably always be faster and have lower deliver a PDF presentation using Evince (a footprints because they don’t try to suitably determined user could probably include as much functionality, so they’re even create the presentation in AbiWord), still our go-to office programs for slim but in reality, if you need to give a computers. Of course, the other side of presentation, you’re going to be better off this is that power users may find that they using a different office suite. don’t have everything they’re used to on more heavyweight tools. VERDICT Dia (the diagramming software), hasn’t A disparate collection with some real quality, but aimed for low-resource usage. It’s tried to not exactly what you’d Kexi’s form editor enables you to drag and drop a carve a niche as the best diagramming call integrated. form for entering information into your database. software, and it’s done a good job at it. It’s

www.linuxvoice.com 59 GROUP TEST OFFICE SOFTWARE WPS vs SoftMaker The battle of the proprietary suites.

ingsoft’s WPS and Softmaker’s document format files. It handles Free Office are the two closed- Microsoft’s DOC and DOCX excellently Ksource office suites we’re (Kingsoft claims it’s 100% compatible, tesing. Take a deep breath. and though we haven’t come across a Until recently, WPS was known as document that doesn’t render properly, Kingsoft FreeOffice, and was available we’re still a little skeptical that it will for Windows. Linux support is new never fail). In addition, it has its own – so new it’s only considered alpha proprietary format. quality – but we decided to include it Once you get your head around it, both because it’s interesting software, the ribbon-style interface is nice to use, and because we think it’s always though you can switch it to a classic worth comparing free software with plain menu bar if you don’t get on with to see just how the ribbon. On Windows, WPS comes they stack up. in free and paid-for versions, and the WPS is very popular in China, but not paid version includes support for VBA FreeOffice isn’t the best-looking suite, but it is easy to use. as well known in the English speaking macros. Currently, this isn’t available on world. Although the Linux version is Linux, but perhaps, when it comes out OOXML) files. This alone is enough for new, it is slowly starting to attract of alpha, we’ll finally have the ability to it to be unsuitable for most users. If you some interest. The only major distro run these on Linux. pay though, you get excellent support to support it by default is Kylin, for Microsoft Office files. Both versions which is Canonical’s distro for the Proprietary polish support ODF files for interacting with Chinese market. A few smaller distros, WPS is the nicest office suite we used open source office suites. such as Makulu, also come with WPS. If in terms of user experience. However SoftMaker’s interface in all three it’s not in your distro’s repositories, you – and this is a big issue – it doesn’t applications (Presentations, PlanMaker – can get Debs and RPMs from http:// play that nicely with other Linux office the spreadsheet – and TextMaker) looks wps-community.org/download.html. suites, so think carefully about your quite dated, though is clear and easy WPS consists of a word processor, document format lock-in if you use this, to use. The layout seems more geared spreadsheet and presentation tool. particularly if there’s complex While it doesn’t have diagramming formatting or diagrams that may cause too, the drawing tools inside the word problems with DOCX import in other “Kingsoft’s WPS is the nicest processor are the most advanced of suites. Of course, if your documents are office suite we used in terms any we’ve looked at here. However, already locked into a proprietary format, because it’s not a dedicated graphics this may be less of a concern. of user experience.” tool, it doesn’t have the ability to save SoftMaker has a zero-cost version it as an image (other than PDF). This is (FreeOffice) and a paid version (Office) towards casual users, and most of also true of SoftMaker Office. with more features. The biggest the more powerful features are hidden Unlike the other office suites we’ve feature missing from the free version away in menus. As so often happens, looked at, WPS can’t open open is the ability to save DOCX (and other the simple interface sits atop fast and lightweight software. As the only paid-for option on test, SoftMaker Office needs something to justify its price, and the only area in which it stands out is compatibility – it rubs along very nicely indeed with MS Office formats (better than the open- source options) and ODT files. Whether this is enough to justify the £55 price tag will depend on how many problems you encounter with document formats.

VERDICT WPS: Looks good, SOFTMAKER: Fast and solid DOCX support, easy to use with but can’t handle excellent document ODF files. compatibility. WPS will feel familiar for recent converts from Microsoft Office.

60 www.linuxvoice.com OFFICE SOFTWARE GROUP TEST OUR VERDICT Office Suites

f we were to build our favourite Linux Voice readers who aren’t open source office suite, it bothered by closed file format, it’s Iwould be Writer and Calc from an excellent suite, especially for LibreOffice, Sheets and Flow from anyone used to Microsoft Office. Calligra and Inkscape from Gnome. Calligra and OpenOffice both However, this is wimping out of struggle, not because they’re bad, LibreOffice’s Calc has everything you could need in a spreadsheet making a decision (and would also but because they don’t excel in (provided you don’t need VBA support). leave us with a horribly inconsistent any unique way, so there’s little user experience). to recommend them over the LibreOffice wins because it’s alternatives. If you like to stick to a 1st LibreOffice the best all-rounder. Under the pure Qt environment, then Calligra Licence LGPL/MPL Version 4.3 stewardship of The Document does the job. If you have a love of Foundation, it’s come on leaps all things Apache, then OpenOffice www.libreoffice.org and bounds since the split from functions as a perfectly alright An excellent standard bearer for free software, and making OpenOffice and shows no signs of office suite. Still, given the choice, giant strides with every release. slowing down. we’d recommend using something WPS is great for Linux users in a different. Calligra, however, is under 2nd WPS Licence Proprietary Version Alpha 15

“LibreOffice has come on in leaps and www.wps.com bounds since the split from OpenOffice.” Brilliant software, but let down by the closed source and lack of ability to open ODT files. Windows world. We wish everyone more active development, so would switch to the open document stands a better chance of rising up 3rd Softmaker FreeOffice formats for their data – perhaps the rankings in the future. Licence Proprietary Version 690 one day they will – but the reality We’re a little hesitant to refer to is that many people have to work office suites on Linux as exciting, www.freeoffice.com Linux users working with lots of Microsoft Office files may find alongside people using Windows. but in the last couple of years, this suite is worth the money. The two big concerns about WPS the choices for Linux users have is that it’s closed source and that improved significantly, and the pace it doesn’t support ODF files. These of change is faster now than it has 4th Calligra are both very troubling for anyone been for a long time. Over the next Licence GPL Version 2.8 who cares about freedom. However, few years, things are going to get www.calligra.org if you’re part of the minority of even better. The user interface looks promising, but it needs more work before it’s a serious contender. YOU MAY ALSO WISH TO TRY… 5th Gnome There’s no need to use an office handled by most databases, but Licence GPL Version various suite at all really. For creating again, this isn’t going to be as user documents, you could use a text friendly as a spreadsheet. www.gnome.com/gnome-office editor and some form of document True to the spirit of the age, Some good software, but it lacks a central vision to make it a layout engine. Markdown is great there are also a few options in the cohesive suite. for documentation, while Latex cloud. is the most works well for more complicated famous of these, but Microsoft stuff. True lovers may contend Office Live can also be useful when 6th OpenOffice that you can get by perfectly well you’ve got a DOCX that just won’t Licence Apache Version 4.1 without spreadsheets by using open properly anywhere else. For comma separated value files the privacy-conscious, OpenCloud www.openoffice.org (CSVs), and command line tools, also has some office facilities The slow pace of development has allowed other suites to leave but we’d only recommend that for including the ability to do some OpenOffice behind. masochists. CSV files can also be word processing.

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