LibreOffice

LibreOffice Writer.

LibreOffice is an open source cross-platform full-featured software suite for office management and desktop publishing written in C++ which uses a very unobtrusive nagware model. It functions as a free replacement for expensive office suites like Microsoft Office. In addition to having programs that effectively replace Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Access, LibreOffice also contains a basic vector graphics program and math formula editor. LibreOffice was forked from OpenOffice.org after it was bought and made closed-source and most of the developers left OpenOffice for LibreOffice.

Personal

I stopped using Microsoft Office all together when I learned about OpenOffice.org, but, when Oracle bought Sun Microsystems and killed OpenOffice.org, I went searching for a replacement. I found that the majority of the developers had left and created a new free project called LibreOffice by forking the code.

I've noticed that LibreOffice Calc crashes a fair amount, and one particularly bad bug I've encountered with Writer is, on rare occasion, it will wipe out the entire contents of a document (.odt file). This has happened to me twice on two different versions of LibreOffice, and, if you search online, you'll discover it's happened to several other people as well. Because of this, I no longer recommend LibreOffice and prefer Google Docs unless there is some complex formatting needed or the content it too sensitive for the cloud.

Programs

Title	Function	Microsoft Office Equivalent
Writer	Document creation	Word
Calc	Spreadsheet	Excel
Impress	Presentations	PowerPoint
Base	Database management	Access
Draw	Graphic editor	Publisher
Math	Mathematics formula editor	None

History

LibreOffice traces it roots back to a text-based word processor called StarWriter in 1985. The software saw improvements and expansion being renamed StarOffice and became a more affordable alternative to Microsoft Office. In 1998, it was given away as freeware, and, in 1999, the suite was purchased by Sun Microsystems, who renamed it to OpenOffice.org and released it as open source. In 2010, Sun was acquired by Oracle, and they ceased releasing free versions of OpenOffice. This caused several groups to fork the last OpenOffice code and produce their own office suites, the most popular is now LibreOffice.

Tips

Import XML to Calc

1. In the menu, click Data.
2. In the "Data" menu, click XML Source.
3. In the "XML Source" dialog, click the folder open button and choose your XML file.
4. In the "Map to Document" tree view, click on the first data tag.
5. Click a cell in your spreadsheet, if you have a blank sheet, click A:1.
6. Click Import.

Disable word completion

If I'm using a keyboard to type, word completion only gets in my way. Sadly, it's turned on by default in Writer. To turn it off, do the following:

1. In the menu, click Tools.
2. In the "Tools" menu, click to expand AutoCorrect.
3. In the sub-menu, click AutoCorrect Options.
4. In the "AutoCorrect" dialog, click the Word Completion tab.
5. Under the "Word Completion" section, uncheck enabled word completion.

Links